ELAN g! Makes Lakefront Home In 'The Spa City' The Ultimate Place To Relax

It’s difficult to imagine a place that sounds more relaxing than Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is known as “The Spa City” for its natural thermal springs.  But local homeowner Brandon Adams realized that his lakefront home could be an even more stress-free environment if the house could run itself automatically — meaning that the heating, air conditioning, lighting, security and surveillance would work on their own, and be easy to adjust when necessary. After a recent installation of the incredibly powerful and simple to use ELAN g! Entertainment and Control System, this fantasy of the autonomous home is now a reality, offering him one-touch control of every major home subsystem including music and TV in every room!

First, Adams hired Taggart Architecture to design a series of pools and outdoor living areas to connect his new home with the adjacent house.  His next call was to Jonesboro, Arkansas-based custom integrator Sound Concepts, which outfitted the home, including all the new living areas, with the latest in audio, video and control technology.  The ELAN g! system integrates Lutron lighting and motorized window shades, an HAI security system, IP surveillance cameras, HAI thermostats, garage door controls, 11 Samsung TVs (one outdoors), 45 speakers (indoors and outdoors), and a 7.2 surround sound home theater with two Sunfire HRS12 subwoofers, an Epson projector and a Dragonfly 120” screen.  It even incorporates control of the LED lighting on the home’s rooftop dome, the lakefront and in the boathouses.

According to Sound Concepts owner Ryan Heringer, “Mr. Adams’ amazing lakefront home combines the best designs, building materials and craftsmanship with the best home technologies to create a true 21st century living environment, both indoors and out.  The home basically runs itself, with pre-programmed schedules for lighting, heating, cooling and the pool equipment, which he can adjust any time with just a few simple buttons on any ELAN g! interface. Simplicity and ease of use is the most important aspect of any technology, so ELAN hit the bullseye when they gave g! the same type of easy-to-understand interface that made the iPhone so popular.”

Adams uses a combination of interfaces to control his home, with easy access through the g!Mobile iPhone and iPad apps, two 10-inch ELAN in-wall touchscreens in the pool house, 13 ELAN in-wall touchscreen throughout the home and boat houses, an under-counter ELAN 10-inch touchscreen, and 10 powerful ELAN HR2 multimedia and home control remotes.

“When I’m outside it’s very convenient to use my iPhone to control the music, the lights and the pool,” Adams said, “but when I’m in the house I almost always use a touch panel or one of the ELAN remotes because they are always on, so it’s easier and faster.  The remotes are absolutely the best choice to control the TVs because of the play/pause and volume controls, and it’s just like using a normal TV remote, except it can also turn down the lights and turn up the a/c.  Taggart Architecture and Sound Concepts delivered on their promises, and I’m still blown away at how beautiful the property is and how the technology brings everything together.”

About ELAN Home Systems:

Since 1990 ELAN® Home Systems has been an industry leading manufacturer of innovative, award-winning Multi-Room audio/video systems. ELAN systems were the first to integrate audio, video, phones and third-party products to create a seamless, easy-to-use "whole house" solution. ELAN systems and products are distributed through a comprehensive channel of select Dealers and Distributors throughout the United States, Canada and more than 58 countries worldwide.  To learn more, visit www.elanhomesystems.com.  ELAN is part of the CORE Brands division of the Nortek Technology Solutions Segment (www.nortek-inc.com).  CORE Brands combines the product and marketing strengths of ten iconic audio, power management and control brands into a single business unit that includes ATON®, BlueBOLT®, ELAN®, Furman®, Niles®, Panamax®, Proficient®, SpeakerCraft®, Sunfire® and Xantech®.

Xantech's A/V Control Technology Used for Tour Center at Harley-Davidson Vehicle Operations Plant

The recently completed movie theater located within the brand new Vaughn L. Beals Tour Center at the Harley-Davidson Vehicle Operations plant in York, Pennsylvania, includes A/V control products from Xantech, a leader in the field of audio/video remote control and distribution for 40 years. SDK Electronics of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, outfitted the theater, where visitors begin the one-hour factory tour, installing a Xantech CSPLCD39G 3.9-inch Smartpad LCD Graphic Touchpanel and a WIC1200 Web Intelligent Controller to manage the presentation’s audio, video and lighting.

The Smartpad LCD Graphic Touchpanel and the WIC1200 in combination offer fully automated control of the movie presentation, which takes visitors through the famed motorcycle manufacturer’s history. The film starts with a single touch of the Xantech Touchpanel, explains Scott Koons, owner of SDK Electronics. “The system sits in idle mode until the tour guides bring the visitors in. They touch one button on the screen that says ‘play’ and the movie starts to run. The WIC box gets a signal, tells a Crestron lighting controller to dim the lights, and turns on an audio sense to the Blu-ray Disc player. As soon as it senses that audio is no longer present – in other words, the player is in full stop – it tells the Crestron to relight the room.”

The system is also programmed with an alternate mode for employee meetings. “When they hold a meeting in the theater they can touch a button that says ‘presentation’ and it will switch over to a presentation mode,” says Koons.

The Xantech products offered an affordable control solution for automating the theater’s A/V system, according to Koons. Although the system is relatively simple, the controller does need to support some specific interface capabilities. “I needed to have some way to automatically turn on the lights. The WIC1200 gave me the ability to do two-way communications as well as system status sensing.” A more complex and more costly unit was just not necessary, he adds: “It would have been overkill to spend that kind of money on a competing product for what little I needed to do, especially since the WIC box does everything I needed it to do for this system.”

The Xantech Touchpanel interfaces directly with the theater’s JVC projector. “The only codes we send to the projector are on, off and source select, so we use those straight out of the keypad because I don’t need any sense on that,” explains Koons, adding, “The only thing I need to send to the Lexicon DC2 processor is power on and source select.”

The rest of the theater’s audio system, which includes EAW loudspeakers in a 7.1 configuration with Crest amplification, is initiated through the use of a Surge X power sequencer.  A 159-inch 16:9 HDTV format Da-Lite fixed wall screen completes the A/V presentation setup.

Koons also installed a Xantech CSPLCD64G 6.4-inch Smartpad LCD Graphic Touchpanel in the employee cafeteria at the new plant. “They can hold 450-person meetings there. It has four screens, four projectors, a scaler and an SPLCD64 controlling it, along with a couple of relay packs and a 1x8 RS232 router.” 

The Harley-Davidson Vehicle Operations plant, established in York in 1973, assembles the company’s Soft Tail, Touring and Tri-Glide models. Following the demolition of 42 separate buildings and a year of construction, a brand new, robot-assisted manufacturing plant opened on the site on August 1, 2011, that combines all of its manufacturing lines and warehousing in one 600,000-square-foot facility. Over eight thousand tourists have reportedly visited the new Vaughn L. Beals Tour Center and toured the new factory in its first two months of operation.

For more information, please visit www.xantechcommercial.com.

High Design Meets High Tech In The 2011 Mansions and Millionaires Designers' Showcase Featuring ELAN g!

From September 10 to October 30, 2011, two separate ELAN® g! Entertainment and Control System installations will be on display in the 2011 Mansions and Millionaires® Designers Showcase® at Chestnut Manor in Upper Brookville, New York.

Exhibiting interior designers Katharine Posillico of Katharine Jessica Interior Design and Angela Leva and Suzan Visconti of Leva & Visconti Designs enlisted the help of Melville, New York-based custom electronics distributor Royal Systems to design the ELAN g! Control Systems for their rooms at Chestnut Manor. These seasoned professionals who designed the Pool Room and the Music Room, respectively, may have differing styles, but they all both agree on one thing.

“Technology is ingrained in everyday life, so I don’t plan any space without some sort of audio/video system,” said Posillico. “Mozart Multimedia installed an ELAN system designed by Gregg Feldman and Dave Silkin of Royal Systems in my home a couple years ago. It is such an amazing supplement to the house and to my life that I now strongly advise my clients to work with Royal Systems to incorporate a full ELAN g! Control System. The second-floor Pool Room at Chestnut Manor is the ultimate lounge and game room, so naturally I included a large projection TV and a full audio system.”

Visconti had Hauppauge, New York-based Audio Design Consultants install an ELAN Control System in her home nine years ago, and now she advocates that technology not be an afterthought, but instead be integral to the function and layout of the rooms she designs. She notes, however, that many homeowners still aren’t aware of the possibilities with control systems.

“A lot of people don’t know that when they are on vacation they can touch their iPhone and set up their heating, air conditioning and lighting so it’s ready when they get home, saving them energy and money,” said Visconti. “I think that as more people learn how this technology can affect their homes and their lives, and actually raise the home’s value, there will be a lot more houses with home control systems.

“In our design for the Music Room at Chestnut Manor, my partner Angela and I wanted to project a relaxing and rejuvenating ambience and create a place for the homeowner to get away from it all—watch whatever shows and listen to whatever music he wants or jam on his guitar. We incorporated the highest level of technology to make the room sophisticated and at the same time functional and simple to control.”

The Music Room’s A/V system was designed by Dave Silkin of Royal Systems and Bob Portolano of Audio Design Consultants, and features an ELAN HC6 as the system’s brain, an ELAN M86 for audio distribution and an ELAN TS7 seven-inch in-wall touch screen for simple user control. It even has a camera aimed at the door so anyone entering the room instantly sees themselves on the TS7 located next to the doorway. It includes a wall-mounted 42” Samsung 1080p Plasma HDTV and uses two Induction Dynamics SolidDrives to turn the room’s walls into speakers.

The Pool Room’s A/V System was designed by Royal Systems and installed by Mozart Multimedia of East Islip, New York. It features an ELAN HC4, ELAN M86 and ELAN TS2 with the VL2 Valet option, as well as a Severtson 120” front-projection screen and three Sound Tube ceiling-mounted speakers throughout. The room’s use of natural light helps to ensure the projector’s image isn’t overpowered or washed out.

“The Mansions and Millionaires Designers’ Showcase is a great way to show how technology is influencing designers, builders and homeowners,” said Dave Silkin of Royal Systems. “But the great thing about the ELAN g! Control System is it’s not just for millionaires. In fact, the system is so affordable that any homeowner can install a multi-room A/V system, and then expand it to control lighting, security, heating and air conditioning, and pool and spa systems.”

From September 10 to October 30, 2011, more than 30 New York City Metropolitan Area interior designers will showcase their work for the general public at the 97-year-old Chestnut Manor. All proceeds will benefit Mill Neck Manor School For The Deaf. To learn more about the Mansions and Millionaires® Designers’ Showcase®, visit designersshowcaseny.com.

To see more designs from Katharine Jessica Interior Designs, visit kj-id.com. For more information about Leva & Visconti Designs, visit levaviscontidesigns.com. For more information about Royal Systems visit royalsystems.com.

Forward-Thinking Minnesota Builder Now Pre-Wires Every New House For ELAN g! Whole Home Automation

When Rocky DiGiacomo, a forward-thinking Minneapolis home builder, heard about the ELAN® g! Series IP-based Home Control System that can use the iPhone to control every household function, he knew home buyers would love it. Now DiGiacomo is putting his belief into action and pre-wiring every new home he builds with ELAN g! home control technology — leaving it up to the consumer to then decide which functions and which components they want to install in their new home as part of the finishing process.

DiGiacomo, founder of 20-year old DiGiacomo Homes and Renovation, Inc., wanted his houses to include value-added features to differentiate them from the competition, and he found one solution – ELAN g! He believes the ELAN g! system is going to help him sell a new $1.3 million house in Golden Valley, Minnesota. This is his first ELAN g! system installation, and he integrated 6-zone independent and simultaneous audio/video sourcing into 9 rooms, energy management control, and pre-wired for the home’s security system and surveillance cameras.

Well aware of the iPhone’s massive popularity, he believes that the ELAN g! iPhone app is a way to make home control simple and intuitive. The ELAN g! app is also available on internet-connected iPads, laptops, and PCs, providing complete home control from anywhere in the world.

“We’ve seen the success of the iPhone, and believe that with it, we can make home control attractive and accessible to anyone,” said DiGiacomo. “The ELAN g! app is simple enough for anyone to use, and can even do some things on its own, such as when you pull in the driveway, it can automatically open the garage door and turn off the security system. You don’t even have to hit a button. And you can monitor security cameras and control climate settings from anywhere in the world.”

When DiGiacomo heard about ELAN g! he turned to J.J. Vanderson & Co., a dealer that has been selling ELAN systems for more than 15 years, for a demo. Owner Jay Vandermyde asserts that people who want home control want all the features that ELAN g! offers, including web-streaming music and audio/video distribution. And he tells builders that with remote lighting and heating controls, the ELAN g! System even helps homeowners save on energy costs and makes homes more eco-friendly.

“In today’s crowded marketplace, builders need to make their properties stand out from the competition,” said Vandermyde. “ELAN g! is great because the consumer can expand the system as their needs and wants change. It’s easy to sell, easy to demo, and easy to install and maintain, which limits or eliminates service calls.”

The ELAN g! Series Home Control System provides users with the most uniform and intuitive icon-based control from their favorite devices, including TVs, touch screens, touch pads, PCs, iPhones, and iPads. The standardized interface works across platforms, so that the trendy g!Mobile app users love on the iPhone appears and works similarly on ELAN touch screens, valets and handheld remotes as well as users' televisions and mobile devices. And the system's IP backbone makes it just as easy to control the system from across the room as across the globe.

Individual apps for each subsystem allow the user to control security, climate, lighting, media, irrigation, pool/spa, messaging, video and photos with the flick of a finger. Access is fast and secure through any ELAN home interface or globally with mobile Internet enabled devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Netbooks, and PC Tablets. Since the intuitive interface empowers users with personalized scheduling and detailed history views, high consumption subsystems like lighting and climate can be closely monitored and managed for a greener lifestyle - and substantial energy savings.