Guardian Home Technologies

Guardian offers a number of options including ones that they advertise and ones they don't.  One of the things they don't advertise is that they will rough in wiring for surround sound and stand-alone speakers if you don't want to purchase the speakers from them.  They also don't advertise that they will install speakers in the ceiling and wire them to wherever you want without having to upgrade to the Lyriq audio package.  When you look at the pricing for prewires  without buying the speakers from them, you'll see that they really don't want to be in the prewire business and want to sell the speakers.  The difference in cost between a prewire surround sound and one with the speakers is about the retail price for the speakers.  After looking at all of these options in a few different ways, we decided on what we wanted them to do because we're busy enough and have enough on our to-do list and didn't want to add more to it such as installing speakers or tv's, etc.

One of the debates we had was about wiring for a home network since nearly everything is wireless now.  We both work from our home offices a decent amount and we have networked printers and network attached storage devices (which can be bandwidth intensive).  We also have electronics that either only have a wired network capability or behave a lot better on a wired network and we have VOIP office phones (Voice over IP) which require a wired network connection.  We decided to have Guardian install network jacks in various places for these reasons.  Another nice side effect is the way they wire the network and phone jacks.  If you have a phone jack in one room and you decide you need a network jack there instead, you simply go to the basement and switch connections in the panel and now the phone jack is network instead (or vice versa).  We also decided to have them wire for our TV's so that the wires were hidden and we can hang them.  In 2 locations we're actually having them wire the TV's and terminate the cables in a closet so we can hide the cable box and other things in there and the other locations wired will have their tables terminate at the bottom of the wall below the tv.  We also decided to have a Gold surround in ceiling in the family room with an upgraded non-ceiling center channel and a silver surround in ceiling in the master.  Also keep in mind with the hanging tv's that you have to add electrical to the wall where the tv is hung and also ensure that you have power wherever your pre-wire terminates (including your subwoofer) so this ended up requiring 6 additional outlets I believe.

Now the part everyone wants - Pricing!  Keep in mind that there are different options not listed (for example speakers in the wall instead of ceiling) and pricing varies across the US.  Good luck negotiating - they basically don't other than for free months of monitoring.

Surround Sound

Speaker only packages with optional additions and upgrades
Klipsch 5.1 Silver Audio System (Surround - Speakers Only) $1,030
Includes in ceiling Klipsch R1650C speakers
Upgrade to Klipsch G12 Center Channel (not in the ceiling) $140
Add a Jamo SUB210 subwoofer $250

Klipsch 5.1 Gold Audio System (Surround - Speakers Only) $1,735
Includes in ceiling Klipsch R-2650-C speakers
Upgrade to Klipsch G16 Center Channel (not in the ceiling) $190
Add a Klipsch SW110 subwoofer $440

Bose AV35 Theatre System $5,330

Full home theater packages
Klipsch/Pioneer 5.1 Silver Audio System (Surround - Speakers Only) $2,874

Includes in ceiling Klipsch R1650C speakers
Upgrade to Klipsch G12 Center Channel (not in the ceiling)
Jamo SUB210 subwoofer
Pioneer receiver
Logitech Harmony 900 Remote Control


Klipsch/Pioneer 5.1 Gold Audio System (Surround - Speakers Only) $3,963

Includes in ceiling Klipsch R-2650-C speakers
Upgrade to Klipsch G16 Center Channel (not in the ceiling)
Klipsch SW110 subwoofer

Pioneer Elite receiver
Logitech Harmony 900 Remote Control

In Ceiling Speakers

In ceiling speakers without Lyriq audio package $620
One pair of Klipsch R1650C
One wall mounted volume control

1 inside ceiling speaker and 1 outside speaker $755
One interior speaker
One AW-500-SM speaker with volume control

Lyriq Audio Package

Four Room Studio Lyriq Audio Package $3,195
Charge and Play Input
Local Source Input
3 Pair of Klipsch R1650C In - Ceiling
1 AW-500-SM Dual Voice Coil Outdoor Speaker
Four Source Eight-Zone Distribution Module Upgrade
Multi Source Input


Two Room Studio Lyriq Audio Package $1,860
Charge and Play Input
2 Pair of Klipsch R1650C In - Ceiling

Flat Panel TV Prewire

Remember that each pre-wire will also require at least 1 additional electrical outlet - upgrade from Ryan.

Same Stud Bay (up to 5 meters with standard speed HDMI) $330
Same Wall (up to 10 meters with standard speed HDMI) $440
Standard/Remote (up to 20 meters with standard speed HDMI) $610

Security System

This depends upon your area and community I believe.  We got the base system installed for free and then added a couple of upgrades.  I'm a firefighter as well so I find a lot of value in the monitoring of smoke and heat detectors especially since we will be leaving our dachshunds and kitty home at times by themselves.  We were able to get 6 months free possibly because of all of the items we purchased.

Standard (free install) system - requires monthly monitoring package for a certain term (2 or 3 years?)
1 Standard Keypad Included
1 Standard Motion Detector
1 Control Panel
1 Siren
3 Door Contact
1 Heat detector

Upgrades
1 Window Contact $70
1 Smoke Communicator $170
1 Carbon Monoxide Detector $190 (you're required to sign a contract saying that if your CO alarm goes off and the fire department kicks in your door, Guardian isn't liable - pretty funny)

Outlets and Connections

Smart Connections Package with router $1,060
3 Cable outlets
2 Data outlets
1 4 port Multimedia outlet

Six Pack of Wall Outlets $495
Any 6 outlets