Home Entertainment and Technology
at Your Fingertips
by Linda Sechrist

   Since 2000, home entertainment has emerged as the hottest trend in the home building industry. As many as eighty percent of the new custom homes and production homes in Collier and Lee Counties are now including such features as media rooms, home theatres, remote controlled web based live video monitoring and recording, whole house entertainment systems, and structured wiring systems.
   With this explosive growth in home technology it is understandable that Robert Forbis, owner of Premier Electric, Florida’s largest residential electrical contractor, which happens to be based ight here in Southwest Florida, decided to start a separate division to serve the technology needs of its customers.“ Every year we wire almost six thousand new homes and condominiums in this area. Our Home Entertainment and Technology. Division provides a real benefit to our customers. We make it simple for them, we not only design and engineer the electrical wiring and lighting for their homes, we can also integrate all of the latest technologies into the home. Our Design Studio in Bonita Springs lets the homeowner see and experience the latest state of the a t technologies for the home.”
   “Home ownership in the new millennium is about easy living, comfort, luxury, and enhancing the enjoyment of every experience in all indoor and outdoor spaces of the home,” adds Premier Electric’s general manager, Jim Dixon.“This indicates that the whole house, including the outdoors, has the capabilities of a media room. No one needs to limit their enjoyment of home entertainment to one room.Even the pool or lanai now offers the access to quality audio/visual entertainment.” As an example, Dixon described how SpeakerCraft® recessed outdoor speakers installed in the ceiling of a covered lanai now offer the outstanding sound quality once produced only by floor-standing speakers.
   Premier Electric’s audio/video specialists can also help the homeowner determine which products truly fit their needs and specifications based on the lifestyle of the customer. For example, if much of your time is spent watching TV, there is a vast array of products in today’s market, including but not limited to Plasma, LCD, or Digital Light Processing (DLP) televisions. When music is also a key element, Premier Electric designs with speakers from SpeakerCraft®, who offer a full array of indoor and outdoor options. Premier also offers audio serves and a multi-zone keypad system to give the homeowner the capability to direct different music to various living spaces.
   Damon Warfel, of Damon Custom Structures, a luxury homebuilder in Naples, recently built his own custom home. Opting not just for a media room, he hired Premier Electric to set up his whole house audio entertainment system and closed circuit television secuity system. He and his wife, Nanette, wanted to enjoy surround sound from their favo ite DVDs on the crystal clear picture from their 52-inch high definition flat- screen TV in their living room.The couple arely goes out for a movie prefer ing the privacy and comfort of their media room to public places. Warfel also installed a 42-inch plasma flat screen TV in both his game room and in his master bedroom above the fireplace.
   In regards to his whole house audio system, Warfel says, “It’s nice to be able to hit a button anywhere in the house and turn on the CD player and it’s reassuring to know that all of this adds value to our lives and to the resale of our home. ”Admitting to being less than technology savvy, he concludes,“ The whole house audio system is easy to use.”
   In addition to plasma TVs and whole house audio systems Premier Electric offers their customers something different.“ Many customers have no idea they can put a camera system in their home and view and control it over the internet from anywhere in the world,” said Forbis.“ This gives you incredible peace of mind when you have people wo king in your home while you are away. In addition to viewing the cameras remotely you can also go back to any date and time and see what has happened from any of up to 16 camera locations.”
   This technology was not possible three years ago, but the advent of high speed internet lines has made it all possible. In addition to fixed color cameras, moveable pan/tilt/zoom cameras can be installed which allow you to zoom in 25 times and rotate 360 degrees, all controlled from afar, over your own secure internet connection. There are even new cameras that will track a person walking on your property! Using infrared illuminators, Premier Electric can “light up” your yard with infrared light, which the human eye cannot detect but to the camera it looks like it is daytime. Intruders do not even know they are being seen and recorded in total darkness.
   This marriage of media and security also creates another “illuminating ”feature in home security. Low voltage lighting controls programmed to turn down your media room lights not only help to create the ultimate movie experience but also can offer an added security benefit. Your lights throughout the house can be programmed to turn on when the sun sets and go off at varying times every day so that it appears that someone is at home even when they are not.
   As you can see today’s homeowner and interior designers have an ar ay of home entertainment and technology options to enhance the at home experience. The latest high quality video, audio, lighting and remote control home monitoring systems offer homeowners a bountiful ar ay of features to enrich their lifestyles and increase their personal security.

PREMIER ELECTRIC
1443 Rail Head Boulevard
Naples, FL
239 598-2000