Innovative Voice Control for Your Home

We’re all familiar with household smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa and how we can ask it important questions, like for the name of the actor in that one film, and for the distance from the Earth to the sun. As these devices evolve and expand functionality, they are reaching out into control and automation. Imagine controlling all of your smart devices, and every adjustable aspect of your home, just by speaking aloud. Every TV or light or shade that you already control with an app on your phone or iPad can be configured to respond to your voice.

  • Amazon Dot

Where We’re Going

A new player on the scene is a company called Josh, and we’re currently putting their AI-driven devices to the test.

Josh.ai integrates not only with the smart devices in your home, but easily interfaces with other control systems you may already be using, like Control4, Crestron, and Lutron. And because it uses AI to continuously learn, the process of bringing Josh into the environment is easy and intuitive.

  • Josh.ai Micro in black
  • Josh.ai Micro in black
  • Josh.ai Micro in white

Scenes for Spaces

At SoundVision, our design philosophy is centered around controlling entire spaces with simple actions. Nobody wants to stand around flipping switches on and off to get the room to look how they want. We believe in setting up the switch on the wall to turn on all of the lights the whole space that you are going in to.

The Josh.ai follows a similar philosophy of “Scenes.” Multiple actions take place when you give Josh a single command, and each scene can be programmed specifically to turn on and off all of the devices that fit your desired activity. Tell Josh you want to watch a movie in your home theater, and Josh will turn on the projector, lower the shades, lower the lights, turn on the stereo system, and turn on your desired movie player, like AppleTV. Tell Josh you’re going to bed, and Josh turns off all the lights and TVs and speaker systems in the house and adjusts the thermostat. The options are nearly limitless.

“Ok, Josh, I’m leaving now.”

“Ok, everything is turned off now.”

At SoundVision, we have Josh.ai set up to turn on the entire office when we arrive in the morning, and again to turn off all of the lights, close all of the shades, turn off all of the music, etc., when we go home in the afternoon. We can tell Josh that we’re having a meeting, and Josh will lower the projector screen and projector and turn it on, reveal the hidden TV and turn it on, and connect the screens to the room’s computer and we’re ready for presentations.

Come Check It Out!

Call or message us to day to make an appointment to stop by our demo spaces in Novato. We love to demonstrate all of the technologies that we install and integrate.

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Before You Upgrade your Comcast, Call Us

There have been instances of customers adopting new modems from Comcast only to realize that it disrupts the systems that SoundVision has installed, especially with network and home automation. Despite new features offered by Comcast, such as app control, altering your network without consulting or involving SoundVision can be a recipe for disaster and lead to a lengthy service call.

We design and install your network to fit the media and control of your house. When a Comcast technician comes to “upgrade” or change your Comcast modem, they will install their new modem and make sure that it is working, as well as maybe your WiFi, but they won’t know anything about any of the network or control devices that are downstream, and you will likely find that most of the automation in your home no longer works.

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How To Get the Best Outdoor Audio Experience

Summer is here, with its long, warm days. You’re going to be spending loads of time outside, in the pool, cooking out…so why not have the ability to take your music with you?

Full Sound Outdoors

Outdoor speaker systems come in a variety of shapes and installations, from speakers that mount to a wall or just under the eaves of a building to speakers that are designed to hide among the shrubs and plants known as Landscape Speakers.

With landscape speakers comes the ability to add a sub woofer to the system so that you can enjoy the full dynamic range of your music of choice. This creates an instant and obvious bump in audio quality and enjoy-ability. Even if you don’t intend to play music that emphasizes bass, such as classical or orchestral, the richness of quality that is achieved with a sub woofer is phenomenal with the rumble and boom of the tympani and tubas.

And, as usual, these systems are fully controllable from your smart phone or iPad/tablet.

Speakers That Are Heard, Not Seen

Landscape speakers are designed to be hidden among the plants and landscape features of your property. With a properly designed landscape audio layout, you can have complete coverage of your outdoor spaces with a nearly invisible speaker system.

Leave the Neighbors Out

Landscape speakers allow for the sound to be directed toward your home and away from your neighbors. This lets you enjoy your music at a reasonable volume without disturbing the neighborhood.

Visit Our Headquarters Demo

We care about giving our customers the best experiences when it comes to audio and video, and are proud to demonstrate the options and abilities of everything we install at our headquarters in Novato. We have constructed a patio and installed several audio options so that you can hear the difference with your own ears. Call or email us to set up a curated tour of our demo spaces.

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How Thin Can An HDTV Get?

As televisions get thinner and thinner, we’re constantly on the lookout for a TV that takes up as little space as possible. Long-gone are the days when a television might be considered a piece of furniture on its own. Much like the screens we’re accustomed to seeing in science fiction films, the dream has always been to have a TV that was part of a window, or a wall. We are now living in that future.

Enter: the Wallpaper OLED HDTV from LG.

The LG Wallpaper OLED HDTV built into a newly designed interior.
The LG 65″ Wallpaper OLED HDTV at the SoundVision Demo Room

At just over one-eighth of an inch (0.15″ – 2019) thick, this marvelous OLED display can fit on any wall in any room and take up next to zero space. No need for a wall mount or to cut out a niche. This screen mounts flat against the wall, and would go unnoticed if it weren’t for the fantastic image it produces.

The edge of the 2017 Wallpaper TV model is a mere 0.23 inches thick.

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) Technology

OLED screens allow for absolute blacks in an image, and create dazzling brights. We don’t realize it until we see how every LED/LCD television just isn’t quite as good. Because an LED/LCD television is made up of a bright white background with an LCD in front of it, it’s never going to achieve the absolute contrast of blocking out all of the light for the darkest areas of an image.

Another advantage of the OLED screen technology is the nearly impossible viewing angle. You may have noticed that while moving away from the direct center of the and LED/LCD television that the image begins to degrade. This is due to the technology that has a white light shining through an LCD pixel, which narrows the angle from which that light can be seen. This may be perfectly acceptable for certain room arrangements.

An exaggerated diagram of the viewing angle of typical LED/LCD televisions.

See how the viewing angle doesn’t quite reach the seating on each side? This would be perfectly reasonable if this entertainment system were only viewed from the sofa directly in front of the TV.

OLED screens, however, offer a far wider viewing angle before the image loses any quality. This extends the available viewing area for larger rooms.

An exaggerated diagram of the viewing angle of typical OLED televisions.

The outstanding viewing angles and image quality are impressive on their own, but this television truly shines when integrated into the design of a new or remodeled home. The low profile allows this screen to seamlessly become a part of the décor, and can become an art piece when not in use.

LG Wallpaper OLED HDTV shown here with a custom speaker cabinet below.

The stunning thinness of this television must be seen in person to be believed. Call or stop by SoundVision to experience the crisp, vibrant image in our demo room, along with many more entertainment options that are guaranteed to impress.

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Seeking “A” Players

SoundVision is a premium installer and integrator of Audio/Visual, Lighting Control & Shading,  and Security & Surveillance systems operating in San Francisco, Marin, Napa, and Sonoma counties.  We design systems for new buildings as well as retrofit older installations for residential, commercial, and enterprise solutions.

Our goal is to attract the best people in the industry by providing the best work environment, the best tools, and the best projects.  We want to create the best team, a team of “A” Players.

“A” Players love working with people who know what they are doing.  They are passionate and driven to succeed and operate confidently and consistently. They enjoy learning and being surrounded by other “A” Players.  They are consistently high-performers, adaptable and able to work with several different personalities.

We foster a culture of “A” Players because we want to be the best place to work in not just the country, but the world. We are a team of “A” Players and we want more people who are as excited to work here as we are.

We work with the most exciting media equipment and we get to wow and amaze our customers every day. Customers walk into our demo rooms and walk away excited, buying systems they didn’t know existed.  We get to make their lives better by properly designing their media and lighting systems to fit their needs and desires and making their homes perfect to live in. We enjoy great job satisfaction because our customers are consistently satisfied.

We provide a work environment that people want to show up to.  Our warehouse is stocked with every tool and component that our technicians need to succeed in the field without needing to make trips to the hardware store. We provide our team with the tools they need to efficiently do their jobs:

  • Competitive Compensation
  • Medical Health Care
  • 401K Plan with Matching
  • Profit Sharing
  • Cell Phone (Available for Personal Use)
  • Vans
  • Tools
  • Credit Card
  • Paid Training
  • Personal Respect and Recognition
  • Professional Work Environment
  • Opportunity for Growth

This is the environment we maintain at SoundVision.
This is our culture.

We’re Hiring!

Take a look at our careers page to learn more.

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Eric G.

SoundVision was able to help us with everything we wanted: high-end Crestron remote, motorized window shades, etc. We have always been exceptionally pleased with the work performed by SoundVision. Every time we have recommended SoundVision to our friends, our friends have been very satisfied as well.

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Josh F.

I chose SoundVision to do the home automation on my brand new house that we were building. I’m happy to report that it was one of the best decisions I made on the project. SoundVision was the only contractor on the job that wasn’t a pain to deal with.

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Hartley G.

We chose SoundVision for our conference room a/v design and installation. They are the only experts in my area that really knew what they were talking about. This fact shows in their work! Highly recommend!

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Luke Stickney

I just wanted to say thanks for SoundVision’s work and professionalism. It’s hard to find specialty subcontractors that care enough to follow through. SoundVision has repeatedly exceeded my expectations.

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Lou and Robin Bacciocco

Everyone involved with SoundVision made this whole experience easy and enjoyable. Our new plasma HDTV is awesome! Best of all, the owner, Scott Sullivan, made us part of the SoundVision family. Thank you for providing such quality service.

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