All iPads New (bigger) apartement : what devices to buy to control all media with the ipad ?

[FrenchPB]

Guys,

I just bought a new apartment, much bigger than the studio I used to own during my student years. As a consequence, I have more rooms, and more problems to keep everything "connected" in the house.

Since I'll have some changes to make in the apartement and many things to purchase before moving in, I was wondering if you guys could help me define a fully Mac-connected apartment.

One thing is that I'd like my ipad and my wife's iphone to be able to control systems and speakers in the different rooms. Would you have any idea and recommendations in order to do that ? What devices / accessories should we buy ?

We have a 27-inch iMac in the study / computer room, where all our media content is stored (videos are not on itunes, they're mkv and avi files most of the time). We'd like to access our medias in the other rooms, and control them with our ipad or iphone. Would that be possible ?


Here are the different rooms, and what we'd like to install in each of those :
- living room : 55-inch TV + home cinema
- kitchen : 26-inch TV + additionnal speakers maybe
- master bedroom : 32-inch TV + additionnal speakers maybe
- study / computer room : iMac + additionnal speakers maybe


I've heard of some Böse or Sonos systems, would you recommend them for music ? Would you rather have an iMac mini in the living room, or Apple TV ?

Thanks for all your advices.

 

[glen e]

I am just starting to do this and so far I have just my alarm system and thermostat on all my iOS devices.

I use alarm.com which has an app that works very well. The t-stat allows heat and cool schedules, the alarm allows arming from anywhere. For a small amount, I can add modules that turn off/nn any electrical plug in devices.
The system uses Z-wave technology and I use the "2gig" system - everything installed by myself and all sensors in the house are wireless - so it's peel and stick, you have the box "sense" the sensors and you're set.

 

[HazyCloud]

I am just starting to do this and so far I have just my alarm system and thermostat on all my iOS devices.

I use alarm.com which has an app that works very well. The t-stat allows heat and cool schedules, the alarm allows arming from anywhere. For a small amount, I can add modules that turn off/nn any electrical plug in devices.
The system uses Z-wave technology and I use the "2gig" system - everything installed by myself and all sensors in the house are wireless - so it's peel and stick, you have the box "sense" the sensors and you're set.

Media is what the OP is looking for. But, I'm going to look into some of things you posted.

OP, I personally use Apple TVs and AirPort Express with speakers plugged into them in my house and it works perfectly. I went this route since the AE also extends my Wi-Fi network since it's plugged in via Ethernet. If you do decided to go with an AE that's wireless, you'll want to join it to your network and not use it as an extender if you plan on using it for music. It's much better with AirPlay when it's a client.

I've also heard great things about Sonos' but I don't know if they show up in iTunes as AirPlay speakers and I think you have to use Sonos' app. I'd much rather use something from Apple as it's integrated with all of my devices right out of the box.

There's ways to share mkv's and such, but someone else will have to help you with that. All of my TV shows and movies are in iTunes already so I just use it.

 

[FrenchPB]

I am just starting to do this and so far I have just my alarm system and thermostat on all my iOS devices.

I use alarm.com which has an app that works very well. The t-stat allows heat and cool schedules, the alarm allows arming from anywhere. For a small amount, I can add modules that turn off/nn any electrical plug in devices.
The system uses Z-wave technology and I use the "2gig" system - everything installed by myself and all sensors in the house are wireless - so it's peel and stick, you have the box "sense" the sensors and you're set.

Not what I was asking, but very interesting nonetheless. I'm especially interested in your heat control system. Could you recommend any brand for those electrical plug in devices and sensors ?

Here's a system I was planning to install (video in French) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5cCMn8wkb8

If I could control that with my ipad / iphone, that'd be really cool

Media is what the OP is looking for. But, I'm going to look into some of things you posted.

OP, I personally use Apple TVs and AirPort Express with speakers plugged into them in my house and it works perfectly. I went this route since the AE also extends my Wi-Fi network since it's plugged in via Ethernet. If you do decided to go with an AE that's wireless, you'll want to join it to your network and not use it as an extender if you plan on using it for music. It's much better with AirPlay when it's a client.

I've also heard great things about Sonos' but I don't know if they show up in iTunes as AirPlay speakers and I think you have to use Sonos' app. I'd much rather use something from Apple as it's integrated with all of my devices right out of the box.

There's ways to share mkv's and such, but someone else will have to help you with that. All of my TV shows and movies are in iTunes already so I just use it.

I'm not sure that understand what the apple airport does when you already have a wifi router at home. For instance, I can already share a printer through my wifi router. Does airport does the same for audio and video ? Do you need an airport station for each room / speaker ?

 

[Soondae]

multimedia wizard

I am extremely happy with my multimedia setup in my large two story home. I have my main router upstairs and I have a second router downstairs that is connected to the main over ethernet. I then transmit using the same SSID, encryption and password wireless on both routers. In order for this to work you must have DHCP control on the main and off on the second router. This allows you to walk around the house with a full signal and never switching SSID.

For multimedia I have an external drive hooked up to the main router which is shared across the network (I found TomatoUSB to be the best router firmware for this purpose). My Mac mini is my main computer and I have two Apple TV one downstairs living room and one in upstairs office. My living room ATV is gen 2 and running Firecore so it can access the multimedia content on the external drive upstairs. The Firecore media player will play media using all containers (avi, mkv, mp4 etc.). However for my ATV3 upstairs I found a great solution; on my Mac I run a program called Beamer, it instantly transcodes the various formatted movies and TV Shows then outputs them to the ATV of my choice.

Why use Beamer when the VLC player over air play can do the same you ask? If I want full screen then I have to have VLC full screen which renders my Mac useless for other tasking. Beamer has a nice small display window that you drop your video file into and it instantly plays to your ATV full screen, thereby keeping my Mac available as I need.

I'd skip the expense of the Sonos system for Audio and instead go with Airplay speakers throughout the house which can then be controlled by any of you IOS devices including the Apple TV's. Airplay speakers are my next project.

 

[glen e]

Not what I was asking, but very interesting nonetheless. I'm especially interested in your heat control system. Could you recommend any brand for those electrical plug in devices and sensors ?

this is the main box system for the alarm and setting up with alarm.com

http://www.homesecuritystore.com/p-...ol-panel-wireless-alarm-kit-with-att-gsm.aspx

the CT 100 thermostat is another $100 and listed in their accessories

the system is about $160 a year to work thru your iOS and be wireless 4G. I travel a lot, no one home except my Goldens. It is so nice to be able to turn up/down the a/c when a storm comes thru.

the ipad/iphone screens for security/t-stat look like these: