Barretts Technology Solutions Chicago Outdoor Home Technology

When you create an outdoor space, you aren't just putting a few chairs on a patio. You’re the type of person who wants to create future fun with the family and neighbors. It’s where you host evening dinners, where the family gathers on a Sunday afternoon, and where you unwind after a demanding week. But bringing the comfort and entertainment of your indoor living room to the outdoors requires more than just moving equipment outside.

It requires technology specifically engineered to thrive in the elements.

Here is why true outdoor home technology is a fundamentally different class of equipment, and why purpose-built design is the secret to an outdoor space that works flawlessly when the weather calls for it.

The Infrastructure: Enterprise-Grade Networking

You can’t build a smart backyard without a solid foundation, and that starts with your network. While one of our standards at Barrett’s Technology Solutions is to use an enterprise grade network system in our custom residences, the wi-fi created won't reliably reach the far gazebo, the boathouse, or your perimeter security cameras.

Property-wide networking relies on hard-wiring. By collaborating closely with the landscape architect before the landscaping work is started, wiring can be buried safely underground. This allows for strategically placed access points that blanket your entire property in seamless, high-speed Wi-Fi. Whether you are streaming a movie by the pool or checking an email from the edge of the property, the connection remains uncompromised.

Barrett's Technology Solutions Automated Shading

The Invisible Morning Ritual You Never Have to Think About

At work, your day is governed by decisions, strategy, and constant communication. When you return home, your environment should be the one thing that doesn't require an executive order. You have likely spent years perfecting your home’s architecture, perhaps choosing a property with sprawling Midwestern views or floor-to-ceiling glass that lets the morning sun flood your breakfast nook. But as any smart homeowner knows, light brings beauty, but it also brings heat, glare, and the potential to fade your furniture and art.

At Barrett’s Technology Solutions, we believe the solution shouldn't be a manual chore. And more importantly, adding this convenience should not require tearing open your drywall to pull new wire. Battery-operated automated shading is the invisible magic of the modern home update. It is a brilliant addition that can be retrofitted into any existing home, managing your environment so silently and seamlessly that you eventually forget it is even there.

The Choreography of Light

Imagine your ideal morning. You are at a point in your life where you value the ritual of a quiet cup of coffee before the house wakes up. With automated shading, you do not walk from room to room tugging on cords or adjusting wands. You don’t even need a complex smart home system to enjoy the experience.

With a single tap of an elegant Pico remote on your nightstand or kitchen counter, the room wakes up with you. As the sun rises over the horizon, your shades begin a silent, synchronized ascent. They move in perfect alignment. It is a feat of engineering that looks like magic to the casual observer but is actually the result of our precision design.

To achieve this effortless aesthetic without a single wire, we utilize premium options like the Lutron Triathlon and Palladiom Wire Free lines. These beautiful fixtures allow us to bring sophisticated, quiet shading to your space without any intrusive construction.

Brian Madsen, Ken Krienitz, Ian Casper

Why Service Plans Are the Smartest Investment You’ll Make

Success often comes with a catch. The more you have, the more you have to maintain. For the modern professional juggling multiple properties or a busy lifestyle, the goal isn't just to own the latest home technology. The goal is to experience it without having to think about it at all.

You’ve already invested in incredible infrastructure, entertainment, and automation for your home. So why burden yourself with the frustrating chore of maintaining it? You reach a point in your life where time becomes your absolute most valuable asset, and "troubleshooting" is a headache you’d much rather delegate to a trusted expert.

After all, technology rarely fails when it’s convenient. As Senior Technology Consultant John Wettlaufer likes to point out, “Nothing ever breaks on a Tuesday at 1:00 pm. It is always in the evening or on the weekend. Our Support Plans are available when clients need it.” For those who want their family's digital lifestyle to remain utterly frictionless around the clock, we’ve crafted two dedicated Service Plan solutions designed specifically for you.

The Enhanced Support Plan is Proactive Over Reactive

Setting the Stage for Memories That Don’t End at Sunset

As a busy individual and the visionary of your family, you know that the most valuable real estate you own isn’t found strictly within the four walls of your house. It is the space where your family gathers to exhale.

In the Midwest, we treasure our outdoor seasons more than most. We wait all winter for those patio dinners and poolside afternoons. But once the sun sets, even the most meticulously designed landscapes can disappear into the darkness, forcing the party indoors.

Beyond Utility: Outdoor Architectural Lighting

At Barrett’s Technology Solutions, we view home technology through three lenses: entertainment, automation, and infrastructure. While many see lighting as a finishing touch, we know it is a foundational element.

Why Home Infrastructure Is the Smartest Decision You Can Make

You make decisions all day that require focus, judgment, and the confidence that comes from knowing what matters. By the time you're home, the last thing you want is to manage the house itself, from troubleshooting the network to wondering if the cameras are recording and dealing with another power hiccup that takes everything offline.

Home infrastructure is what keeps all of that from ever becoming your problem. It's the network that doesn't falter. The power systems that don't quit when the grid does. The security that runs quietly in the background. The lighting that makes every room feel exactly right without you lifting a finger. We help you build home technology foundations that earn your trust by never asking for your attention.

The Network That Holds It All Together

Every device in your home depends on the network. Phones, laptops, security cameras, thermostats, and entertainment systems all assume it's there, working, invisible. When it is, nobody notices. When it's not, it's the only thing anyone can talk about.

A properly designed home network isn't something you hope works. It's built for the actual load your household puts on it. Streaming in multiple rooms, video calls running upstairs, security footage uploading in the background, all of it happening at once without anyone waiting for a buffer to catch up. Coverage reaches every corner of the house, not just the rooms closest to the main router.

The difference between consumer-grade and professional infrastructure is the difference between managing your network and forgetting you have one. For a family that depends on connectivity for work, for entertainment, for peace of mind, that's not a small distinction.

How Home Turns Everyday Moments Into the Ones You'll Remember

Some of the best moments that stick with you don’t happen at a venue. Instead, they occur at home. A Friday night movie with the kids that runs ten minutes past bedtime. A Sunday afternoon with the game on, friends spread across every seat, someone always refilling the snacks. A quiet evening with nothing on the agenda but good music and better company. These moments are small by any measure, yet they add up to something that isn't small at all.

What makes them better isn't a bigger occasion. It's a better environment. Barrett's Technology Solutions helps you create spaces where home entertainment feels less like a feature of the house and more like a natural part of how your family lives.

The Dedicated Theater

There's a reason dedicated home theaters remain one of the most requested spaces that Barrett's Technology Solutions designs. When a room is built entirely around the experience, from the screen to the acoustics, seating, and lighting control, something shifts. It stops feeling like you’re watching a movie and starts feeling like you’re a part of the movie.

You endure no crowds, no sticky floors, and no one's phone is lighting up three rows ahead. You’re engaged in the story, the sound, and the people you chose to share it with. A well-designed theater is also deeply personal. The seating is arranged exactly how you want it, the acoustics are tuned to the room, and the lighting is set so the experience begins the moment you walk in. For families who take film seriously, sports seriously, or who simply want the best possible place to hook up their gaming system, there's nothing quite like a room built for exactly that purpose.

Rooms That Entertain 

Not every media space is a dedicated theater. Some of the most impressive home entertainment setups are the ones you don't see coming.

How Home Automation Puts Your Time Back in Your Hands

They say that time is the one thing you can never get back, and you know this better than most. The hours you put into building a career, running a business, and staying sharp add up, and so does the cost of coming home to a house that still needs managing. Lights to adjust, music to find, window treatments to raise or lower. Small things, but they chip away at the part of the day that actually matters.

Home automation can help you handle all that. Not with gadgets or novelty, but with a system that's already one thought ahead, managing the background so you don't have to. What's left is time that actually feels like yours.

How Continuous Light Sources Are Redefining Modern Luxury Homes

If you’ve been in a thoughtfully designed contemporary home lately, you may have noticed something different about the light. There was a remarkable absence of visible fixtures dotting the ceiling. Instead, light seemed to flow from the architecture itself—clean lines of continuous illumination that feel integral to the space rather than added to it. Linear lighting is assuming a more prominent role in luxury interiors, expanding beyond accent applications to become a primary illumination source in key areas throughout the home. This shift requires a different approach to design and installation. When linear lighting becomes central to your lighting strategy, you need experts who understand both the aesthetic vision and the technical complexity of making it work. Professional lighting control integration seamlessly brings these elements together.

How Barrett's Technology Solutions Invests in Team Development to Deliver Better Client Experiences

Success in luxury home technology integration doesn't happen by accident. After 60 years serving Chicagoland homeowners, Barrett's Technology Solutions understands that delivering exceptional results requires more than technical expertise—it demands constant evaluation of how we work, communicate, and collaborate. Excellence is one of our core values, and we take it seriously. That means regularly stepping back to examine our processes, identify opportunities for improvement, and strengthen our team's ability to serve clients and trade partners. This past December, our team participated in a multi-day intensive session with workflow expert Jason Sayen, dedicating focused time to refining the systems that make every project successful. This type of in-depth organizational work isn't common, but it's essential for the seamless home technology experiences our clients expect.

Barrett's Technology Solutions Brings Practical AI Training to Chicago's Architecture, Design, and Construction Professionals

While Barrett's Technology Solutions has a long history in AV technology retail and home integration, we’ve also been an active member of Chicago's design-build community. Through our active involvement in organizations like ASID Illinois, ICAA, and AIA-CRAN, we remain connected to the challenges our partners face. Recently, one topic (which no one can escape these days) kept surfacing: artificial intelligence. Everyone recognized its potential to transform how they work, but few knew where to start or how to use it effectively. So, this past November, we decided to take action. We hired AI expert Isar Meitis to deliver comprehensive training at Monogram Design Center in Chicago's historic Mart, bringing together professionals from across the luxury residential community for practical, actionable education they could start using immediately.

Experience Familiar Favorites the Way They Were Meant to Be Heard

You've heard Steely Dan’s "Aja" a hundred times. But have you really heard it? There's a difference between background music and the kind of listening that stops you mid-conversation. True performance audio systems don't just play louder; they reveal layers you didn't know existed. Breath between vocal phrases. The physical space where drums were recorded. Bass notes with actual tone instead of just thump. Certain recordings were engineered with such care that they deserve systems capable of honoring that craftsmanship. Here are five tracks that will make you rethink what you thought you knew about your favorite music.

A Coupling of Quality Craftsmanship and Seamless Technology Integration

Custom home construction runs on trust. Between the architect's vision, the client’s preferences, the builder's execution, and specialized trades like technology integration, dozens of decisions need to be coordinated every single day. Missed or misunderstood conversations and meetings that are skipped can lead to costly retrofits later in the construction cycle, such as opening walls for cabling or finding space for equipment racks. Barrett's Technology Solutions has spent almost sixty years learning that the best projects happen when everyone at the table shares the same values: clear communication, meticulous planning, and respect for each trade's expertise. That's exactly what we've found in our partnership with Berliant Builders, a family-owned construction firm serving Chicago's North Shore.

Convenience and Luxury Without Compromise

The best home technology doesn’t draw attention to itself. It simply works, enhancing daily life without cluttering sightlines or disrupting carefully curated interiors. This kind of invisible integration requires more than skilled installation; it demands collaboration between designers and integrators who share the same vision. Barrett's Technology Solutions has found exactly that in its partnership with KED Interiors, a Chicago-area design firm that recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. Our team was thrilled to join the celebration this summer, recognizing a partnership built on mutual respect and shared standards. Both our companies are approaching milestone anniversaries, but what excites us most is continuing to work together on projects where technology and design become inseparable.

Investing in People and Partners to Create Luxury Homes

The best home technology projects happen when talented teams work together. Barrett's Technology Solutions partners with architects who understand spatial flow, interior designers who create stunning environments, and builders who bring visions to life. These collaborations succeed because we have invested years in building relationships within professional organizations. Whether staying current with industry standards through CEDIA, sharing best practices with fellow integrators in HTSA, or connecting with local design professionals, all of our affiliations culminate to create a foundation of trust and expertise that directly benefits every client project.

Professional relationships built on the mutual admiration of expertise foster real benefits that directly influence the final outcomes of our work. When we are brought into a project, we work with trusted architects and designers who understand technology integration, and appreciate how home automation enhances daily life, and collaborate with builders who know how to accommodate our team’s complex installations within their project management schedule.

Choosing the Right Technology for Your Entertainment

Sunday afternoon presents the familiar dilemma: your friends want to watch the Bears game, but a crucial playoff matchup is happening out west at the same time. Someone's tracking fantasy scores, another wants to catch the highlights from the early games. Everyone crowds around phones and tablets, trying to follow everything at once while missing the camaraderie that makes game day special.

If you're considering a home theater—or thinking about upgrading the one you have—you're probably weighing the classic projector setup against the newer video wall technology. It's not just about picture quality or screen size. It's about creating a space where everyone actually wants to gather, where you become the go-to house for game day, movie night, or any occasion that calls for the big screen. Let's explore what each technology brings to the table.

Projector: The Classic Choice

Projectors have long been the gold standard for home theaters. There's something undeniably cinematic about that massive image filling your field of vision when the lights go down for movie night. A quality projector delivers stunning picture quality and that immersive theater feeling that makes you forget you're in your basement.

But projectors have their limitations. They perform best in controlled lighting, which means you must dim lights and close shades. That's perfect for a Friday night film but less ideal when you're hosting an afternoon game and people want to move around and grab food. You're also limited to one source at a time—if two games are on simultaneously, you're making a choice.

Video Walls: The New Choice

Video walls take a different approach. Multiple display panels join together to form one seamless canvas—or split apart to show various sources simultaneously. This modular nature opens possibilities that projectors can't match.

These Soundtracks Will Make You Happy About Your Investment in Superior Audio

There's a moment that happens to every serious film lover with a quality home theater system. You're settling in to watch a movie you've seen before, but this time something's different. The bass rumbles through your chest during an explosion. You hear instruments in the score you never noticed. Dialogue sits clearly above the music. That's when you realize: you weren't really hearing these films before.

Not every movie is created equal when it comes to audio engineering. Some soundtracks are mixed by artists who understood they weren't just making a film score—they were crafting an experience for people with systems capable of reproducing every nuance. Our home theater solutions are designed to reveal these details, and certain films prove exactly why that matters. Here are eight that will show you what your system can really do.

Bill Ekstrand (Production Manager), Susan Karoll (Controller), Brian Perreault (President), John Cook (VP of Operations)

Disciplined Management and Process Drives Consistent Results

Most technology integration companies react to problems as they arise, scrambling to keep projects on track and clients satisfied. Barrett's Technology Solutions takes a different approach; one that is methodical, disciplined, and proactive. After 58 years of evolution from electronics retailer to custom technology integration firm, we've discovered that exceptional client outcomes require more than technical expertise—they demand disciplined leadership and processes. We believe that what sets us apart isn't just technical mastery of home automation and entertainment technology, but our commitment to structured business management and processes that ensure that every project delivers predictable, high-quality results for clients. Because when that happens, our company is successful. 

Waste Less Time with Home Automation 

You received three security alerts on your smartphone this morning, but they're all false alarms—a squirrel on the deck, your neighbor's cat, and the mail carrier's routine delivery. Traditional security systems excel at recording what happened but are terrible at distinguishing between actual threats and everyday activity. 

That's where integrated security changes the model. When surveillance works alongside your home automation system, your house doesn't just watch—it can actually act. From deterring porch pirates during holiday deliveries to making your home look occupied while you're traveling, intelligent security anticipates problems and responds before they escalate.

Our Service Team Helps Existing Clients Prepare for Stressless Seasonal Entertaining

You've been hosting your siblings, their kids, your parents and the in-laws for almost a decade and now it is just expected of you. They probably don't know how much planning it takes to accommodate your niece’s allergy, your son's limited palette, and your dad's traditions. Let alone getting the house cleaned, decorated and shopping all while still running your day-to-day business. You literally transform a chilly month into a holiday for your whole tribe. That's a lot of work and can be a lot of stress.

The best holiday gatherings happen when technology works invisibly in the background—lights that set the perfect mood, audio that flows from room to room, and media systems that don’t glitch when family gathers for movie night. Right now might seem early to think about holiday entertaining, but experienced hosts know that preparation is everything. Barrett's Technology Solutions’ dedicated service team understands this well. For existing clients throughout Chicagoland, we offer the personalized attention and technical expertise that turns potential party problems into stressless celebrations. Our client-centric approach means working with technicians who already know your systems, your preferences, and exactly what it takes to keep your home entertainment running at its best.

Sophisticated Design with Exceptional Tech 

The best lighting controls shouldn't just avoid disrupting your design—they should enhance it. Traditional light switches and basic dimmers force a compromise between form and function, but Lutron's keypad solutions prove this trade-off is unnecessary. With programmable keypads, Barrett’s Technology Solutions can help you actually gain superior functionality. Our system integration team can program one-touch scene control, automated scheduling, and integration with shades and climate systems. When these advanced capabilities are housed in hand-finished brass, precision-cut glass, or sculptural metal forms, your lighting controls become architectural jewelry that happens to deliver the most sophisticated illumination control available. With a plethora of styles and capabilities available, we can help you find the right  lighting control solution for your home.