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Home Automation & Audio Video Design

Posted April 30, 2009 13:49 by Robert

Tags: pluseworx, audio video, home automation

We are excited to be working with Gerry Lynch at System 7 (http://www.sevenhomes.com/) for the Audio Video & Home Automation part of our project. The approach we have taken for AV and lighting control is to make sure that we cover all of our current and future needs, while at the same time trying to minimize the use of proprietary systems and homeruns. Because every system that we have picked is based on open standards, they can be linked up and controlled together at a later time.

For audio, we pre-wired most rooms for in-ceiling or in-wall speakers, with the rooms that are going to be live now getting cutout templates for the sheetrock. The rooms that we may bring online later have a coiled wire in the ceiling that we will mark. Instead of being wired to in-room controls, the speakers are terminated somewhere nearby for an open source system such Sonos, which can be controlled from a computer, handheld remote or even an iPhone app. The distributed Sonos players then link up via the home network rather than having to be set-up as a homerun and are controlled wirelessly.  This way you can access your entire digital music collection and sources from any room.

For video, each current or future television location got an RG6 cable and a CAT6 cable for data. CAT6 is a bit more expensive than 5 or 5E, but has the best data capacity. More...