Founded in 1946 as a corner drugstore in downtown Lincoln, Neb., integration firm Schaefer’s has expanded its offering over the years to include appliances, electronics, mattresses, and custom AV installation for the residential and commercial markets. A member of HTSN, the company felt confident it could help a local homeowner with their need for a beefier network and upgraded audio system.
The homeowner’s 3,400-square-foot space faced a familiar problem during the COVID-19 era: They were primarily working from home, and their network — consisting of a basic router in the basement — wasn’t providing the WiFi coverage needed. Furthermore, the home’s streaming audio system was not only falling offline, but it was difficult to operate. To address both of these issues, Schaefer’s turned to Legrand | AV brand solutions, replacing the router with Luxul’s Epic Mesh wireless mesh solution and the audio system with Nuvo P5050 and P5200 Professional Series Players.
The Epic Mesh kit comes with two dual-purpose mesh nodes that can each serve as either a router or a satellite node. All Schaefer’s had to do was turn one of the two included nodes into a router using the Luxul Easy Setup app. The other node becomes the satellite node, which is placed around the residence to create a powerful wireless mesh. There is no need to run additional wires; integrators just plug the satellite node into an available outlet.
“In my opinion, Epic Mesh is the best mesh product on the market,” says Ryan Yeackley, systems’ designer at Schaefer’s. “Not only does it offer more power and throughput, but it allows for advanced settings — all at a lower cost than competing solutions. Furthermore, Luxul’s warranty and support are the best in the industry, which allows us to provide our customers with peace of mind. And then there’s the reliability. Our team has installed Epic Mesh in 30 to 40 homes, and haven’t had to reset a single node yet.”
The P5050 Professional Series Players each provide powerful sound to three listening zones in the home, and offer built-in access to music options, including the most popular streaming music services and networked music collections. Thanks to AirPlay 2 integration, the homeowner is able to stream content seamlessly from iOS devices to one or more Nuvo players at once, allowing them to enjoy their music throughout the home in perfect sync, and even control playback using their voice with Siri. The 1U P5050 and 2U P5200 are mounted in a 55-inch SANUS rack.
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“For the home’s audio system, we were drawn to Nuvo for two primary reasons,” says Yeackley. “One was sound quality, which is superior to many of its competitors. The second was ease of use. Not only can you customize the Nuvo Player App to make it as intuitive as possible for the user, but with Nuvo’s AirPlay 2 capability it’s simple to control the system without downloading an app at all. Users just open Apple Music on their iPhone or iPad, select their music and zone(s), and hit play. It’s a great feature for homeowners and guests alike.”
