"Street of Dreams" Home Design Event Features One-Of-A-Kind Entertainment Experience Room Featuring the ELAN g! System

If nothing else, the custom installation professionals at Calgary, Alberta-based Creative TSI are innovators.  If they’re two things, then they’re also people who know how to have a good time.  They’ve proven this by teaming with the award-winning homebuilders at Astoria Custom Homes to create a truly one-of-a-kind home entertainment experience room that uses the ELAN g! Entertainment and Control System to make gaming, movies and partying easier and more fun than ever. 

Triggered by simply docking an ELAN g!Mobile-equipped iPad 2 in a magnetic Launchport dock, this room comes to life and automatically turns on the Runco LS-HB hi-def projector, club-style pinpoint lights and Xbox 360 with Kinect, brings up the house lights, starts a hidden fog machine and completely preps the room for an amazing movie night, dance party or gaming session.  With an entire wall occupied by a 151-inch Da-Lite Cinema Contour Screen and motion-based control through the Kinect device, the room presents an augmented reality environment that proves home entertainment is no longer a strictly passive experience.

In conjunction with Runco, the enormous screen was made possible using a precision optical dual-mirror rear projection system, so the projector isn’t located inside the room, but instead in a room adjacent to it.  

That was important to Creative TSI President John Lattion, who said “You can't achieve this kind of functionality with a projector in the usual location in back of the room, as the players would obscure the projector’s output by standing/jumping in the play area, and the fog machine would obscure projection output as well.  Perhaps even more beneficial for the homeowners, the room is completely void of any equipment that can be seen!  All you can see is the iPad/Launchport and the screen. Everything else is recessed or hidden.”

To make the most of the 2012 Street of Dreams at Willow Creek at Bearspaw home design event, Creative TSI really did get creative, designing this truly amazing augmented reality room that combines technologies from ELAN Home Systems, Runco and Microsoft.  The 6-week home event features four of the area’s leading homebuilders, who each teamed up with their own subcontractors to make their home’s landscaping, interior design and cutting-edge technology stand out from the rest.

“No one else in the world has seen a system like this before,” said Lattion. “The ELAN g! System is so powerful and easy to use that it has a lot of wow-factor all by itself, but we took it a step further by integrating the new Launchpad in-wall iPad 2 dock.  With it we are able to trigger pre-set scenes in the ELAN g! System in several rooms of the house by simply docking the iPad 2 on the wall.  It’s super easy because it’s magnetic and has inductive charging, so there’s no cables to worry about.  This way the homeowner can simply walk into any room, dock the iPad 2 on the wall, and everything—the lights, TV, sound system, game console, heat—turns on to the perfect preset conditions.

“We want to show everyone how far home technology has come, and how fun and easy home entertainment and control can be, and that’s why we created this room, which we’ve come to call the ‘Holodeck’,” Lattion said. “Our clients love the ELAN g! System because it’s so easy to use, while costing a lot less to install than other automation systems.  So anything we can do to make it easier is just icing.  And the home theater experience room we designed shows that when you’re using the latest and greatest equipment, a little creativity can go a long way.

“The Microsoft Kinect device will play a big role in the entertainment room in some pretty creative ways to show the versatility of the technology, and we invite people to come to the home and experience it for themselves,” Lattion continued.  “Bringing together all of these cutting-edge technologies will show people how much easier and more fun their homes can be, and that these types of entertainment and control systems are no longer luxury items.  Homeowners can install an ELAN g! System like this one for a couple thousand dollars. That’s less than some high-end kitchen appliances!”

The $2.6 million home was designed and built by Astoria Custom Homes, Alberta’s premier custom homebuilder. 

According to Astoria co-owner Jim Stinson, “In just a few short years, homeowners’ media needs have evolved from speaker systems to TV media rooms to full home entertainment and control systems that provide media, security, and a host of other features at the touch of a smartphone or tablet. On the Street of Dreams project, Creative TSI helped us stand apart with their ‘Holodeck’ room and the ELAN g! System throughout the house.  At Astoria Custom Homes, every aspect of every home we build is guaranteed to be of uncompromising quality, and today that includes having an advanced home entertainment and control system like ELAN g!” 

The Astoria Custom Homes house at the Street of Dreams home design event features a whole-house Centralite Jetstream lighting system, DSC security system, a total of 14 audio zones with 24 ELAN in-ceiling speakers and 4 ELAN outdoor speakers, 4 wall-mounted Samsung LCD TVs, 3 Launchport wall docks and one tabletop Launchport dock that each activate room-specific, pre-programmed ELAN g! scenes for lighting, heating and entertainment.  Also integrated with the ELAN g! System are 3 Honeywell surveillance cameras, a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector.  The home is prewired for a prospective buyer to add climate controls and additional TVs, speakers and in-wall ELAN g! touch screens or iPads.

The Street of Dreams is an internationally acclaimed lifestyle and home design event that is utilizing Willow Creek at Bearspaw for one of its 2012 events, and it will attract more than 30,000 visitors to tour the homes.  The event runs from May 19 to July 1, 2012 and features four homes of 4,000-5,000 square feet, each with the latest in interior design, artistic landscaping and state-of-the-art technology.  Guests are invited to explore the properties for design ideas, to experience innovative and exciting home entertainment packages and pick up new lifestyle concepts that can be applied to their own homes. For show dates, times, tickets and more information visit www.streetofdreams.com.

The ELAN g! Entertainment and Control System provides users with the most uniform and intuitive icon-based control from their favorite devices including TVs, touchscreens, touchpads, 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 touchscreens, 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 - or 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.

About Astoria Custom Homes:

Astoria Custom Homes, based in Calgary, Alberta, is owned by Darrell Haase and Jim Stinson, who together have more than 55 years of combined experience in new home construction and land development. They are actively involved in the process of building your custom home. When you build a custom home with Astoria you deal directly with the President, Vice President, Site Manager, and Designer.  Astoria takes pride in being a custom homebuilder focused on relationships with its customers.  Because they build less than 30 homes per year, Astoria maintains a standard of quality and attention to detail that is unmatched by higher volume homebuilders. Visit www.astoriahomes.ca for more information.

About Creative TSI:

Creative TSI uses the latest technology and exceptional customer service to create home solutions since that provide the comfort and lifestyle that brings families together.  Since 1997, the company has been offering homebuilders and homeowners the latest technologies at affordable prices and designs every home system to meet each client’s exact needs and desires. For more information visit www.creativetsi.com or call 403-255-3850.

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. ELAN Home Systems is part of The AVC Group.  To learn more visit www.elanhomesystems.com.

About The AVC Group, LLC:

Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, The AVC Group, LLC is a portfolio of pre-eminent manufacturers and marketers of state-of-the-art consumer and commercial audio, video, and control system solutions.  The AVC Group is comprised of the following industry leading brands: Niles®, ELAN® Home Systems, Xantech®, ATON® and Sunfire®. The AVC Group, LLC is a subsidiary of Nortek, Inc.’s Home Technology Group.