OTHER TECH

To keep costs down, many of the less savvy developers will ask me, "Why should I spend all this money for wire when everything will be wireless next year?" Of course, we've all seen the wireless TVs and the mountains of wireless speakers at the electronics shows, but how many have actually made it into stores - and worked as promised once they got there? So far, I haven't seen a single product with enough of a "wow" factor to usher us into the wireless world.

That's not to say there aren't some intriguing wireless audio-distribution products available - like the Sonos system and Control 4's Speaker Point (both featured in Barry Sonnenfeld's Rocky Mountain Picture Show, September). Both have built-in amplifiers to work with any set of speakers and require only a Wi-Fi network to send sound anywhere in your house. The Speaker Point is an upgrade to the basic Control 4 A/V system, while the Sonos is a self-contained system that can play music that's either shared off your network or streamed from online.

In a custom installation, we're always battling the budget. Every time someone asks us to lower the cost by not running Cat5e cable in their walls because he or she already has a wireless router and wireless phones, we simply show them how many other uses it has. Cat5e can be used for video distribution (even HDMI), fax machines, motion detectors, audio transport, IR extenders, additional phone lines, and at least a dozen other things. It's almost as versatile as duct tape. We've even used it to install a wall jack in a living room and send an audio signal down to the house's central music system so everyone can listen to the latest iPod download.

When we were about 80% through the installation, the home was sold and we were asked to meet with the new owners. So we took a house tour with them, where they immediately saw the value of the Control 4 system. Afterward, they requested more than $56,000 in additions, including upgrades to 14 audio zones and the addition of 6 video zones. Upgrades included six large Sharp Aquos LCD HDTVs, a surround sound system in the living room, HD video transports for the remote video gear in three of the rooms, and an eight-line phone system. Since we needed to add only a bit of hardware to the control system and didn't have to replace anything, the developer's investment was intact. And thanks to the structured-cable package, the entire upgrade was done without having to rework a single bit of wire.

Much of the house was redone by the new owners' interior designer. But even with all the changes, we had to move only one jack - from a baseboard to the height of a flat-screen TV. And since we'd allowed for this possibility, the wire was already in place behind the new jack location.