Lexington, Kent. – Elan will go to
next week’s CEDIA Expo to mark its 20
th
anniversary with additional
components for its g! IP-based home-management series and with speakers
targeted at Multiple Dwelling Unit (MDU) and retrofit installs.
The Elios series speakers consist
of a half-depth in-ceiling speaker and a low-profile on-wall speaker. Both are
the brand’s first speakers designed specifically for MDUs, retrofit installs
and limited-space installations.
“Both speakers are among the
industry’s first to address the burgeoning MDU construction market and the
specific construction and installation requirements commonly found in Europe
and the U.S. retrofit market,” the company said. In fact, a spokesperson added,
both speakers “are the first low-profile speakers with components specifically
designed, engineered and optimized for MDUs from anyone as far as we know.”
The Elios ES71C 7-inch in-ceiling speaker features
an all-new mount and baffle with a working depth of only 2.56 inches to fit in
a quarter of the space available in normal U.S. installs, making them suitable
for MDU’s, European construction and U.S. retrofit installs, the company said.
It comes with 7-inch woofer delivering up to 50 watts of bass output compared
to 2.5- and 3-inch drivers used by competitors in the space, Elan said. The
speaker also features pivoting tweeter and a low-depth steel baffle with
self-contained hard-plastic back cover to prevent sound migration to rooms
above.
The Elios ES412 on-wall speaker has two
4.5-inch drivers, a wedge-shaped ABS cabinet that mounts directly to drywall,
and brackets for a standard J-box and a Euro-style circular box. The speakers
are shaped to fit directly against a wall, in the corners of a wall, and at the
point where a ceiling and wall meet.
The speakers are available in
white and black with a choice of white, black and gray grille cloth options.
“With MDU and small-install opportunities
growing across the country, our engineers went back to the drawing board to
design speakers that out-performed and out-played similarly sized speakers —
and at half the depth,” said Elan president Paul Starkey.
To the recently launched g!
series of IP-based home-control devices, Elan is showing multiple new
components that recently shipped or will soon ship. The handheld Wi-Fi/IR HR2
remote ships in October. Around Expo time, the TS7 7-inch in-wall touchscreen
and two controllers — the HC12 and HC6 — are scheduled to ship along with a
beta of the company’s iPad app. The rest of the series, including additional
touchscreens will ship by the end of the year.
In the g! series, IP-based control signals are sent
from an in-wall touchpad, an in-wall touchscreen, a new Wi-Fi/IR remote, networked
PCs, iPod Touches, iPhones and iPads to two home controllers. The controllers
are the $3,000 HC12 and $1,950 HC6. Both incorporate two-way drivers to control
security, climate, lighting,
entertainment, irrigation and pool/spa systems. To connect to these systems,
the HC12 controller features 12 serial
ports, 12 IR inputs, two RS485 ports, two Elan VIA!Net ports, six
sensing inputs, four relays and two USB
ports. The HC6 cuts the number of serial ports to six and relays to two.
The HC12 and HC6 controllers
feature 720p component output to display a GUI on a flat-panel TV via
component-video cables. The TV interface is customized for large displays but
has the same look and feel as the interface appearing on the g! touchscreen,
PCs and Apple devices. The controllers also manage music, photos, and stored
security-camera video. That content can be stored on the HC12’s embedded 250GB
HDD and on an optional network-attached storage (NAS) device. The HC6 lacks
hard drive but connects to NAS drives. Both components feature discrete
two-zone discrete audio outputs.
To send commands to the controllers, Elan
plans post-CEDIA shipments of its first-ever handheld remote, the $760 HR2 Wi-Fi/IR
handheld remote with charging dock. The 1-inch-thick 8-ounce remote features
2.4-inch OLED 320 by 240 touchscreen, 43 backlit hard buttons, and built-in
accelerometer that turns the HR2 on when picked up. The touchscreen also
displays metadata transmitted via Wi-Fi. The lithium-polymer battery delivers
10 hours of use and charges when the remote is in the charging base in an
upright position.
Also to send commands to the
controllers, Elan recently shipped the $1,700 in-wall TS7 LCD touchscreen with
7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen, touch navigation of music and movie libraries,
live full-screen analog video for security cameras and TV previews, and six
hard-buttons for commonly used functions. An integrated microphone and speaker
enable IP-based intercom capability.
Earlier in the year, Elan shipped a $610 TS2
Film Interactive in-wall touchpad at a suggested $610 and optional $100 VL2
tabletop kit for the TS2. The double-gang TS2 features 2-inch OLED display and
controls home systems in a single zone. It also displays weather forecasts.
Also available are new g! precision panels,
which start at suggested retails of $30 to provide wire and cable trim out.
They feature labeled rear-panel punch downs and front-panel jacks for all
system connections. The panels eliminate misconnections and make
trouble-shooting faster, the company said. The panels can be mounted in-wall or
in a standard 19-inch-wide equipment rack.
