HOME, AUTOMATED

For Sound Living, the best smart homes are the ones that feel effortless.

Jarmila Singer, owner of Sound Living, has a favorite moment. It’s the moment where everything just clicks—almost quite literally. Picture this: you walk through your front door, press a single button, and watch as lights bloom to life and shades glide open silently.

“That’s the aha moment,” she says. “It’s convenient, it’s sexy, and it’s just cool. And the client thinks, ‘how did I live without this?'” It’s a feeling she has spent nearly 25 years perfecting.

The Chicago-area home automation firm she co-founded with her husband, Gary, has made the extraordinary feel effortless.

“We focus on aesthetic and simplicity,” she says. “We discuss home automation features and benefits that directly impact the homeowner’s lifestyle wishes.”

From the start, the husband-wife team worked seamlessly precisely because of their differences—Gary, the technical mastermind, and Jarmila, armed with an MBA, operations, and marketing expertise. But the early years were anything but easy.

“We created a new business at the same time we started our family!” she recalls. “Gary and I were exhausted, but we were also resolute and very happy.”

As the business grew, so did the team around them. “Over the years we have hired wonderful staff who give themselves fully to the goals of Sound Living,” she says. “Taking care of our client’s needs is what feeds our business, therefore, also feeds the families of everyone who works for Sound Living—the greatest lesson.”

When Gary recently retired, Jarmila stepped fully into ownership—a natural next chapter for someone who had been shaping the business alongside him for decades.

“Gary taught me everything I know,” she says, “and now I’m largely following his legacy, but inching forward in new ways.”

This path forward includes a sharper focus on motorized shades and drapery, a modernized client experience, and a team with strong technical leadership that allows Jarmila to do what she does best: build relationships and drive the vision forward.

That vision is perhaps best illustrated in a standout project designed by Vintage Luxury Homes in the Enclave South Barrington—a residence Sound Living completed featuring a Savant home automation system, custom home theater, motorized shades, outdoor audio and video, and biometric entry system. “Really a lovely design,” she says. “Memorable because of the architecture and scale of the home. The Savant system blends with the aesthetics.”

It’s the kind of project that captures what Sound Living does at its best: technology so seamlessly integrated, you’d never know it was there—until you press that button.