How to Set the Mood!

St. Valentine's Day has come again. Love and happiness are both in the air. A day to celebrate the love you and your partner share. According to legend, the emperor or Rome, Claudius II Gothicus, had a priest martyred on February 14th during the 3rd century CE. Folklore says, the priest signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and, by some accounts, healed from blindness. Other accounts hold that it was St. Valentine of Terni, a bishop, for whom the holiday was named, though it is possible the two saints were actually one person. Another common legend states that St. Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war. It is for this reason that his feast day is associated with love. Around the 5th Century CE, Pope Gelasius I replaced the Pagan festival Lupercalia with St. Valentine's Day to replace the Pagan rituals. Many years later, in the 1500's, the holiday spread like wildfire. Shakespeare and Chaucer romanticized the holiday in many of their works, and it quickly spread through Great Britain, eventually moving across the pond to the United States.

Flash forward to today and you see that not much has changed. We still shower our special someone with gifts, chocolates, and flowers. Sometimes we go out for date night, but this blog is going to show how staying home for date night can be even more romantic than a night on the town. The difference between today and the 3rd or 5th centuries, is the amazing improvements in technology. So how can we mesh this new age technology and this ancient day of love? Let's find out, shall we.

Home automation, or home control in this case, has amazing functionality and has made it's way into every room of our home. The network connects us to our online music libraries, where we have been putting together a new love playlist. It can help us find our favorite movie on numerous streaming services. Now let us show you how this network can connect you to your loved one in ways not thought possible even 10 years ago.

To make sure your in-home date night is perfect, you need a scene. A scene is a home control function that allows you to save preset multiple home conditions and allow all of these to begin or end with the press of one single button or simply be asking your Josh Micro, Google Assistant, or your Alexa. So how can we begin to set the mood for date night with our custom scene?

CREATE THE “DATE NIGHT” PRESET

Contact us to program a special “romance” preset on your remote device or app that handles all the lighting, shading and music. Even better—use a “heart” icon for this setting.

LIGHT UP THE NIGHT

It's a little difficult to set the mood for a romantic evening while lighting up the sky. So let's say "I Love You" by setting the lights to a softer level with our dimmable Lutron or Control4 light switches. Try to utilize lighting accents on the walls, or with your recessed lighting. We simply need some soft, warm ambient lighting.

LET'S GET CRACKLING

Nothing says romance like a the warm feel of the fire. With a fairly simple conversion, you can integrate your fireplace into your Control4 so that you can turn it off and on from anywhere. It can also be added into this scene for that extra crackle to help you begin to warm up the night.

TIME TO BRING THE HEAT It's on you to produce the steam, but you have to be at the right temperature. So let's make sure the room in nice and cozy by adjusting our thermostat to slowly heat yourself up as the night progresses. Have a hot tub? Let's add that in also so that the champagne is not the only thing getting bubbling. Now we can soak those joints in preparation for our cardio.

Wait a minute there, let's try to keep it under the surface a little longer. Remember, don't go so fast, if you want the romance to last.

TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

No more digging out those large wedding albums. You have all those pictures streaming on the television screen for you to see with ease. Your slideshow will take you back to the place you fell in love, the place you said I"Do", and remind you the reasons for both.

GET INSPIRED BY YOUR FAVORITE FILM

Let your emotions flow while enjoying that endearing romantic comedy. Maybe one single tear will fall and she will remember you do still have a sweet side. You can get all curled up on the couch and cozy up with the one your love. Just keep asking, "What Do You Want?"

SEAL THE DEAL WITH MUSIC The movie has just finished, but your not. Whether is Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" or Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" that Control4 Neeo remote or app can stream all your favorite's or make a custom Love playlist in the my music feature with the music you have added to the system. Now you can dance the night away, slowly waltzing to the stairs.

TAKE IT UPSTAIRS

Don't have time to lock the doors? With Control4, you can create a "Do Not Disturb" or "Take It Upstairs" scene for closing up this love shop. Now all of your televisions, music sources, and lights will all turn off. The shades will slowly fall. Your thermostat will go down because we have reached our boiling point and are about to get even more toasty under the covers. Lastly, your doors will lock and your security system will arm. Here's the piece of mind to know it truly is just the two of you for the remainder of the evening.

That's what it's all about! Connected Home and Control4 save you precious time, so you can focus on the ones who really matter, the ones you cannot live without. Our evening may be over, but the love never is and now your have even more time to enjoy it. This St. Valentines Day, make some new memories to keep that fire inside burning as bright as the sun. Tis the reason, for this season.

Want to see this in action? Here is a video from our friends at Peachy Films about how Control4 can change your date night forever!