recomendation for audio control in a powder room

[katsnelson]

I am renovating my house and while the drywall is down I am pulling wires in anticipation of getting an installer to put in Control4 system. I have a fair idea of what wiring I need to put in most rooms. However, I am strugling with the powder room. It is a small room and I will be installing a single Polk Audio RC6s speaker (http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/products/inceiling/hidden/rc6s/) to produce stereo sound. I pulled 2 runs of 12/2 speaker wire from the control closet so I will have audio going to it. I am just not sure what I need to do for volume control. Installign a keypad int he powder room seems like an overkill. I don't expect to be selecting anything different for the powder room than what is playing in one of the other zones.

Any and all suggestions woudl be greatly appreciated.

[jbs]

I guess I'd first question whether you really want audio in a powder room :-) Don't get me wrong, we put audio in our master bathroom and in the shower. But a powder room doesn't have a shower or bathroom and tends to be for "quicker visits". As such, many people might not find it necessary to have musical accompaniment.

However, if you do go with audio in there you could do a few different things. One, you could just set a volume level from a mini-touchscreen elsewhere in the house and not have it be controllable from the powder room itself. Two, you could program the audio in that zone to track with the lighting in there. That is, the volume would remain set at whatever is a comfortable level, and then the audio would come on when the light comes on, off when it goes off. Three, you could add another switch, say a 3-button switch, which you could program to control volume up, volume down and mute.

Would any of those work for you?

[katsnelson]

I guess I'd first question whether you really want audio in a powder room :-) Don't get me wrong, we put audio in our master bathroom and in the shower. But a powder room doesn't have a shower or bathroom and tends to be for "quicker visits". As such, many people might not find it necessary to have musical accompaniment.

However, if you do go with audio in there you could do a few different things. One, you could just set a volume level from a mini-touchscreen elsewhere in the house and not have it be controllable from the powder room itself. Two, you could program the audio in that zone to track with the lighting in there. That is, the volume would remain set at whatever is a comfortable level, and then the audio would come on when the light comes on, off when it goes off. Three, you could add another switch, say a 3-button switch, which you could program to control volume up, volume down and mute.

Would any of those work for you?

Yeah, I understand the argument agains audio in hte powder room. I was thinking of using it for party mode only i.e. when someone goes to powder their nose the music woudl be there just like inthe rest of the house. I don't really want to do any controlling from the powder room itself so I like the idea of setting the volume from a keypad in another room. I also like the idea of connecting it to lights i.e. lights on means music on. I think this combo will work very well.

So, bottom line is I don't need CAT5 wiring in the powder room?

[tumult]

first, jbs - genuis to have audio start in powder room when light goes on. How come I didn't think of that?

second, we installed 1 speaker in our powder rooms with a 6-buton keypad. Overkill, IMHO. Save the money or put the 6-button keypad somewhere else. As already stated, have the powder room set at a comfortable default volume and there will never be the need to turn the music up/down, off, mute etc.

tum