AV Control Harmonizes with the Luxury at a World Class Resort

Situated on 25 acres of landscaped tropical gardens, the new $200 million dollar Parklane Resort and Spa in Limassol, Cyprus offers luxuriously-appointed rooms and common areas, and an immersive, personalized experience for all its guests. This five-star seaside resort combines lush surroundings, beautiful architecture, and guest rooms complemented by an abundant use of state-of-the-art audiovisual and lighting technology that elevates the guest experience.

Extron Throughout

During preliminary work on the hotel, the AV integrator, ALA Equipment Company, chose Extron to provide critical system components including AV control systems, switching, and more. Parklane invested over $20 million for AV and lighting amenities on this project, a significant portion of the overall construction budget. The finished product is an impressive AV showcase, featuring bespoke, state-of-the-art AV with many industry-first technologies. The lighting systems were developed specifically for the hotel and designed to interface seamlessly with Extron systems. There are 350 TouchLink Pro touchpanels placed throughout the resort, backed by 200 IP Link Pro control processors. In fact, ALA placed a priority on ubiquitous touchpanel placement, and deployed Extron touchpanels everywhere that could benefit from convenient touchpanel control.

In-Room Touchpanel Control

In the hotel rooms and villas, guests use the conveniently placed touchpanels to control a variety of in-room systems, including lighting, shades, curtains, and air conditioning. Guests also use the touchpanels to summon room service and the hotel’s cleaning service. Within the villas and other select rooms, chromotherapy lighting in the bathroom is selectable from the touchpanels, as well. The restaurant and bar use touchpanels to precisely regulate lighting, change music tracks, and control volume. An “analog” mode on the touchpanels displays easy-to-read icons for guests who desire an interface that mimics real-world objects. A “light” icon is offered for lighting control, “shades” for shade control, etc.

Offering up to three bedrooms, a private pool and other exclusive amenities, the villas are the premiere resort accommodations. Each villa features up to 14 touchpanels that provide convenient access to control throughout the living spaces. From an aesthetic point of view, the elegant styling of the TouchLink Pro touchpanels was of key importance to support the luxury image of the hotel. There are TouchLink Pro touchpanels at the bedside to control the curtains, in the kitchen to control the lights, and in the living room to control lights and request room service. The touchpanels in the bathrooms control programmed chromotherapy modes. The calming effects of chromotherapy, or color therapy, are programmed to reflect individual moods for superior relaxation while bathing or showering. In some rooms, a window within the bathroom wall allows the rainbow of colors to shine through, bringing the tranquil lighting effects into the main room.

Ballrooms and Meeting Rooms

In the large ballrooms, two TLP Pro 1720MG touchpanels work with an IPCP Pro 550 control processor to adjust audio levels and switch program sources on every projector around the ballrooms. They also integrate with the MA lighting system that controls 170 DTS lighting fixtures across the ballrooms. Extron systems also control the projectors, screens, shades, and functional room lighting. The AV sources in the meeting rooms are routed by the DTP CrossPoint 108 Matrix Switcher, which sends the selected signal to two screens. A wall mounted TLP Pro 1022M touch panel works in conjunction with an IPCP Pro 350 control processor to offer intuitive control for the lighting, temperature, and shades. The meeting rooms are divisible and automatically route the local inputs to the local projector and provide the appropriate control in each part of the room.

Integrating Multiple Systems

Designing an AV system that would meet operational requirements in the villas and hotel common areas was somewhat challenging because of the number and variety of in-room devices and systems that required control. Extron control systems had to integrate with the building management system, lighting systems, and hospitality systems including room service and housekeeping. This high level of system integration required a control system that was very flexible, easy to configure, and was able to interface with many different protocols, such as digital inputs, KNX, DMX, relays, IR control and more.

Why Configuration over Programming?

Extron control was selected for this project due to the significant time savings and overall efficiency offered by the Global Configurator Professional control platform. This control system tool relies on configuration for system setup, yet provides remarkable flexibility. One might think, with the numerous complex AV designs involved and a large number of third-party systems that had to be integrated, that ALA might have selected the Extron Global Scripter programmable development environment for this project. While control system programming offers many benefits, some AV projects are simply better suited for advanced configuration and the Parklane Hotel was one of these. Since the control system was duplicated in many similar rooms, it was important to have flexibility to change configurations and to then easily apply the configurations to dozens of systems. Consistency from room-to-room was a crucial component for ALA, and, ultimately the customers play into this as well.

A Complete Success

The overall system integration was a complete success, and all the Extron AV equipment, including hundreds TouchLink Pro touchpanels and Link Pro Series control processors installed in the Parklane Resort’s common areas, restaurants, and meeting rooms are up and running flawlessly. The guests enjoy having sophisticated but easy-to-use touchscreen control at their fingertips. As ALA’s General Manger, Andrea Piemonti says, “With all that goes on in running a world class resort, it’s nice to know that there are systems in place on which you can rely, day-in and day-out. Thank you, Extron.”

2020 Inavation Awards

ALA Equipment Company was honored with two awards for the Parklane installation at the 2020 Inavation Awards presented on February 11, 2020 at the ISE show in Amsterdam.

• Installation of the Year – Hospitality: ALA Equipment Company – Parklane Hotel Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Limassol, Cyprus
• Project Manager of the Year: Andrea Piemonti, ALA Equipment Company

Extron Equipment at the Parklane Resort and Spa – Partial List

….