TV mounting, smart home and Wi-Fi in Englewood, NJ

Englewood has a wide range of homes in a small area. The East Hill section is known for large older estates on hilly, wooded lots, many built with stone, brick and heavy plaster. Closer to downtown and Palisade Avenue there are smaller single-family homes, townhouses and apartment buildings. Toward the cliffs, some homes have long views east toward the Hudson. Each of these settings has its own technology challenges.

Older estate homes are solidly built, which is great for quiet rooms and bad for Wi-Fi. Stone and brick interior walls and thick plaster stop wireless signals, so whole-home coverage depends on wired access points in several rooms, often with cable routed through attics, basements and service stairs. If the house has a carriage house, pool cabana or detached garage, we treat it as its own zone and connect it back to the main house so cameras and audio work everywhere.

Big windows and sloped lots bring a lot of light into these homes. Motorized shades in the family room and primary suite help with glare and privacy, and they can be grouped so one button closes everything on the sunny side of the house. In rooms with ornate trim or tall arched windows, we measure carefully and suggest mounting styles that leave the woodwork visible. Some older homes also have libraries or paneled dens that make excellent listening rooms, where a pair of good speakers and a discreet subwoofer can be tucked into existing cabinetry rather than cut into the walls.

For renovations and teardowns-to-rebuild in Englewood, planning the technology alongside the architect and builder lets you place a ventilated equipment room, run cable to every TV and speaker location, and add Control4 keypads where they make sense. Hilly driveways and long front walks are also good places for lighting and cameras that show visitors before they reach the door. Owners who travel often can keep an eye on the whole property from one app. Smaller homes and townhouses near downtown benefit from the same thinking on a smaller scale, with a mounted TV, solid Wi-Fi and a video doorbell.