When it comes to gaming room design, smart home technology can elevate the gaming experience drastically. A gaming setup combined with home automation brings the most immersive experience possible for video game enthusiasts. From strong networking and wiring for online play to smart lights with customizable color settings, here’s how to create the ultimate game room with smart home technology.
What is a smart gaming room?
A smart gaming room is a video game room that has smart home technology integrated into it. Many gamers tend to have a normal gaming setup, and are missing out on the benefits and possibilities that smart home tech and automation bring to the table.
Some smart home benefits of integrating automation into a gaming room setup are:
- Crisper and higher-quality audio and sound
- Higher-quality video output for easier eye strain
- Stronger internet connection for live streaming
- Added comfort with custom room climate
- Convenient remote access to smart devices
- Enhanced video gaming experience
Home automation can create the ultimate game room experience for families with video game enthusiasts.
How to Make a Gaming Room with Smart Home Technology
Now that you understand what a smart game room is and the benefits it offers, let’s go over the essentials for creating the perfect setup. Here’s a list of must-haves for a custom gaming room integrated with smart technology, along with our product recommendations to help you get the best results.
Surround Sound Audio System for a Greater Game Play Experience
One of the most important things for your custom gaming room design is having a surround sound audio system. The audio system for a smart game room setup has more than a few speakers. It’s a new way to experience video games, their music soundtracks, and gameplay audio. Homeowners can also hide or display speakers within the game room design.
Architectural vs. Display Surround Sound Speakers
Hidden speakers, also known as architectural speakers, are great modern game room ideas or office game room ideas because they’re built into the walls or ceilings — versus conventional box speakers that are in view. Homeowners who choose architectural speakers can enjoy a surround sound system without taking up extra game room space. Additionally, since these speakers are designed to be hidden, it prevents any phase issues in the sound quality because they don’t have a boxed enclosure like conventional box speakers.
If you decide to display surround sound speakers, you’ll find a variety of customizable options available. These come in different colors and finishes, allowing you to match any gaming room design aesthetic. Whether you prefer a sleek, modern look or something more vibrant and bold, there’s a style to fit your preferences perfectly.
Surround Sound System Recommendations for a Smart Gaming Setup
The surround sound system brands we recommend for a smart gaming setup are Dolby-Atmos, Sonance’s Architectural Series, Monitor Audio, and James Loudspeaker.
These high-quality brands have valuable gaming features, such as:
- Adjustable subwoofers and tweeters for a greater listening area
- Immersive 3D sound and high-performance theater-like quality
- Distributable multi-room audio
- Paintable grills to match the wall or ceiling
At AIS, we design and install home audio systems, including the following architectural and display speakers:
- invisible speakers
- in-wall speakers
- in-ceiling speakers
- in-wall subwoofers
- tower speakers
- bookshelf speakers
- small aperture speakers
If you need help on how to make a gamer’s room with a smart surround sound system, our custom system integrators can offer recommendations suited to your space and needs.
Low-Voltage Human-Centric Smart Lights During Longer Screen Time
Next on the list of important things for a gaming room with automation are smart lights. We suggest using low-voltage LED lighting and backlighting for a smart gaming room design. Low-voltage LED lights are energy-efficient, emit lower heat, and are higher quality than those available in consumer-grade retailers.
For serious gamers who play for multiple hours, the lights they’re exposed to can significantly impact their health and well-being. Investing in human-centric smart lights is worth it for gamers who look at computer or TV screens for extended periods.
Here are some benefits of integrating human-centric smart lights into a gaming room design:
- Mimics the natural light cycle of the sun to improve comfort and mood
- Dimmable features to customize brightness levels and reduce eye strain
- Adjusts light intensity and color temperature throughout the day and night
- Optimizable lighting schedule to promote daytime productivity and nighttime relaxation
- Remote access to manage these features via a smart app or home automation control system
Installing smart lights gives homeowners and their families easy control to manage their lighting automation system in a game room and throughout the house too.
Smart Lighting Product Recommendations for Smart Home Gaming
For the best smart lighting brand in a home gaming setup, we highly recommend using Lutron LED lights. They offer the highest-quality smart lighting system for multiple home sizes and are perfect for any custom game room setup.
Lutron also offers LED dimmer switches to adjust lighting levels at the touch of a button. Whether you’re looking for a whole-home lighting system or single-room illumination, Lutron’s smart lights can enhance the ultimate game room experience.
OLED Smart TV with High-End Video Output for Enhanced Quality Visuals
An OLED smart TV with high-end video output is fundamental to a smart home gaming setup. If you don’t know how to make a game room with automation, a smart OLED TV is a great place to start.
OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode, and these TVs use organic compounds to manufacture the TV display. The difference between OLED vs. LED smart TVs is primarily their backlighting systems and picture quality. OLED TVs emit their own light, and LED TVs rely on a separate backlight, significantly impacting the viewing and gaming experience.
| OLED Smart TVs | LED Smart TVs |
| Emit its own backlight | Rely on a separate backlight |
| Larger viewing angles | Narrower viewing angles |
| Pitch black hues | Dark grey hues |
| Energy-efficient | Energy-efficient |
| More expensive | More affordable |
Additionally, OLED smart TVs tend to be thinner, have larger viewing angles, and provide pitch-black tones. LED smart TVs are bigger, have smaller viewing angles, and emit more glares. OLED features are crucial for video games with dark scenes, live streaming, online play, and enhancing smaller gameplay details that can be easily lost.
Smart TV Recommendations for a Smart Gaming Room Design
The best smart TV brand we recommend for smart home gaming is Sony’s OLED TVs. Since Sony created one of the top video game consoles, PlayStation, their smart TVs are perfect for pairing in any smart game room design.
Some Sony Smart TVs include specific gaming features, such as:
- Seamless PlayStation 5 console integration
- 4K/120fps5 as specified in HDMI 2.1
- Input lags as low as 8.5ms.16
- Bluetooth connection to mobile smart devices and home automation control systems
From 4K resolution upscaling to acoustic surface audio, Sony’s OLED smart TVs can elevate the ultimate game room experience, providing you with enhanced visuals and audio.
Wiring and Networking for Stronger Internet Connection in Online Game Play and Live Streaming
Do you or your children enjoy online gameplay or live-streaming hobbies? Then enterprise internet networking, wiring, and high-quality HDMI cables are a must in your smart gaming room design. Investing in a computer, game console, monitor, smart TV, and speakers can all be ruined by a weak internet connection. For this reason, we don’t recommend using wireless devices in your smart gaming room design.
If you want your home gaming setup to perform to its full potential, use a wired network with high-performance equipment. Buying high-quality gaming equipment and smart devices can be easily ruined with a low-quality experience and poor picture by connecting it to Wi-Fi instead of ethernet — here’s why.
Wired vs. Wireless Home Automation for Gaming Room Design
We always recommend wired vs. wireless home automation for the best signal possible. Wired integration builds a pathway for signals to travel to prevent signal issues, while wireless does not. Wireless integration often has difficulty penetrating walls — especially for multi-story homes more susceptible to dead spots, choppy videos, audio playback, and lagging.
Some benefits of wired automation in a smart home gaming setup are:
- Faster downloading, uploading, and load times
- Higher-quality video streaming (4K video included)
- No dead spots and protected connection to all devices in any room
- High-quality access points that extend signals to the home’s outdoor areas
- Expanded capacity for high-performance audio, video, lighting, and more
If you’re looking for stream room ideas or office game room ideas, wired networking and wiring are crucial for a consistent and secure internet connection.
Home Automation Control System for Easy Smart Game Room Management
Last on our list of important things for a gaming room is a home automation control system. A home automation control system is like a universal remote that controls all smart home devices in one simple interface. It can control smart lights, home media, room climate, and more via a touch panel, mobile app, smart TV, or voice command.
Here’s how a home automation control system can easily manage a smart game room setup:
- Smart lights control — manage light intensity, color temperature, and power settings
- Media control — manage volume and display settings on smart TVs and home audio systems
- Climate control — adjust temperatures and motorized shades to customize comfort levels
The most convenient part of a home automation control system is that it centralizes all your smart home technology in one easy place. As a bonus, it can be repurposed outside a game room for more benefits to daily smart home living.
Home Automation Control System Recommendations for Smart Home Gaming
The best home automation control system brand we recommend for a smart gaming room build is ELAN. They’re the industry-leading smart home control brand to centralize your gaming and home automation for easier smart home management.
ELAN’s features are customizable to your daily routine, including pre-set lighting schedules, smart media compatibility, and scalable systems if your home game setup grows. ELAN also pairs very well with Lutron’s smart lighting for a seamless smart gaming setup. Integrating home automation with your game room design can transform the experience significantly.
Get Your Dream Smart Gaming Room Design with AIS
Now that you know how to make a gaming room with smart home technology, the next step is to bring your vision to life. Our system integrators are proud to be HTA-certified to bring you the highest standards of home automation integration.
Use our budget calculator to plan expenses or contact us for help with your custom gaming room design today!
Smart Gaming Room Design FAQ
What makes a gaming room smart?
Integrating smart home technology, such as smart lighting, can transform your gaming room. Smart home technology allows you to control certain features through your phone or with your voice. You can also create automations with the right smart home systems in place.
What kind of smart home automations can I use for a gaming room?
One automation you can add to your gaming room design, with the right systems, is have your gaming console and gaming lights turn on based on a certain action. For example, you could have your Xbox and smart lights turn on when you get home, or maybe when you open the door to your room with a motion sensor. The possibilities are endless.
What smart home system do you recommend for a gaming room design?
For the best experience and most integration for smart home features, we recommend using ELAN.
