Case studies

Elan Home Automation for High-Tech Hands-On Showroom in Norfolk (2/8/2010)

By R.C. Snelling

R.C. Snelling Ltd (Snellings) was founded by Roy Snelling in 1954, and housed in a small laundry in a winding back lane of Blofield Heath, Norfolk. Mr Snelling's aim was always to be at the forefront of technology, and as the industry has changed, so Snellings has grown and evolved. A nice touch is that Snellings has kept state-of-the-art technology from successive eras, and now has a working museum displaying over 100 radio and TV products from down the decades.

The Snellings museum contains over 100 radio and TV products from past decades.

Our state-of-the-art showroom, is still based in the original laundry building at Blofield Heath, but today we offer a wide range of services including rental, sales, service and installation from major manufactures including Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Loewe and Miele.

In response to increasing market demand, Snellings has recently launched a home installation service, under the trade name Snellings Home Systems. We believe that integrated automation is the future of home entertainment, and we offer a bespoke service that is dedicated to ensuring technology is simple and enjoyable to use. To complement this service, we decided to design and build a comprehensive and impressive suite that fully demonstrates to our customers how automation can be integrated into their homes.

The Snellings Harmoni suite comprises four zones in which users can experience home entertainment and automation.

The brief

It was essential that the suite should give our sales staff the opportunity to remove the fear of new technology by giving customers working demonstrations and creating interactive areas for them to experience the technology. The suite has been installed to allow customers to imagine what home automation can do for them, as well as educating them on the need for careful design and cabling when building or renovating properties.

The suite allows customers to imagine what smart technology can do for them, as well as educating them on the need for careful design and cabling.

Planning

The plan was to research the best technology available. This involved attending technology shows, Internet research and numerous meetings with manufacturers. Once the right products had been sourced, the next step was to design the layout of the suite, the positioning of the cabling and the placement of the products.

Project Manager Nathan Gilmore worked with his team including installation engineers Daniel Taylor and Wayne Yaxley, engineer David Rushbrooke and sales & marketing manager, Camilla Darling. The Snellings team worked side-by-side with Elan's technical team headed by Roy Leggett.

The completion budget was around GBP15,000, to be delivered within an eight-week time frame. The suite had to be operational in time for two open evenings planned to give customers and local businesses the opportunity to mark the launch of Snellings Home Systems.

The solution

The final solution was to create a modern, four-room layout with a cinema area, music area, security area and a home automation area. Each room would essentially demonstrate specific capabilities, for example, the cinema would have its own independent touch panel that would control the activation of the cinema.

After hours of research both in the UK and abroad at the ISE show in Amsterdam, it was decided that Elan Systems would provide the most suitable technology to deliver the capabilities required for the suite. Elan is capable of controlling any source, and can be programmed to control whatever the customer requires. Using a variety of touchpanels, Elan can show video and iPod information, and perform various macro commands. Security features can be added, as well as multiroom audio for up to 12 sources in 12 rooms.

DVD video being displayed on an Elan touchpanel.

The Elan system enables easy programming of the four zones in our suite, with a simple button layout. Using the Elan touchpanels, customers are able to interact at their leisure without the need for tuition, and as Elan has a uniform design, it's easy to move through the four zones without having to learn a new button control feature set and layout for each area.

The Elan Olexl touchpanel being used to control music.

Installation

The main cabling required for the Elan system was CAT5e, and we also used Kramer HDMI cables and QED 79-strand speaker cable.

ELAN provided us with the control hardware, which consisted of a 12-source 12-zone Elan processor which is the main hub of the system; a 16-output Elan amplifier, an RS232 and relay controller; a wiring system for a neat structured completion; various sizes of touchpanels; a communication controller for security control, and a 4-source camera controller.

The security area, showing four camera sources displayed on a TV.

Once the equipment had been installed it was then programmed to control the various zones, sources and functionality of the touchpanels. We also plan to install the new 'g!' product from Elan, that will allow remote access to the showroom from anywhere in the world.

Challenges

Since more than one customer could be in the suite at one time, activating different zones, the main challenge was to ensure that each touchpanel and zone works independently without affecting the other zones. However, it was also essential to demonstrate the capability of integrating all zones together. In addition, the zones had to be simple enough for any customer to experience the technology without feeling that it was too complicated for use in their own home.

After some trial and error, it was decided to limit the functionality of buttons on the touchpanel but allow customers to experience the 'wow' factor using carefully designed macros. For example, the Cinema button dims the lights, switches the projector on, lowers the screen, closes the curtain, switches the amp source and volume, and starts the Blu-ray player at a chosen screen. An 'Off' button resets the cinema whilst disabling the touchpanel until the projector cools down.

The automated home cinema room.

Conclusion

This fully-interactive suite allows the customer to really experience the benefit of a home integration system. It creates an environment that allows the customer to imagine the full potential of automating their homes by showing them the system capabilities, whether through heating, lighting or security.

Automated in-wall fireplace.

Since the completion of Snellings Home Systems, we have had two open evenings that have been a great success. Customers have interacted with the technology and left talking about what they have seen and done. This creates the potential for their experiences to be shared with friends and family.

The system really demonstrates how simply home entertainment and automation can be integrated into homes and how a home automation system can benefit people from many walks of life. We have already secured out first two contracts for this system and look forward to many more to come!

Equipment list

Elan S12 processor.
Elan SS1 RS232 controller.
Elan C2 communication controller.
Elan Quad camera processor.
Elan D1650 amplifier.
Elan Amigo iPod docking system.
Elan 7" touchpanel.
Elan 4" touchpanel.
Elan OLEXL.
Elan SPP wiring system.
Systemline server.
Systemline stereo ceiling speakers TSL2.
Sony DAB radio STB900.
Sony Media Centre VGX TP3.
Sony 32" LCD KDL32EX703.
Sony 40" LCD KDL40Z5500.
Loewe 46" LCD Individual Compose 46.
Loewe subwoofer.
JVC projector DLA350.
Marata screen.
Panasonic Blu-ray DMPBD45.
Marantz amplifier SR7002.
Audica speaker system.
Silent Gliss curtain rail.
Universal Remote MX980i.
Universal Controller MCS400.
Lutron Grafik Eye 3000 x 2 8-zone.
Panasonic cameras WV-CF102E.
Boston Acoustic speakers.
PIR sensor.

R.C. Snelling Ltd is an independent consumer electronics retail, rental and installation company.

www.snellings.co.uk