Welcome to BeoWorld!

To get the ball rolling, type MLGW into the search tool on site.

That will be the "nervous system" for your new beo-apartment, and the threads returned will give you some ideas while waiting for someone to respond.

Here is a link to the MLGW page at:

Beonic wrote:

Dear all,

I am a relatively new B&O fan, and I wondered if someone could help me out with a few questions about how things work and what I'll need.

I would like to connect my curtains, lighting, audio and video using a masterlink connection after seing the rather inspiring video on the B&O website (http://www.bang-olufsen.com/masterlink-gateway). 

I need to understand what I'll need to make this happen, What kind of B&O products do I need, how do I connect my curtains (and where do I buy them), and how do I connect my lighting.

I want to come home, press a button and make my home come alive i.e. my curtains open, my lights to turn on and my audiosystem to start playing my favorite tunes.

How do i do this, and how much will I have to spend to make it happen?

 

A lot of the answers to your questions depend on where you live.  In the US we use Lutron primarily for control of lights, curtains/shades, climate, etc. but I know there are a number of different brands available in Europe.  How much you spend could be as little as $5,000US or as much as $100,000US+.  It all depends on exactly what you'd like to integrate!

Looked at doing this as we were designing the interior of our apartment from scratch. Just the cabling to have our sound system wired throughout the house was 20 000 CHF(17 000 Euro).... the additional MLGW with iPhone App as we wanted was another 20k.... but I guess it really depends what system you use. It would have been a nice toy but probably not much more practical in reality.

Hopefully someone else has some useful info for you.

First of all you will have to decide exactly what you want and where, today most door, window, light and power outlets can be operated wireless from a central. That will save you a lot of wire in the walls. Second, decide where you want your audio and video equipment, and think about what you want in the future, then put the tubes with wires for your audio and video equipment, seperated from the power lines and empty tubes and outlets or junktion boxes for future plans.

Where builders save money is on power outlets, in my experience you need at least a double outlet for each 2 meter wall, in the area where you connect your audio/video more, allso think about antennas(and sky or TV service) and telephone (wireless but lines in is a must).

I renovated my kitchen 3 years ago, I have now 10 outlets over the workspace and additional power for herd, ventilation and some extra at the wall light switches.

I have an MLGW 'home' so to speak.

I use Lutron throughought.

I use the radioRa2 system on mine.

I use the MLGW to control the lights, sounds and combinations of the two!

it's really cool!

Welcome to the forum,  You will discover it depends on how far and what budget you wish to take it.  You can easily spend significant $$ on this project.  Visit a few showrooms for the basics.  B and O is relatively new to home automation and is only recently entering into 2 way communication protocols to provide secure feedback and limited metadata(so u may want to look elsewhere for richer control functions).  I would suggest a hybrid system at present using lutron Radio RA2 for lighting, lutron for automatic shades,  lutron or crestron for HVAC control, security and cameras---Elk and dedicated micros, audio and video servers(many available),  spinklers, swiming pools, coffee makers----you can control it all if you have the inclination, resources and wits available to you.  Good luck and have fun.  Ron