McMahon Media designs an outdoor AV system for a client in Franklin, Ma.
Having worked with this client in the past designing his media room surround sound system McMahon was called to add audio to his favorite spot in the house – outdoors!
The homeowner having lived there less than a year knew what he wanted and started adding an in-ground pool, fire pit, and cabana to house his new AV design. Music of course was requested but living so close to Patriots Stadium and being an avid Patriots fan an outdoor TV was a must.
The design was a little tricky as we wanted to keep everything inside the home. There was to be no heat inside the cabana so gear needed to be somewhere temperature controlled. Conduit was installed during construction of the home so running wires would be a snap. Though running video cable and several speaker cables posed to be a challenge for the size conduit used. McMahon had to re-engineer a new solution so that everything would stay on track and still keep the gear temperature controlled.
A 55″ Sunbrite television was installed facing the bar and seating area of the cabana. The cable box was installed in an equipment rack inside the home so changing channels would require a remote control system that could reach the house. We used a Crestron remote that worked over WiFi. A small network was installed adding a wireless access point at the cabana for the remote to access the system in the house and for better web access outdoors. Sonos was used for the audio system so having the access point nearby also provided access to the homeowners music collection on their phones.
Speakers were installed next to the TV to cover the inside of the cabana for music. The audio system can also switch over to the TV adding better quality sound for the football games. Speakers were installed at the pool area as a separate zone so music and sports watching could happen at the same time.
