Meet the Best – HomeTech by Mosaic
from audio to security, HomeTech meets your ‘smart home’ needs
With the touch of a button, the tap of an app, or even a simple voice command, you could be controlling everything about your home or business. From audio and visual entertainment to temperature to lighting to safety and beyond, HomeTech by Mosaic in Eau Claire can help you navigate the smart solutions that are right for you.
HomeTech offers everything you can imagine for your current – or future – smart home: smart TVs, lighting, security systems, thermostats, audio equipment, and even window treatments. Founders and general managers Hunter Braatz and Garrett Lewis have years of experience and know the latest, cutting-edge technology that can make your life easier and safer.
“Everything we do is based on IT and networking,” Braatz explains. “From our audio systems to our automation security, it’s the backbone of everything we do.”
Based in Eau Claire but with technicians who serve a wide swathe of northwestern Wisconsin, HomeTech offers access to the latest technology. They can match the prices of big box stores while providing unmatched hometown expertise in installing tech in residences, businesses, and even cabins and second homes throughout the northwoods.
Thanks to this expertise, HomeTech was ranked No. 1 for Best Audio/Video installation in Volume One’s most recent Best of the Chippewa Valley Reader Poll.
The business was born in 2009 when Braatz and Lewis, then Eau Claire Police Department patrol officers, began wiring new homes for audio systems as a side job. Soon, HomeTech Innovations became an incorporated business, and grew to become a second full-time job for its founders. They started to work with numerous local homebuilders, added staff and skills, and expanded into home theaters, security systems, and other networked technologies for homes and businesses. “The list of what we sold grew as we learned the industry,” Lewis explains.
Ultimately, Braatz and Lewis took leaps of faith, left their careers in law enforcement, and put all their efforts into HomeTech in 2016. In 2022, HomeTech was acquired by Mosaic Technologies, a fast growing technology solutions company based in Cameron. Through growth and acquisitions, Mosaic – which has Northwoods roots going back more than a century – evolving as a rural telephone cooperative to now providing an expansive portfolio including fast fiber broadband internet, TV, voice, IT, and other services.
“We’re offering that physical security – watching your back door, watching your windows – but also cybersecurity,” Lewis says.
The Mosaic brand now includes four companies: Mosaic Technologies; HomeTech by Mosaic; Protechtors, a newly acquired business IT solutions company; and a construction arm, MTech Construction, which brings fiber network to northern Wisconsin.
Braatz notes that because of its founders’ experience in law enforcement, HomeTech is well-suited to determine how a potential criminal might attempt to break into a home or business, and to place alarms and cameras accordingly.
“I know what the police need,” Braatz says of the kind of video footage that could nab a burglar. “This is the type of views that they need, this is the type of quality that they need. We really guide our products toward a better result.”
Security technology continues to evolve, and HomeTech is on top of it. Today, app-based alarm systems can notify users before contacting law enforcement, giving users more peace of mind and preventing false alarms – which can waste time and money for police and homeowners.
Whether you find the idea of a “smart home” exciting or scary, HomeTech can simplify the process. They’re happy to sit down with clients and study house plans, going room by room and technology by technology, to create systems that work for each families’ needs.
However you want to connect your business with the ever-expanding “Internet of Things,” HomeTech can help you find entertainment, comfort, and peace of mind.
“The best thing about our job is the end product, when we actually turn it over to the customer and show them how their system works and really get them to enjoy their home or business the way they wanted it,” Braatz says.
HOMETECH BY MOSAIC
1830 Brackett Ave, Eau Claire • (715) 330-4663