Award winning integrator Admit One Home Cinema has completed a massive installation in a Twin Cities home that incorporated over $130,000 worth of technology into every corner of the residence, extending out to the sport court, garage, pool, and outdoor fireplace. Highlights of the home include a 15-zone, whole-house audio system featuring a Sonos ZP90 streaming system and Marantz ST7001 tuner; a 10-zone distributed video system with LG Blu-ray players and an Apple® TV; two surround areas featuring Integra A/V receivers; a camera and security system; and a Lutron RadioRA® 2 lighting system. The most awe-inspiring feature is a 100-inch Stewart Glass rear projection screen and accompanying DPI M400 projector in the home’s lower-level surround area.

“In an installation of this magnitude, we certainly faced a number of challenges,” says Lance Anderson, CEO and founder of Admit One Home Cinema. “One of these was incorporating equipment as organically as possible throughout the space. This was particularly difficult when it came to hiding away the DPI projector in the lower-level surround area. Another was providing flexible and simple control over all the technology in this incredibly complex system for the homeowners and guests. To do this, it was important to tie the whole home together into one intuitive interface, which the client wanted to access via iPads® and iPhones®. To meet these requirements, we relied on RTI.”

The home’s control system is powered by RTI’s XP-8 control processor, which offers an abundance of advanced control interface options, such as two-way RS-232, routable IR, relay, and Ethernet control. To accommodate the size of the installation, the XP-8 was used with two PCM-8 port control modules, two CB-8 connecting blocks, and three RM-433 RF receivers. The homeowners have control over all systems in and outside the home via the RTiPanel app running on five iOS devices. To make sure a control device is always available, eight T2-C+ controllers are also featured throughout the home, in addition to seven RK1-8 in-wall keypads to complement the audio system.

For the RTiPanel, Admit One provided the homeowners with a completely customized interface. The company created a whole-house page that allows users to adjust the audio, video, and source selections from a global view. Thanks to the XP-8’s seamless integration with the Lutron lighting system and other components, users receive two-way feedback, allowing them to view audio levels and temperatures in specific areas — even the open/closed status of the garage doors — while providing easy adjustment for granular control.

“The homeowners have been ecstatic about this installation, and relieved to find that control over all of this technology can be so simple,” adds Anderson. “RTI’s Integration Designer ® programming software gave us the tools to easily create a fantastic interface for controlling the whole house, and we are proud of not offering our client a canned solution.”