Homeowner's Backyard Amphitheater Brings Creativity to the Community

Larger and larger outdoor entertainment systems have been on the rise in recent years, and California is naturally one of the most robust markets for serious installations. One homeowner in Southern California has raised the bar for summer cookouts by thinking pretty far outside the box and turning his outdoor living space into a nearly-commercial level amphitheater with a custom-built 220-inch motorized projection screen (18 feet!), 20 speakers, fully automated landscape lighting and a performance stage with 10 inputs that connect to a mixing board inside. If that weren’t enough, there’s also a 15-foot-tall LED-lit sculpture of a question mark intended to indulge meditation in the front yard. Talk about unique!

“I wanted to create a space where the community could come together, where we could hold events and where my son could really get creative with his friends,” the homeowner said. “The last event we held was a children’s charity benefit where we hosted about 200 people. We had bands play on the stage, and we can broadcast through every speaker both inside and outside the house. It’s been really great, and it allows us to have fun without stressing because it’s so easy to use. Everything is basically plug-and-play, and any adjustments are easy to make with the ELAN g! mobile app on my iPhone or iPad. My son has been using it since he was 6 years old.”

The story starts two years ago when the owner had an ELAN g! system installed inside the home to run multi-room audio and five surveillance cameras. Since then he and his integrator AM House have expanded the system to include automated lighting indoors and in the landscape, where there are six zones split between different levels as the property descends down the hillside, plus the entire amphitheater setup, the spa controls and a total of 20 professional-grade Niles outdoor speakers in multiple zones.

“This is one of the coolest backyards I’ve ever seen, let alone designed and installed,” said Justin Brees, owner of electronics integration firm AM House. “Between the custom-made Vutec projection screen, the super-bright 3600 lumen Optima 1080p projector and the Niles speakers and ELAN control, it’s more like a commercial entertainment space than a backyard. Having a stage to hold performances and play them throughout the entire property was a really cool idea and we were able to make it all very simple to operate with the ELAN system.”

While the homeowner has to be mindful of windy conditions when going to watch a movie on the awe-inspiring 18-foot projection screen, the opportunities for enjoying this incredible outdoor space are nearly limitless. From viewing summer movies and fall football games to arranging concerts and throwing parties, it’s a very impressive yet inviting space for the whole community, or for him and his son to enjoy a quiet night.

“All this is possible because of the stellar job that Jose Bermeo, the main builder on this job, did bringing my vision to life,” the owner added. “I knew what I wanted, and I hoped it was possible, but both Jose and Justin really knocked it out of the park with the execution. To me this is part home improvement, part community building and part gift to my son. And for two years it’s been a work-in-progress because I keep finding new things I want the system to do or new subsystems to integrate, so I’m sure this isn’t the last of it. It might be a unique space as far as technology goes, but for me and my son it’s really a way to fully enjoy the beautiful area we live in with our friends and the community.”

The family controls the whole system through the ELAN g! mobile app on iPhones and iPads, which allows them to set all the lighting levels for the six landscape zones, the volume for the eight indoor zones and five outdoor zones, and to control up the spa and projection system. It’s about as simple as it could be, and that was a core requirement for the project. After all, a party space this cool makes you want to have fun, not tinker with settings and knobs all night.

“I imagine this backyard is the envy of the neighborhood,” Brees added, “and rightfully so! As he said, this is an ongoing project, so I’m sure we'll be adding more cool features over time and that’s why it’s such a good thing we used the ELAN system – it’s easy to expand and easy to use. That’s one of the reasons I stick with ELAN for my business, because it allows my clients to start with a small system and grow it over time.”

The brain of the system is an ELAN controller, and audio is run through an ELAN 16-channel amplifier. There are Niles in-ceiling speakers throughout the home and Niles OS outdoor speakers on the patio and in the landscaping.  The room with the mixing board features four studio monitors. The Jandy spa controls connect seamlessly with the ELAN system, allowing for full mobile control of the temperature, on/off and other settings.

How Can You Get Your Installation on Two Cable TV Shows? Install the Largest ELAN g! System Ever!

How do you get your home or technology installation featured on national television? Make it enormous, make it impressive and create an original house that blows people away. Having recently appeared on both Discovery Channel’s “Clash of the Ozarks” and Sportsman Channel’s “Amazing America with Sarah Palin,” this Arkansas residence has many unique and luxurious features, including the largest ELAN g! system ever installed, according to installer Ryan Heringer of Sound Concepts. 

“Working on a project of this magnitude can attract a lot of attention,” Heringer said, “and now that pop culture has caught up with control technology to the point where everyone knows what it is, there are real media opportunities with a project like this. The home itself is truly astounding. The windows, the floors, the walkways, the immense space inside; it’s all pretty incredible to walk through. A 43,000 square foot house tends to create an impression, and when the whole house can be operated from an iPhone through ELAN g!, it’s something people are excited to hear about.”

When Heringer says ‘the whole house’, he really means it. There are a lot of rooms, and there are a lot of TVs and speakers, video zones and audio zones to accompany those rooms. There are nearly 30 TVs from Samsung and Sharp models, three surround systems including a 7.2 home theater with an Epson 3D projector and Dragonfly screen, 26 distinct video zones with 14 available video sources, more than 30 audio zones with 12 available sources including an incredible pool audio system with six Episode subwoofers, more than 300 fully controllable lighting loads, an HAI security system, 24 surveillance cameras, an HAI HVAC system with 12 zones and nine controlled garage doors. Beyond the AV, the ELAN system integrates the driveway gate that is more than 1,000 feet away from the house, the waterfalls and lighting control for the Playboy Mansion-like pool, and commercial-grade Wi-Fi throughout the entire property.

“The system reaches into every nook and cranny of the house, from the gym to the gun storage vault to the landscaping, where there are 25 speakers alone,” Heringer continued. “When your home is this vast it’s necessary to have a way to manage it all, and simply walking around on foot to make sure all the lights and TVs are off just isn’t feasible. With ELAN g! the owners can see everything at a glance on any iPhone, iPad or one the more than 40 ELAN touchscreen interfaces installed throughout the house. We provided a combination of large in-wall touchscreen, small in-wall touchscreens, tabletop touchscreens and ELAN HR2 media remotes to ensure every family member can adjust whichever room they are in to their liking. The remotes are especially important for TV and theater control, as they are the fastest and easiest way to control TVs and the theater thanks to hard buttons combined with a 2.4-inch touchscreen. To facilitate true go-anywhere access inside and outside of the house, each family member also has the ELAN g! mobile app on their smartphone and tablet, which gives full control of the system with the exact same interface that’s on the in-wall touch screens.”

To get an idea just how enormous this house and installation is, you have to think about how many rooms there are. To start there are eight bedrooms, six of which are occupied by the family. Then there is the theater, the great room, the living room, the kitchen, dining room laundry room, barber shop, billiard room, gym, tanning room, poker room, conference room, putting green, golf simulation room, archery range, kids’ shuffleboard room, rock wall room, a deer processing plant, the gun storage vault, a 12 car garage and a separate RV garage, plus the outdoor audio, video, lighting and surveillance. Every room has its own audio zone and most have their own video zone.

“The family has complete control over every room in the home, so each person can listen to or watch what they want, where they want, when they want,” Heringer said. “And then when they call for lights out or go on vacation, all it takes is a few swipes and taps to set the home to ‘Away’ mode and turn everything off. Not only does the system make it easy to manage the large house, it also gives the parents easy access to see what their kids are watching and listening to, as well as to see who is coming and going through the surveillance cameras.”

Because every family member has different tastes, the owners filled the system to the brim with entertainment options including eight DirecTV receivers, a Kaleidescape media server, three Blu-ray players, two ELAN ViaDJ music servers, an iPod dock, a Squeezebox, two Sirius|XM receivers and an AM/FM receiver.

“I’m proud to showcase the power and flexibility of the ELAN g! system with such a tremendous home entertainment and automation system,” Heringer added. “It’s truly incredible that today a single system can control a luxurious home like this and also be a great affordable option for a small apartment.” 

After Fire Ravages Their Home, Couple Upgrades to Whole Home Audio and Video with Niles and ELAN g!

After a fire struck the home of Abe and Elina Rodriguez, sending more than half of it up in smoke, newer local building codes mandated that much of their home be brought up to date during reconstruction. When they hired an architect to help rebuild the home and make the nearly 40 required adjustments, their interest in music and home audio came up. This led to a discussion about a whole home audio system and a recommendation to talk with local integrator Digital Logic Systems, who saw that the Rodriguezes were ready to upgrade to a whole-home AV system. 

“We were very thankful that the security alarm woke us up, but it took us 20 years to get that house how we liked it and we watched most of it go up in flames,” said Abe Rodriguez. “When we set out to rebuild the home we basically had a clean slate to design and create our perfect house. For me, music is a huge part of my life and I had outfitted our home with extensive stereo systems on each floor. When I met Daniel Solly from Digital Logic Systems it was clear that he could deliver the type of whole-home music system I always wanted, and he said the best way to do it was with the ELAN g! system and Niles in-ceiling and outdoor speakers.”

But as these projects usually go, the system didn’t stop with audio. Solly won the bid over two competing integrators because of his superior knowledge and experience, in addition to the affordable nature of the ELAN g! system compared with other home control platforms. After drawing the designs and consulting with the architect, Solly and the Rodriguezes agreed that it was time for them to have a real home theater and integrated video and security throughout the house.

“Daniel gave us a real theater experience right in our home, and he was able to keep it affordable,” Rodriguez said. “When you add that to the whole-home audio and video, it’s a home run. I think DVR is man’s greatest invention, and now we can watch whatever we want, wherever we want, because all the TVs are connected to the system. We have the ELAN TV remotes in four rooms, so it works the same no matter where we are. We also use the ELAN mobile app on our iPhones and iPads to select music and set which rooms it will play in, which comes in especially handy when we are outside." 

The home now has 12 zones of audio with independent volume and on/off controls, including three surround sound systems in the theater, great room and basement family room. The theater and the great room use Niles speakers to deliver superior fidelity audio, which continues throughout the rest of the home in nine of the other ten zones, including the patio and deck. The great room and basement family room each have a wall-mounted 65” Samsung Plasma TV and the theater impresses with its JVC projector and 113” Screen Innovations Black Diamond projection screen.

“We did a lot of comparisons with different speaker brands and different speaker types, because I originally wanted big floor standing speakers,” Rodriguez remarked. “I was told they offer the best sound, but Daniel and my wife convinced me that in-ceiling speakers could not only provide amazing quality sound, but also virtually disappear from sight. This means we don't have to worry about anyone touching them, we don’t have to clean them, there’s no potential for wires to move and we didn’t have to make compromises to position them in each room. Daniel designed the speaker layout very carefully to ensure every spot receives equal volume and dynamic range, and he said the Niles directional speakers helped achieve that.”

Likewise, the couple appreciates that there are no longer cable boxes in every room, and visible wires are a thing of the past. Instead, everything is located in a single equipment rack in the basement, where it is easy to access, maintain and upgrade if necessary.

Beyond consolidated control of audio, video and security that the Rodriguezes implemented, one of the best things about a modern home control system like ELAN g! is remote access that allows the integrator to troubleshoot issues without needing to visit the home. Rodriguez learned the importance of this when there was a small glitch during a party, and Solly was able to log in to the system and fix it quickly. The party didn’t skip a beat, and it was all thanks to a reliable, responsive integrator and a high performance home control system.

By integrating the security system into ELAN g! as well, the Rodriguezes can now view and monitor their home’s security while on-the-go with the ELAN g! mobile app. They know the importance of a security system since that’s what alerted them to their fire. In the future,  the couple may add consolidated control of their home’s heating and air conditioning, among other systems like motorized window shades, surveillance cameras and lawn irrigation.

Core Brands Continues Receiving Rave Reviews For New Products Debuted at CEDIA 2014

The awards just keep on coming for leading home entertainment and control technology solutions provider Core Brands, a Nortek company. At CEDIA 2014, the company’s new product introductions received critical acclaim from Residential Systems, Technology Integrator and CE Pro. And now, rAVe Publications raves about the Xantech XtraNet IP line and the new SpeakerCraft AIM 2 Series.

The rAVe publications editors judged the 2014 Best of CEDIA Awards from the show floor at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. The awards were presented to the most distinguished products displayed at the show in twenty-five individual categories. The Xantech XtraNet IP line received the title Best New CI Install Tool, and the SpeakerCraft AIM 2 Series was named Best New In-Wall/In-Ceiling Speaker.

“The enormous amount recognition we’ve received during and after the show has been most gratifying and it’s an honor to receive these two awards from rAVe Publications,” said Joe Roberts, Core Brands Vice President of Products and Marketing. ”The Core Brands team is thrilled to bring dealers the solutions they need for their future success.”

Core Brands received a total of 12 awards at CEDIA 2014 for new product innovation. The rAVe Publications 2014 Best of CEDIA Awards announcement was made online at www.ravepubs.com.

Core Brands Supports Gary Sinise Foundation's "R.I.S.E Outreach Program" Restoring Independence, Supporting Empowerment

Core Brands, a subsidiary of Nortek, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTK), today announced that it is supporting the Gary Sinise Foundation by providing a range of audio, control, and power management solutions to be installed in five homes being built in 2014 for returning wounded military service members. According to Core Brands Vice President of Products & Marketing Joe Roberts, the commitment to provide solutions to each home stems from the company’s desire to support returning American military personnel who have made extreme sacrifices for their country.
 
“All of us who enjoy the benefits of freedom have an obligation to give back to those who have sacrificed so much to preserve those freedoms,” Roberts said today. “We think the work being done by the Gary Sinise Foundation to help wounded heroes live independently in the communities they call home is nothing short of extraordinary. We are honored to help in any way we can.”
 
Joel Berrettini of IT and Media Solutions, an Elite level dealer of ELAN Home Systems, initiated the relationship between Core Brands and the Gary Sinise Foundation.  His involvement with the Foundation began on September 11, 2012, when he saw Megyn Kelly on Fox News run a story on a Smart Home built by the Gary Sinise Foundation. “Here was a way that I could give back and have a direct impact on the quality of life for our Veterans,” said Berrettini. “There is a desire to give back and with the lifetime of skill sets acquired, I was all in.  I called Core Brands and they didn’t hesitate and gave me their commitment. As a result, five veterans are going to be able to live independently in their new smart homes.”
 
“Home is more than a house. It’s literally where we take comfort from the world,” said Judy Otter, Executive Director of the Gary Sinise Foundation. “When Joel Berrettini first contacted us, it was clear that he had a heart for our military.  He was extremely motivated to assist us, in any way that he could, and has been extremely generous with his time and resources.  The contribution being made by Core Brands will help to put 21st century smart home technology at the fingertips of some of the bravest Americans to have ever answered the nation’s call to serve.”
 
The experiences of war leave an indelible impact on servicemen and servicewomen. Upon their return to civilian life, the physical, emotional and psychological challenges they and their families face are often very difficult. As citizens, supporting our defenders is a responsibility each of us must carry – and the Gary Sinise Foundation is committed to ensuring that the sacrifices of our brave men and women are never forgotten.