Category Archives: Blog/Comments

Closing Letter to Clients

Tuesday, 08 February 2022 10:26
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Dear Wonderful Past Clients,
Thank you for being a past client of Home & Office Network Solutions. We hope you are well and thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season and hope that life will be good to you in 2022 and beyond.
H&ONS will be ending operations in the Northern VA area in 2022. We are in the process of building a home in the Wilmington NC area, and plan to move down there in June of 2022. Therefore, we have chosen to discontinue offering new installations except those that are tied to outstanding non-expired estimates.
However, to ensure our customers have what they want in place for the future, if you want to add to your networking or AV at this time, please contact us to schedule a site survey. We will only be scheduling site surveys for existing customers who want to expand their existing network or AV systems. This includes adding Wi-Fi access points and network components, running cables to another area that wasn’t previously included in the initial install, etc.
We will continue to offer service calls, including but not limited to networking, audio, video, cameras, etc. right up until we leave the area. Feel free to call or email us to schedule one at any time. If the service call results in a return visit with a product, we will continue to purchase that product & return to install it for you.
We never structured Home Network Solutions, LLC to sell it. We are referring certain AV installation work to our good friend and subcontractor who has worked with us for over 10+ years. We do not have anyone to refer the residential networking to within this area. We will continue to offer you phone, email and virtual support service whenever possible after we leave the area.
We do plan to keep Home & Office Network Solutions as a service call provider in the Wilmington NC area after moving down there so our website and emails will still be available to you, though our phone # will change in the coming months. We will post that on our website.
We can’t thank you enough for your past business, referrals and testimonials over the last 18 years. You have supported a small business, helping us thrive in Northern VA, send our 2 children Ian and Rachel to college, and live a moderate, but good life in this area. As our children are grown & gone, and not returning to the area, we felt it was time for us to move on as well.
Again, thank you so much and do reach out to us if you have any questions or upcoming service needs.
Regards,
Lew & Bonnie Little
Owners

Wellness Technology Needs Remain High

Thursday, 21 October 2021 11:56
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While the market for wellness technology has slowed down, it isn’t stopping.
The top 10 most frequently installed wellness technology include:
  1. Indoor air quality sensors/filters
  2. motorized shade control tied to astronomic timers
  3. human-centric lighting controls and fixtures
  4. Indoor air quality/central vacuum
  5. Immersive/integrated home fitness gear
  6. water quality monitoring systems
  7. nature-related audio/soundscaping
  8. aroma infusers
  9. smart sleep technology
  10. nature-related visuals/digital art

Telework is not going away

Thursday, 21 October 2021 11:54
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The Pandemic forced many businesses to set up teleworking and while people are returning to the office due to vaccinations and new protocols for safety, many businesses are sticking with teleworking.
There are two reasons that businesses are choosing teleworking.
First off, it allows a business to lease less square footage of commercial space. So while businesses may want to get their employees back into the office while they have all this empty space they are currently paying for, as leases come up in the future, we may start to see more teleworking and smaller commercial workspaces.
The second reason is that people saw the advantages of teleworking; no commute, more time with family and less risk of getting sick from fellow colleagues. If the worker can prove they can do the job well from home, employers are more prone to let them stay home either 100% of the time or most of the week. While teleworking had many challenges, it also proved to have a positive impact on society.
Just look at a recruitment site and you will see more virtual jobs being offered than ever before. Businesses have invested in hardware & software to manage employees virtually and want to continue to use this investment, so new positions are being examined closely now as to whether they will be an in-office job or a virtual job.
One thing is for certain, businesses & even more importantly, workers will need to ensure their home’s network infrastructure is designed for telework, since it is here to stay.

H&ONS Goes Back to its Roots

Friday, 28 May 2021 08:27
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Beginning July 1, 2021, we are going back to our roots. When we started in 2003, we started as a networking company. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough of a market back then for networking services in the home, so we expanded into the Audio & Video sector and have grown from there.

Over the last 5 years, we have seen a strong demand for networking needs, whether simply getting Internet service to new rooms in a home or installing a full scale home network infrastructure. Therefore, we have decided to take only network related work going forward. This includes hard wiring (Ethernet) & wireless (WiFi) work. There are many AV companies out there that focus their services on TVs and projectors, audio and other products, so we will leave that work to them.  In addition to AV companies, there are security companies who install cameras, video doorbells and other equipment of that nature.  We have found that people really need someone who understands residential networking and how to design and install it right. In addition to this major change, we will also discontinue working with contractors on remodeling projects where we have to work our schedule around other trades. It has been a major challenge over the years trying to take care of our clients while anticipating when a contractor needs us back.

With these changes, we will also be able to perform service calls expediently. Service calls for existing clients can be performed on any past installations, including AV and camera work.

We will have at least one day a week set aside for service calls so we can better respond to issues our clients face. We will also keep Mondays open for writing estimates from site surveys performed the week before. This should result in faster turnaround of estimates and scheduling of networking installations.

We really appreciate the variety of business that our customers have brought to us over the years.  We know that these changes will result in some of our customers having to go elsewhere for projects, but in looking at the overall scheme of things, we feel these changes need to be made at this time.

 

Sales of Networking Gear Rise

Monday, 19 April 2021 11:20
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Likely driven by the work from home and distance learning trends, the PowerHouse Alliance distribution group recently created a white paper discussing the emerging trend in consumer networking. This white paper was based on a survey of over 55 distributors analyzing sales data from the start of 2020 through the end of 2020.

Using these distributor interviews and sales data pulled from 2020, they anticipate a 54% increase in home networking in 2021. In addition, they project a 15% increase in home control/automation and 4K displays.

Manufacturers have done a great job at keeping up with spikes in demand, in spite of the difficulty finding integrators to actually perform the installations. However, we are seeing inventory levels of network electronics dropping due to the backup of container ships at the ports.  This may start to have an effect on projects in the near future.   Hopefully, manufacturers will continue to produce and get their products out while these new trends encourage more AV integrators to focus on the networking and not just the audio and video aspect of business.

Home & Office Network Solutions has been specializing in networking since its inception in 2003.