Simplifying Life Through Technology

Customer FAQs: WiFi Systems, Security Monitoring, & TV Placement

• SoundVision LLC • Season 4 • Episode 7

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On this episode of “Simplifying Life Through Technology,” Mark, Michelle, and Andrew from SoundVision sit down to discuss some of our customer's most frequently asked questions. We embrace one of our core values – Open and Honest.

We're thrilled to have Michelle back in the podcast studio, and what better way to kick things off than by sharing our holiday plans and traditions? We then dive into the questions you've been buzzing about.

Questions Answered:

  • What's the difference between DIY WiFi Systems and commercial grade WiFi networks?
  • Does SoundVision monitor your security system?
  • How high should I hang my TV?

Discover how SoundVision goes above and beyond with commercial-grade network installations, ensuring not only continuous connection but also trusted cybersecurity. Learn about our vigilant partnership with a monitoring company for security systems, similar to a 911 operating station,  ensuring a continuous eye on your safety. We highlight the crucial role security permits play in system monitoring. Lastly, we demystify the age-old question of TV placement, emphasizing visibility and aesthetics, with TV mounts emerging as the versatile solution.

To wrap up, we share our New Year Resolutions, making this episode not only informative but a personal journey into the goals of SoundVision. Tune in for answers to your common questions and a glimpse into our world of technology. We're not just here to provide solutions; we're here to build connections and foster understanding. Stay tuned and stay informed!

Learn more about Networks & WiFi:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5EQ6U7TX1fNkHigbt1rVZK

Watch Gary Gulman's The Hierarchy of Cookies:

https://youtu.be/59q3SaU1wc0?si=5mE72sftRIf3GNfv

To learn more about SoundVision:

https://www.svavnc.com/

Check out our Instagram to see our recent projects:

https://www.instagram.com/soundvisionllc/

To listen to more “Simplifying Life Through Technology” podcasts:

https://www.svavnc.com/podcast/

Contact Us Today:

(704) 696-2792 | Info@svavnc.com | soundvisionlkn.com

Andrew:

Hey, it's Andrew. Welcome to Simplifying Light Through Technology Joining me in the podcast studio. Today we have Mark and Michelle. Today we're going to be answering a few common questions we receive from customers. Here at Sound Vision, we feel it's important to keep our clients informed throughout the entire project. One of our goals is to be open and honest with our customers, so today we're going to do just that. Listen as we uncover some common questions you, our customers, have Be sure to listen to here as we go around and share our New Year resolutions.

Mark:

Music. First, one of the biggest questions that our customers have asked recently is where the beep. Has Michelle been? Where have you been, michelle?

Michelle:

I've been everywhere, nowhere and everywhere, ooh.

Mark:

Nowhere and everywhere. We have missed Michelle in the podcast room. So glad to have her back today. Absolutely.

Michelle:

It's so good to be back.

Andrew:

We're recording this right before the holidays. Yes, Christmas is just around the corner, four or five days, I believe. So what everyone's plans for Christmas? Do we have any?

Michelle:

That's a great question, Andrew. I don't have a lot of plans. My plan is to chill out. It's my plan.

Andrew:

Sounds like a great plan.

Michelle:

I spend some time with my kids and maybe work on my New Year's resolutions my personal goals.

Andrew:

All right, nice, we can get into that a little later, but that sounds nice Is Joey back from traveling the world.

Michelle:

He is back from Hawaii. Ok, all right, he's back at it. Ok, very cool. And my daughter is still working for Lowe's and still loves it.

Mark:

That's Haley.

Michelle:

She's doing well too Good.

Mark:

Very nice. Ok, what about you, mark? What are your plans? Well, we are leaving early tomorrow morning. We're taking the boys to Puerto Rico. We're doing our first ever non-traditional Christmas and we're actually going snorkeling either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. We haven't.

Andrew:

That's awesome. This is your first time traveling during Christmas.

Mark:

Traveling somewhere not traditional.

Andrew:

Right, not just a relative.

Mark:

Not just a relative. That's correct.

Andrew:

Oh, I love a good vacation Christmas.

Mark:

We'll report back and see how it goes.

Andrew:

Yes, you'll have to. What are your plans?

Mark:

Yes, Andrew.

Andrew:

Similar to yours, just hanging with family. My little brother is actually transitioning from moving from Washington DC back here to Morseville, so I'm going to start helping him. We're going to reorganize where he's going to stay in his room, get him ready but other than that, just spend time with the family Like usual lots of eating, drinking, laughing, maybe a couple games.

Mark:

Do you guys have a Christmas tradition that you do?

Andrew:

We do so Christmas Eve, we do the Feast of the Fishes.

Mark:

Oh yes.

Andrew:

Typically it was the seven fishes, but now we modernize it where we serve our favorite fish dishes from the seven fishes. But it's not the traditional menu from the Feast of the Seven Fishes. That's Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day we do a big Italian feast Meatballs, eggplant, lasagna Just a good Sunday sore. That's kind of a deal, oh my goodness.

Mark:

Yeah, oh, that's a strong one. What about you, Michelle?

Michelle:

Similar to Andrew, I get the request for Italian food on Christmas and we have a very non-traditional Christmas dinner. It's usually fettuccine Alfredo.

Mark:

If you want to go true traditional Christmas it's very similar to Thanksgiving, right, it would be a turkey ham something. I always call it all-star dinner. You usually have all your favorite things in there. But, all my favorite things are usually Italian food, so I don't know that Italian food is non-traditional Christmas. I think it may be like a tick down from if people voted on it, but I wouldn't call it non-traditional.

Michelle:

Yeah, I think it's just perception. A lot of folks think of turkey ham. I think the traditional meal included was figgy pudding. Oh yes.

Mark:

Figgie pudding.

Michelle:

So you know, in comparison to that, it is certainly not the norm.

Mark:

Any guests out there that do not know who Gary Goldman the comedian is, look up Gary Goldman on YouTube and find the history of cookies. It's 13 minutes long. You'll thank me later. It is hilarious. There's a thing about figgy pudding in there Hilarious.

Andrew:

I'm gonna check that out. Yes, all right, so let's get into some customer questions. So first I want to ask a question that we often get asked from the jump is what is the difference between an off the shelf mesh network or a DIY Wi-Fi network versus a commercial grade network?

Michelle:

So at Soundvision we sell commercial grade networks. A mesh network off the shelf from your local electronic supplier is designed to be installed by the end user. It's a DIY product, usually with the intent that you're going to install it yourself and set it up yourself. What it offers is coverage for a moderately sized house. I think it's 1400 square feet, which you can expand on from there.

Mark:

Mesh networks or kind of those off the shelf networks, are great used in their proper setting. One of the things that's really important with enterprise grade is the way these things connect, which sort of by definition means that you get a couple of these nodes they're called nodes or basically things you plug into the wall and then you set them up yourself, like Michelle said, and they talk to each other wirelessly. They communicate back and forth. There are certainly things in today's environment that can cause interference between each of those things talking off the air right before we started this Michelle brought up like baby monitors and microwaves. I mean, there's just all kinds of things. So one of the reasons that enterprise grade networks are more robust is that each of these devices, each of these access points that are throughout your home that create the Wi-Fi network, are actually hardwired back to a central router, switch brain, if you will and so those don't rely on Wi-Fi or wireless connectivity between one another. You start out with a little bit more robust system.

Michelle:

Yeah, so hardwired for those of you that aren't familiar generally means that there is a wire going between the devices.

Mark:

Yeah, literally a physical wire.

Michelle:

Connecting a physical wire connecting the devices, versus just blasting it out, and it finds itself on the local network and it connects.

Mark:

We realized when we were talking about this that there's going to bring up more questions. We're trying to go real high level on things that folks are asking us mostly about, but when you hear hardwired, you go wait a minute. Well, what's Wi-Fi? So it can get a little confusing. The hardwire we're talking about is just literally connecting equipment. The Wi-Fi that you might be thinking about like hey, I pick up my phone, do I have Wi-Fi in this room? Everything still communicates wirelessly to these devices, but these devices interconnect with one another. That's what we're talking about. Do they interconnect wirelessly or do they interconnect wired? And the wired is a more consistent way to go.

Andrew:

Well, I think that's what confuses customers as well is wait, I'm getting a wireless network. Why are you hooking up all these wires in my house?

Mark:

That's right. Just one more thing before you jump off of that. That's a real important thing nowadays is the cybersecurity aspect of it and these networks. We are transmitting more and more data and a lot of sensitive stuff that goes back and forth, so we do get a lot of questions about how secure they are. And enterprise-grade networks, by definition, have the latest cybersecurity and have kind of the quickest updates and the best ability to go in and create protective levels and that kind of thing. So there's just more to them, as Michelle said, not a DIY product, which is pretty easy to do but might not offer all the things needed in some cases to protect you.

Michelle:

Yeah, if you're working from home. I know a lot of companies that allow a large work from HomeForce. Banking is a great example. They have certain IT requirements and you need to work with their IT department to make sure that it's set up properly, but they are certainly looking for a more secure network to protect their information as well as yours.

Andrew:

Right.

Mark:

Yeah, healthcare professionals as well. Financial and healthcare are two big ones.

Andrew:

Yeah, there's a lot at stake there. They don't want just anyone accessing all their information.

Mark:

That's right.

Andrew:

So another question that we get asked a lot is do we here at SoundVision monitor security systems that we install in their homes?

Mark:

Yeah, that's a great one. That's also a little bit of a misunderstanding that folks might have. So we at SoundVision do install security systems and as a part of that, by the way, every single person here every person has been criminally background checked, has done fingerprints gets updated every single year. That's a requirement of the North Carolina alarm board. So that's an added benefit to when our guys are in your home or place of business. But we do not actually do the physical monitoring of the security system that we install at your home or place of business. Is that correct, michelle?

Michelle:

That is correct.

Mark:

Oh my gosh, that's correct that is correct.

Michelle:

We are not here monitoring your security system. We actually partner with Monitoring Station at Security Central out of Statesville and they have a room full of dispatchers very similar to when you call 911.

Mark:

Yeah, just like 911. Waiting for the signals to come in and, when needed, they will dispatch the authorities 2.30 on Christmas morning you have an event, and that's who's listening for that, that's who that event signal goes to, and then they are the intermediary that's a big word with the authorities. So they will then reach out to 911, if it's a police event or fire event or whatnot, and get you the help or the response that you need.

Michelle:

Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but if you do have an alarm system that is being monitored in your particular town or county, you may be required to have an alarm.

Mark:

Oh yeah, good point, yeah.

Michelle:

And if it is not set up on a permit, they may not respond. So we definitely wanna check that in your local jurisdiction.

Mark:

Yeah, to be real clear on that, if you do not have a permit, in a county like Mecklenburg, for example, you need to have an alarm permit and your alarm goes off. The alarm connects with the central station and the central station will call you. But if you don't have a permit, then when they call the police or 911, the first thing that that dispatch operator is gonna ask for is the permit number, and if the central station doesn't give them a permit number, then they don't respond. One other thing is it's unfortunate that a lot of the alarms are false alarms Taking the dog out in the middle of the night. You forgot you armed it, somebody comes home late, whatever, and we're trying not to have our authorities like running around dealing with false alarms. So in some counties as well, there could be fines if the alarm is a false alarm. You usually get a few free, but you might wanna check that as well.

Andrew:

And just for clarification for our customers, we do work with our clients to make sure that that permit is set up for them when we do install a security system.

Mark:

Yeah, great point. We actually have custom emails that we send out, give you the link. Unfortunately, we can't do those for you, but we guide you along the path and even remind you. Once you have the permit number, you get it to us and we take care of them from there.

Michelle:

It's actually an open item on our weekly.

Mark:

Yeah, that's right.

Michelle:

Service meeting agenda. Is anybody that doesn't have a permit, at least on the initial installation, and some permits may be required yearly, so we won't know until after the install if there's some sort of a lapse.

Andrew:

Another question we get asked by customers is how high should I hang my TV?

Mark:

Like every single job, we go to every single job. It used to be what TV service should I get? But now it's. Where do I hang this?

Andrew:

How high, how low?

Mark:

The funny thing is the actual answer is what no one wants to hear. If you imagine, if you have a pair of speakers and they're in front of you, so you want them to be basically your ear height because they're in front of you, you don't want them on the ceiling and you don't want them on the floor.

Andrew:

Right.

Mark:

Okay, that's if you imagine it as a sound wave that you could see, you'd want it to come right at you. So a television is just a video version of that. So you literally want it in line with your eyes. I know, when you hang pictures, for example, you're walking down the hallway and you see the picture and you want it to be like, as you're walking, you can see it. Yeah, the problem is we're all sitting down on a couch when we're watching TV. So if you actually put it in line with your eyes, it would be super low Nowadays is a balancing act between where it should go and, aesthetically, where it looks good, ie like over a fireplace. Bye, we have solutions for that, don't we? Michelle?

Michelle:

We have so many solutions, so many solutions.

Andrew:

Two-times.

Michelle:

We have manual solutions where you can pull down the TV.

Mark:

What do you mean by that, like if it's mounted over a man, or what do you mean?

Michelle:

If it's mounted. Imagine the TV is mounted over your fireplace and you sit down and, to your previous point, the TV's up too high and you get that little crank in the back of your neck. There are some manual mount solutions that will allow you to either tilt the TV forward so that it is facing you a little bit better, or actually walk up and pull the TV down and you can actually adjust the height, and then you can push it back up when you're done with it.

Mark:

There's various types of mounting solutions that allow you to, as Michelle said, tilt or angle or move physically.

Michelle:

Or there's the motorized options too.

Mark:

There's motorized options as well. If you don't want to manually do it, that can be integrated with your automation system. So when you turn the TV on, it literally moves to where you want it to. But those mounting solutions are for this very issue. The most common one is it's over a mantle.

Michelle:

Didn't we have a client once that had a lift at the foot of their bed?

Mark:

when the TV were opposite effect where?

Michelle:

it's actually stored below, and then the lift raises it up.

Mark:

Absolutely. We do a lot of automation here. So when I say that there's options, or when Michelle just used that as an example, we have folks that have televisions in floors or in pieces of furniture that come up. So imagine, at the foot of your bed you could literally have the TV come up. We also have them come down out of the ceiling. That's also very well. I don't know about very common, but it's not uncommon to do that. There's a lot of different options. To keep the answer kind of simple, it's important to know that where you put it and how you are gonna view it are important considerations, and the mount is almost as important as the television itself in that decision. Our guys are very well versed in this. So when they come to your home or place of business, you can certainly ask our team.

Michelle:

Can you give an example of how the TV height might affect the listening experience?

Mark:

We were doing this off camera. I'm glad you brought that up because I would have forgot. So I'm talking in a microphone now, right? So the microphone is right in front of my face, which makes sense because I'm talking and I want you to hear. And so if the TV was right in front of my face, that would also make sense. It would give me the best color rendition, it would give me the best dark to light, everything would look right. But if I put it off axis, ie if it's above a mantle on a fixed mount, looking straight out, it's kind of like me taking this microphone and moving it up a foot. So now I'm talking like this evolusi, and you can hear the difference in my voice versus if I put it back down where it was before. So that's an audio version of what's happening If the television is mounted too high. Michelle mentioned also before about craning your neck and literally like it's uncomfortable. So there's a couple of things that we take into account when we're mounting TVs.

Michelle:

And if there's going to be a piece of furniture there or if it's over a fireplace, really it's going to depend on the room configuration. Yeah.

Mark:

And it's also a lot of aesthetic too, because a lot of folks that we work with a lot of our customers or people that might be listening to this have designers and it's important to know that we work with designers and there are some really cool options with like cover art. Everybody now knows the frame TV.

Mark:

That's real popular and we do a lot of frames, but there's actually motorized art, motorized mirrors, all kinds of stuff that can be done as an aesthetic thing If you want a television in a room but you don't want to know there's a television in the room.

Michelle:

Sony actually just came out with a new solution as well, with a collaboration with Leon speakers.

Mark:

Yes, they did.

Michelle:

To come up with a more aesthetically pleasing viewing experience as well. So there are definitely different options.

Mark:

So many now you got to come into the experience center because there's so many that we do now.

Andrew:

Simplify your living experience with our comprehensive services, including lighting, design, indoor and outdoor, audio video solutions, security systems, network optimization and shading solutions. Our experienced team and dedicated service department guarantee seamless installations, ensuring your home is, and stays, smarter and more efficient. So those were just a couple of common questions we get from you, our customers. I feel like this would be a great thing to do in another podcast or two to continue the series about answering common questions. So maybe we'll pick up a couple more on the next one. But before we go, I believe this will be one of our last podcasts of the year, so I think maybe we should kind of go around about our new year resolutions. I know you were saying you had a couple in mind already, michelle.

Michelle:

I'm so glad you called on me first. Thank you so much.

Andrew:

Whether it's professionally, whether it's personally, what is your new year's resolution this year?

Michelle:

So I'm not going to call it a resolution, because then I definitely will try it for three days and give up three days to two weeks, it happens three days to two weeks, and then I'll give up. In the past I've done on a personal note, I've done a lot of drawing or painting. And really on my list this year is to get into a class. Kind of take that back up. I do like continuing education. I'm also looking at. The University of Charlotte has an AI course that we had talked about for marketing.

Michelle:

I definitely would be interested in doing that this year.

Mark:

That's really really cool. Yeah, very cool. What about you, mark? So I don't have them yet, but for many years the week between Christmas and New Year's has been when I do goal planning for the following year, and so for many years I have a piece of paper that I'll keep with me basically all year long and it'll have personal goals, professional goals and spiritual goals, oh, and life goals Excuse me, I have the four in there. That week between Christmas and New Year's is where I plan that. I kind of look at what happened this past year and what did I hit and what did I not, and then kind of revise, and I intentionally don't try to decide on them until that week.

Michelle:

So you have no goals.

Mark:

I have a bunch for 23, but not for 24.

Michelle:

Mark always has goals. There's goals on every making agenda, every meeting agenda. I know I'm shocked.

Mark:

For our customers. Literally every part of things that we do here have metrics or goals to them so that we know if we're hitting them or if not. Michelle mentioned service here, and every week we go through every single service call and we have a metric of 15 service calls, so we try to not have any more than 15 going on at any one time, which we found over time is kind of a number that is normal for us, and so we manage to that every single week. That's one of them. We have so many of them.

Michelle:

What about you, Andrew?

Mark:

Yeah.

Michelle:

Andrew, what about you? Goals for Andrew.

Andrew:

Where do I start? Personal goals I have set for myself is to get a new car this year. Yeah, I'm thinking tell them, not a big car guy, you know I'm the type of person. Oh, my car is getting me from A to B, it's working, there's no problems, I'm great, I'm fine. I think I'm just ready for a car that also the appearance looks more professional, because that's kind of where I'm trying to move this year to is more professional look and feel to myself. So I think a new car would help start paving that road.

Mark:

My dad taught me many, many years ago, and that was specifically for new car. He would say man, you can have any car you want. Figure out what you want, mm. Hmm. Figure out what it costs. Figure out what the payment would be, whatever the payment is like. If you're not going to pay cash, right, whatever the payment is, start making that payment today. Put it in a savings account. Let's just say it's 200 bucks, it could be 2,000, whatever it is. And so I'm making the payment for that car for at least six months, because now you're in the habit of making that payment without any risk at all. So you see how it affects your lifestyle. You can, you do it. Oh and, by the way, you're also saving up for either the down payment or, if you already had the down payment. Now you're putting more down, so the payment will even be less.

Andrew:

Yeah, that's really smart I actually heard that on the radio the other day of even using December as your transition to your resolution, like why wait until January 1st?

Mark:

Put all that pressure on you.

Andrew:

You know, see if you can do it now.

Mark:

Yeah that's what's so. Unfortunate is that in most cases, people get all excited and they fall in love with the car. I do certainly. We go out and we buy the thing and then all of a sudden we try to figure out how we're gonna pay for the insurance how we're gonna make the payment when maintenance comes up, all that stuff. We don't think about that until after. Or maybe you just thought about the payment and you convince yourself that you can make it. You can handle it too, yeah.

Mark:

So, if you actually make it ahead of time, including insurance and everything. If you actually make it, then you know you can.

Michelle:

Yeah, can I share an anecdote?

Andrew:

Yes, you can.

Michelle:

The last time I bought a car it was during COVID. Everything was shut down, the transmission on my last car gave out again and I was trying to pick a car and, single female, I've had so many car problems and I just feel like going to the garage is always stressful and expensive. So I was looking for counsel, as Mark would put it when buying a new vehicle, and so I picked out all these cars that I thought I might want and I started vetting them with the technicians here, and there was one who was here at the time who had very strong opinions, and I actually ended up picking the car based on his recommendations, along with other input.

Michelle:

As far as reliability, that was a huge concern for me because I do not want to be constantly fixing a car, like I was with the last one.

Mark:

That's another good point. Having counsel of people in your circle that are more into that than you are is always helpful, and somebody that can help you be accountable. We definitely want to hear from our listeners. If you have a question that you're interested in us answering, that would be incredible. But if you like the question and answer format too, if you find it helpful, that'd be great too.

Andrew:

Well, I think we should go ahead and wrap up for the day. Thank you, mark and Michelle, for being in here with me today.

Mark:

Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew:

Yes, thank you, andrew.

Mark:

Good to have Michelle back too.

Andrew:

Super great, super great Super great, super great.

Michelle:

That's just how I would describe it Super great.

Andrew:

And again, if you'd like any more information on these topics or questions we talked about, feel free to reach out. I will put all that information, how you can reach out, in the show notes.

Mark:

And happy holidays and Merry Christmas to everybody. Thank you to all of our customers out there.

Andrew:

Thank you for joining us. You can learn more about Sound Vision at soundvisionlakenormancom. You can follow us on Twitter at soundvisionlkn. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at soundvisionllc.

People on this episode

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Mark DiPietro

Host
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Michelle Ferlauto

Host
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Andrew New

Producer