Automated Lifestyles

Automated inherited my business from Baumeister, who worked for them after he went bankrupt. Baum did a good job wiring my house, but overpromised and underdelivered. He promised something «bullet proof» but it functioned more like something riddled with bullets. Automated’s work has continued along that line. In general AV guys, like Automated, don’t realize that Crestron, Amx, and Control4 haven’t invested in engineering to the same extent as major companies like Samsung and Apple. As a result, their shit doesn’t work very well. The AV companies also don’t realize that their onsite programming is even worse.
For example, when we complained that the flying saucer Crestron remote they sold us was fragile and balky, they sent a guy to program our iPad to control our TVs. He noticed that our Crestron system didn’t have enough memory to house the program, so he put it on the iPad. The screens were counterintuitive and poorly labelled. They often froze. It was difficult to exit and start over.
Some of the ongoing problems were not necessarily of the vendor’s making. For example, a receiver functioned poorly and it’s output caused sound distortion in the speakers. However, Automated’s attempt to fix the problem was only partially successful. An amplifier meant to boost cable internet signal was helpful for a while, but proved incompatible with subsequent Comcast cable box improvements. The cable guys had to go on a snipe hunt to discover the problem. The take home message is that, sometimes messing with things causes more problems than solutions.
The Automated guys are very nice. However, looking back, my experience with most of there visits was that the meter was running, but they didn’t take me anywhere. For a better AV experience, see my review of Solin Systems.

Mark and Jason did a great job and our A/​V system works great. I like the Apple architecture so the system is compatible with the best other applications out there. Thanks.