ELAN Powers Smart Home for Packers Hall of Famer Nick Collins

After sustaining a neck injury and retiring from the NFL’s Green Bay Packers at the age of 28, All-American safety Nick Collins returned to his home state of Florida with his wife and children to begin the next stage of his career as a personal trainer.

When Nick and Andrea Collins began building their all-new 10,000-sq.-ft. ranch in Winter Garden, they envisioned a simple yet sophisticated smart home that would satisfy all their entertainment, control, and safety needs. In particular, they wanted to be able to control their home’s lighting, security, climate, audio, and video systems from the touch of a button — regardless of their physical location inside the sprawling new home. 

To make this dream a reality, they turned to local technology integrator Mike Barry of Millennium Systems Design, whom they had worked with in the past on a previous home. “The Collins family needed total home control in the simplest way possible,” says Barry. “I knew that the ELAN entertainment and control system would offer secure and instant remote control that could be relied upon for years to come as they went about their busy schedule. That’s why I chose to design the entire A/V system around it.”

With Nick and Andrea’s go-ahead on the game plan, Millennium Systems Design installed an ELAN gSC10 system controller, three ELAN g1 system controllers, and two ELAN S1616A multi-room audio amplifiers to span the entire home. To control the system, the company installed 10 ELAN in-wall touch panels and connected three ELAN remotes, and, with the ELAN mobile app, the Collinses can control any technology within the home from anywhere in the world.

“We love having a touch panel in every room of the house,” says Nick Collins. “Regardless of what room I am in, I can adjust anything I need to, whether it be the music playing or the lighting levels. Even when I am out training, I can check in on the security-camera footage from the ELAN app on my phone.”

With five children living in the single-floored ranch, the Collins family also required simple face-to-face communications enabled by the system. ELAN’s intercom feature, Andrea Collins says, is an extremely useful tool that the family can use to communicate throughout the house. “I can call the kids from the living room using the ELAN touch panel and it’s so much easier than yelling,” she says.

High-end audio was also a crucial component of the family’s new smart home. To build an extensive audio system that would allow Nick and Andrea to listen to whatever they wanted in any room of the house, Millennium Systems Design divided the extensive system into 19 zones of audio. “Every single room has its own audio zone, and each can be controlled through the ELAN system,” says Barry. “It’s one of the biggest audio systems I have ever built.”

To ensure that the audio was felt and heard, Millennium Systems Design installed SpeakerCraft Profile Cinema in-ceiling subwoofers to produce targeted sound in the large spaces, like the Grand Hall. “The whole home audio system is hidden but heard,” says Barry. “For example, to fill the outside courtyard with quality sound, I installed multiple SpeakerCraft RUCUKUS 6 One rock speakers that blend right into the landscape. The speakers look subtle, but they don’t sound subtle.”

Additionally, the Collinses’ in-home theater has its own standalone Dolby Atmos audio system that is also controlled through the ELAN app. Creating an environment that embodies a cinema-like experience, Millennium Systems Design installed a 120-in. 1 Stewart Filmscreen Luxus Deluxe 123-in. 16:9 Soundscreen paired with a SIM2 projector that can play films and videogames in 3D.  Additionally, the company installed six ELAN-controlled reclining theater chairs with three big beanbag chairs for the kids. “We often host movie nights with our family and friends,” says Nick Collins. “We pop in any movie we want, right at home. I also play videogames with the kids in the theater, which is really awesome.”

Since Winter Garden, FL, experiences a fair share of thunderstorms, Millennium Systems Design made sure to protect all of the home’s technology with a Panamax M4320-Pro power conditioner. “Power protection is extremely important,” says Barry. “The BlueBOLT remote energy management in the M4320-Pro makes it really easy to reset the network after a storm. I get a notification in my office, and I can easily reset the WiFi, cable boxes, and more.”

According to Barry, the home is in an isolated area at the end of a power line, so they get some dirty power coming into their house that may result in some of the devices acting “spotty” or faulty. “Through Panamax, we were able to clean up that power to ensure a better performance for their devices,” says Barry. “With this much high-end technology, it’d be a shame if they didn’t work correctly just because of the power grid.”

According to the Collinses, the family is happy, and the ELAN system gives them everything they’ve ever wanted in a smart home. “This system is basic but sophisticated; we really like that,” says Nick Collins. “We use it every single day. There is so much you can do with ELAN; it’s like an open book that we can keep adding to.”