Control Freaks Zap Electronics Into Bedroom

If you’ve watched any “Star Trek” at all in your lifetime--six or seven random episodes should be enough--then you’ve probably thrilled to the sight of a standard type of disembodied space alien made up of nothing more than a dollop of pulsating slime.

The alien is inevitably an arrogant little blot, sanctimoniously informing Jim and Bones and the gang that it has evolved beyond the need for trifles such as arms or legs or a nifty tan. It has the ability to control everything it needs to control without moving an inch. It just sits there and makes viscous gurgling sounds and causes things to happen.

“Fascinating,” Spock says, cocking an eyebrow.

Whether you were repelled by the little ball of crankcase glop or saw it as a kindred spirit likely depended on where you were when you were watching the show. If you were in the kitchen, say, stirring up a bowlful of cookie batter, you probably made a face and switched the channel to something far worse, like the local news.

If, however, you were like a growing number of householders with a taste for whiz-bang electronic gear combined with relaxation in depth, you might have seen and thoroughly empathized with the alien on your high-tech, do-it-all, fingertip-touch remote-controlled Sloth-O-Matic bedroom home entertainment center and video/audio Disneyland.

So OK, it may take a few hundred millennia before we evolve into quivering slabs of Dippity-Do, but according to a recent survey by the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Assn. (CEDIA) the fat, so to speak, may already be in the fire: There are more people having custom home entertainment systems installed in their master bedrooms than in their living rooms.

This doesn’t mean that people are snapping up those “home entertainment centers” disguised as armoires, although they probably are. No, folks with a bit of liquid cash and the kind of imagination that made Rube Goldberg a household word are investing in home entertainment systems for the bedroom that run the route from pretty cool to NASA-esque.

Of course, this sort of thing falls into the “don’t try this yourself” category, mainly because much of the gear you’ll need to knock together the science fiction system of your dreams isn’t sold at the local Radio Shack. Custom means custom, and that’s where people like Jay Becker come in.

Becker is the co-founder of Architectural Audio in Irvine, and a member of CEDIA, and a description of one of his jobs in progress will give you an idea of just how far you can go in indulging your audio/video fantasies.

In a bedroom in Long Beach’s Belmont Shore neighborhood, Becker is installing a system whose centerpiece is a 6-by-8-foot television screen that pivots out of the ceiling at the foot of the bed. Behind the screen are a series of speakers, and another set of speakers is set flush with the wall next to the bed. Another set of speakers is set into a planter at the foot of the bed that separates the bed from an octagonal conversation pit, inside of which is yet another TV that can be watched from inside the pit.

The bedroom windows surrounding the conversation pit are being fitted with electronically controlled blackout shades to shut off the view of the boat outside, the better to enhance the projected image on the ceiling TV screen.

The entire system will be controlled by a touch-screen bedside computer, menu-driven and able to perform several functions with a single touch.

The price tag, excluding construction costs: about $65,000.

It isn’t necessary to pay that much for a custom system. The CEDIA survey showed that a custom installation job can range from $400 and $60,000.

The common feature of custom work, said Becker, is an integration of quality of sight and sound with the architecture and design of the room and the desires of the client. This means, he said, that whether the client wants plenty of visible bells and whistles or near-invisibility, the electronics must not overwhelm the room and the room must not impinge on the function of the electronics.

Still, of course, the client calls the shots, and apparently most of them can be accommodated. Yes, you can have a big TV that raises out of a chest at the foot of your bed. But if you don’t like to sit up in bed to watch, you can also have one that cants out of the ceiling above you. Don’t like to push separate buttons for each one of the functions you habitually repeat? Becker says that many functions--TV on, stereo off, curtains closed, VCR rewound--can be integrated into a single push of a button.

Lazy? Sure. That’s what the bedroom’s for. And that, says Becker, is why so much of his business takes him there.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “you can retire to the bedroom, enjoy a movie, listen to music and be done with it. When you’re through, you don’t have to pack off upstairs to go to bed. If you want to nod off, you can. We can install a system that will shut itself off automatically.”

All the cushy control with none of the battle of wits with alien slime. That might be enough to get Spock to raise the other eyebrow.