For years now, making the switch from cable TV entertainment to wireless streaming has been trending in home entertainment. In fact, according to eMarketer, 22 million people have “cut the cord” and dropped cable services. And the number of people who have never subscribed to cable TV, known as “cord-nevers,” rises every year and is up to 34 million. So if you’re looking to “un-wire” your house for entertainment options, you are on point!
When you’re building a new home, you can start from scratch with wireless entertainment in mind. Plan ahead to make sure you have everything you need.
Get Smart with Your Home Entertainment
Hot on the heels of this long-term trend is another digital enhancement to your home entertainment needs–using voice assistants to control and assist with your viewing and audio choices. NPR and Edison Research reported that, at the beginning of this year, 39 million people in the U.S. owned a smart speaker such as Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Home. Just six months later that number had jumped to 43 million.
Adding a smart speaker to your home entertainment resources makes choosing your audio or screen selections convenient and effortless. Plus, it’s kind of futuristic and definitely cool! Today’s voice assistants can play music of your choosing or line up your evening’s video entertainment. They can also skip tracks, fast forward, and adjust volume, or even pause playback–all from your voice commands.
For After Work or Weekend Gatherings
This addition to wireless streaming makes hearing or seeing whatever you’d like to choose so easy! You come home from work and ask Alexa to play your favorite artist on Spotify while you decompress and make the shift from work to after hours. Or tell your Google Home you want to catch up on your favorite TV show as soon as you walk in the door.
A couple of months ago, we wrote about how to enhance your summer entertaining. Smart speakers and assistants offer another great enhancement. You can tell your voice assistant to play one type of music for the people outside on the patio, while asking it to show a movie in the media room. Meanwhile, your children can be making their own streaming entertainment choices in the basement, or their rooms.
The possibilities for enriching your home entertainment once you un-wire your household are great, and new additions keep coming. Recently, The Verge reports that Roku is going to to let users control its devices with Google Home. You will be able to launch movies or TV shows, or even ask the Assistant in Google Home to look for available movies starring your favorite actor, or other personalized searches.
If you haven’t already made the switch to wireless streaming for your home entertainment, this is an exciting time to do so!
PHOTO: Pixabay / CC0 Public Domain