I have a client who is looking for a feature i've never had to deal with before. He wants his morning prayers to come on every morning at a certain time through his audio system. Initially i figured we could burn to a cd and have a dedicated player for this feature and set up some type of macro. He now tells me he will need to have the option to change the time and turn off this feature when necessary.

Any ideas or help will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

My first question to you is what type of control system is currently installed in the house???? Keypads, touchscreens, or volume controls???

My second question is how are the rooms powered up now? Speaker Selector, Multichannel amp, Impedance matching volume controls hooked up to receiver????

Answer these and we'll go from there.

Robbie S

AMX system will do the trick easily, you can have a page on a panel that is easier than setting an alarm clock to fire up the system and play the cd (or MP3 is you put it on a hard drive etc.) at the specified and adjustable time.

You could trick an Elan and even a Lutron system into doing what you want, but the input side would be more difficult.

As for making an IR only remote do it, even if you could ensure reliablity of ir transfer (meaning he set up some timer right and set the remote in the right place) my experience with these remotes is they like to forget what time it is, or change it on boot up etc, it just doesn't seem IR only is a good solution.

If IR is your only option, Xantech makes the 590-10 contach closure to IR box. There are a number of commercial timers that offer a contact closure output, many automated sprinkler systems use one.

jcmitch

[Link: xantech.com]

Thanks for the feedback -
i'm gonna use the Elan HD system and Via PC fo his control options.
Mike

Using Microsoft Outlook, you can set up an appointment, check "reminder" and then select the .wav file that you want to play. I would input the computer feed as some type of intercomm signal or aux input if using an amp such as the Sonance Sonamp1260, etc...

The nice thing is that you can schedule recurrences and change the time on the fly.

How's about that?

Or perhaps you could tell him, a bit more politely than this, to be sure, that the whole point of prayer is direct connection with one's consciousness and personal effort and the experience and learning that comes with that. Prayer is not intended to be able to be mistaken for Muzak. If he wants to automate this, he is fooling himself. It won't have the desired effect. It might make him feel good that he is "observing" prayers every day, but religion that just makes a person feel good can hardly improve a person! And if his religion is not for improving him, then either he is God, or Christ, or Buddha, or Muhammad, or, again, he is fooling himself.

His consciousness is the preferred tool for integrating prayer into his life. If God, or Allah, or whoever had intended otherwise, then we probably would have been created with some kind of computer connector in our heads...Cinch-Jones, Amphenol, RCA, who knows? But we weren't. Not RCA; that does not lend itself to two-way communication.

And if that doesn't do it, ask him if his mullah, minister, priest, rabbi, or whatever approves of this approach.

Yes Ernie is right... make sure to use a balanced connection. God would be insulted at a simple single ended connection. The wire should be silver or silver coated with gold pins. It will bring the message along with more clarity and dynamic slam.

Ernie,
You're absolutely right! I would relay the message, however i have such a hard time understanding this guy when we've spoke that it's just easier for me to do an upgrade to the original proposal. It will make him happy and he's paying good money, so who am i to deny this man of his wishes?
Mike

Am I right in thinking that you are saying that you resolved the issue by using the Elan system?

CJ

That was my intention. If you've got a better suggestion please feel free.

Halelujah!! I've heard it all now, automated absolution. What a country!

If you ask me, the Elan HD system should be over in our "Those were the days thread" [Link: remotecentral.com]

Have fun........... Hope you really like that customer because your going to be spending a lot of late nights there....

When you start adding up the HD system, you can easily be in the same price range as an AMX or Crestron based system. Have substantially more flexibility, IP based control options, True web/ethernet interface, and dedicated suites of software that can be put on a clients computer to schedule events.

The custom CD is a great idea, but I would do an Escient fireball or other Hard drive based player that you could set up custom playlists. That way if he needs to update his "songs" its no problem.... Dont have to burn a new disc... Just pop it into the fireball and assign it to the playlist.

Impaqt -
The reason i'm planning on the Elan HD is because I don't do Crestron or AMX, and feel this may be my only solution.
I've done a few HD systems in the past and never had the late night problems you mention. Hopefully this one will go as smooth.
The hard drive based unit is a great idea though.
Thanks for the input.
Mike

I have an Elan HD system (which I setup myself) and do what you're talking about. I also use a music server- the Arrakis DC4. What I like about it is that it has 6 zones of audio output (both digital and analog). I use the zones as genres and just switch between the sources to choose classical, jazz, children's, party, etc. It also has 6 (or 8?) RS232 ports for control. I have 1 hooked to my computer and another hooked to a Xantech IRDC4, which allows the Elan system to control it too.

CJ