How Can Your Audio/Visual Systems Make You Green?

How many times have you been the last one out of the building?  Making the rounds to every meeting room and office just to turn off the lights and save on energy.  The drive for our homes and buildings to be more energy efficient is at an all time high.  For example, in the coming years incandescent light bulbs will no longer be available only compact fluorescents because they are more energy efficient.  The ultimate goal that we are striving to reach is that each building will eventually reach Net Zero status.  What Net Zero status means is that the building does not consume any energy it does not need and does not put out any carbon emissions.  Typically we associate the thought of a net zero architecture project as being full of green technology such as solar panels, natural resource recycling and energy conservation, and it’s that last one that we want to focus on when it comes to using A/V technology in a green environment.

When you talk to a nutritionist or trainer about going on a diet the first thing they focus on is to make sure that you are using your caloric intake efficiently.  Meaning, are you consuming more or fewer calories than you are burning in a given day?  The same holds true for how an energy efficient building operates.  The goal, of course, is to make sure that as little energy is being wasted as possible.  So how can the A/V system contribute to making these buildings more energy efficient to approach that net zero status?  Making the proper choices will help you take the first steps in moving toward a more energy efficient building.  Are the devices that are being installed, such as the LCD display in your new boardroom, rated with energy star compliance?  Is the equipment at the core of the system, such as signal processors, mixers, and amplifiers, engineered to decrease current draw when the system is not in use?  The first thing to consider when looking to make the move to a green(er) A/V solution is the selection of the devices that you intend to use.  Although, if you are looking to use the A/V system to reach beyond and help your company save on energy consumption, then looking at a centralized and scheduled control system would be the next step in the process. 

Your business performs the majority of its operations during a set timeframe on a weekday, typically between 8 to 5 or 9 to 6.  So that leaves 15 other hours of the day that the systems can be shut down or left to rest in a low consumption idle mode.  But how can we make the building more efficient during the hours of operation?  That is where the central control system comes into play.  Companies like Crestron and AMX are known for their building control systems, and both offer a scheduling based solution.  How would that affect the way that your building currently operates?  In essence, each room that you choose to have connected to the central control system would have end point devices.  The beauty of these systems is that they have the ability to control more than just the A/V; they can also work with lighting systems, HVAC systems, and even access control systems if necessary.  Once a room is scheduled for use, control signals can be triggered to activate the devices just prior to the room being occupied.  At that point they can remain on while the system is still in use.  This can be done with occupancy motion sensors and other programming methods, but once the system no longer detects activity in the room it can return to a state of idleness where the temperature is regulated, lights are turned off, and any associated A/V devices are turned off or returned to their idle running state.  Of course this scheduling system can be overridden manually if there is a need for the space, and at that point it will just require a brief moment for the devices to initialize for use.

In these economic times we must explore new options as to how we can utilize the resources available to us.  Changing how the resources we have function when not in use is a long term way to not only save on costs for your business in the short term, but potentially push the business towards no energy costs in a long term plan.

For more information on how these room scheduling and control devices could 

help your company, please contact ICS – Integrated Communication Systems at 408-491-6000 or on the web at www.ics-integration.com.

A New Way for Your Network to Improve Communication

Business today moves at the speed of information.  Each employee is wired into a network backbone allowing for communication and collaboration regardless of physical location.  Network infrastructure has become a key for every business to facilitate the ability to pass information at will wherever it needs to go.

That existing network has become much more influential to our businesses as more and more devices are connecting to it.  Now the office printers and even our phone systems are network based.  The same is true for audio visual equipment.  Devices that are network capable are becoming the standard in A/V making it easier to communicate for all Audio Visual devices over your company network.  But that’s just where it begins.  In addition to being able to use the touch panel on your conference room wall to have the screen drop and turn on the projector, we are also able to pass live audio and video signals across the network.

This network based audio solution is what ICS, in conjunction with Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc., has provided for the new expansion to the San Jose Convention Center.  The idea behind the network audio system is simple: there are dozens of possible configurations for the divisible meeting spaces, each meeting space area has multiple places to connect an audio source (microphone, iPod, Blu-Ray player, etc.) and multiple places to send that audio (like a local powered speaker or recording device).  The challenge that had to be overcome was with so many possible input locations trying to potentially reach so many output locations is, how could we find a way to make it easy to route those signals anywhere we needed them to go?  By implementing an Audinate ‘Dante’ network audio solution with system components including the Atterotech unDX2IO, MediaMatrix NiON n6, a Crestron Pro3 control system, and HP 10 gigabit network switches we were able to provide simple control for all signal routing across the network.  With the click of a mouse, a technician has the ability to route a single microphone to any designated area or combination of areas they wish for the given event.  In order to accomplish this with analog audio technology, it would have required that all signals, and thus cables, route back to a centralized room with 6’ tall racks completely filled with nothing but patch bays forcing them to physically connect a cable (just like the old phone system operators) to pass that sound to where it needed to go.

So why is this network audio solution so significant?  Let’s go back to how businesses are currently operating.  With businesses having locations with multiple conference rooms, remote locations and employees, by utilizing a network audio solution you are no longer limited to passing that audio signal just to a local area.  Now you can use your company’s existing network to send sound to any location that is capable of receiving that digital signal.  Just as a remote worker plugs in a laptop to connect to your local data system, they can now plug in an audio receiver making the conversation and information clearer and pushing your business farther and faster.

For more information on how a network audio solution could help your business, please feel free to contact ICS Integrated Communication Systems at 408-491-6000.

Using Interactive Technology to Welcome Clients

Recently ICS was contracted to provide a unique digital signage solution for UMPQUA Bank in downtown San Francisco.  This new facility was to have state of the art interaction for their customers while trying to keep it energy efficient.  What they wanted to do was provide a personal connection, not only from their visible personnel to the customers, but also to the “behind the scenes” executives.  This was accomplished through a series of displays placed throughout the space.

With a window façade facing the street, 3 NEC displays were used to allow for independent content to be broadcast to each.  If they wanted to show company profiles, local news, or information on the facilities, all of that could be managed in house with their content creation team.  This type of signage has become more common place in store front applications to draw attention to what things can be possible inside. 

UMPQUA, with the help of Charles M. Salter Associates, went above and beyond a standard signage application by the use of 2 interactive digital signage walls.  As opposed to having someone develop content for them that cycles continuously throughout the day, UMPQUA will be developing specialized content to be displayed on these walls.  When no one is standing in front of the displays, they can be showing things like local news, headlines, weather, the UMPQUA twitter feed or other static types of content.   As soon as someone steps up to these displays motion sensors will trigger the interactive content to appear.  At this point any potential customer will have the ability to peruse the personal profiles of employees, the history of the business, and graphical representations of the services offered.  During non-business hours, one of these video walls can even be used as a presentation wall for training employees or displaying specialized content for high profile clients.

The crowning jewel in this application might be the most subtle portion of the job.  Within the windows to the street, UMPQUA BANK is written in frosted glass.  Hidden away inside the building is a series of 6 NEC projectors that have been edge blended together to project directly onto the store front glass.  This means that throughout the day the UMPQUA BANK logo can change colors or even have streaming patters flow across it essentially drawing attention to the logo and enticing curious people to come inside.

As had been mentioned, the focus was interactivity; however, there was also a desire for energy efficiency.  With 12 NEC displays and 6 NEC projectors running throughout the day a fair amount of energy was being used.  To curtail this energy consumption to peak traffic times and conserve energy when viewers were scarcer, the Crestron control system installed was set up with a schedule to only have the displays running at optimal times.

To find out more about how we can use this and other available interactive technologies for your business, reach out to us and we can see how to achieve your current business needs and goals.

Photo of people interacting with the touch screen display taken from sfgate.com article:

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