Latest Industry News

What Is Multi-room Audio!

Previously, your options were fairly limited if you wanted to listen to music throughout your whole house, you could either drill holes through walls and ceilings, run cables through them and install speakers, or play the music nice and loud with all the doors open – and then hope your neighbours don’t mind. Wireless was not an option back then. Those days are long gone.

Multi-room audio need not, in the simple meaning of the word, be technically complicated. The simplest variant is in fact single source, single zone: it requires no more than an amplifier, an audio player and multiple speakers to have music in several rooms. The same audio can be heard in all speakers; they need to be connected in series (i.e. all audio through one cable to the various speakers, instead of one cable per speaker), to avoid overloading the amplifier.

Single source, multiple zone is the same in principle as single source, single zone – with the crucial difference that you connect your speakers in the various zones wired directly to the amplifier. You can only hear the same sound in either zone. Multiple source, multiple zone, on the other hand, is quite different: the separate zones utilise different audio zones. This places heavy demands on the amplifier, which means that one amplifier won’t be up to the job. You will therefore need to have a multi-channel amplifier. You can listen to different sources in
different zones with this option.

For those for whom, for whatever reason, this isn’t an option, of course there used to be cheap and simple compromises, but a small portable Bluetooth speaker was obviously not a proper alternative when it comes to sound quality. However, wireless technology has not stood still since then. There is no longer any need to run wires everywhere: nowadays the various components can also be interconnected wirelessly.

There are several wireless protocols which can be made use of when streaming music wirelessly from an audio source to a system: Bluetooth, NFC, DLNA, and AirPlay, but a Wi-Fi link is the most common means of interconnecting the various components of an audio system. That is because a good Wi-Fi network is unaffected by visual barriers, provides better sound quality than the other protocols, and has the advantage of being able to connect common music sources, such as a computer, a NAS drive, a phone or even a streaming service wirelessly to the system.

You can keep all your options open with multi-room audio systems. An amplifier is by definition not required, since the individual speakers all have their own built-in amplifier and are all able to connect (wirelessly) with their own audio source. Suppose a house has three occupants, in which case each of them can use their own speakers in their own room. Conversely, suppose a large house party is being held, it will then be possible to play the same sound through every speaker. The individual speakers do have knobs, but not their own screen to see what you are doing. A smartphone or a tablet app is used to operate the system and browse through music, either your own or via a streaming service.

Meanwhile, wireless is no longer the future, it is the here and now. Music lovers want a system that fulfills this need, and manufacturers are responding to it. HEOS, the Denon system, gives you control of your music anywhere in your home: all you need is one (or more) HEOS speakers, plus an audiosource. Music in every room – without upsetting the neighbours.

Denon speaker

Schneider Product Recall

Clipsal RC Series Wholesaler Coms > 10mA RC Series Customer Letter > 10mA RC Series Recall Notice >

Ideal Foundation King Downlight promotion!

Congratulations to all our winners of our King downlight promotion! Over the last few months Ideal & Philips have been supporting local schools through our King Downlight promotion.

King Winners

Congratulations again to our winners and thank you for supporting the Ideal Foundation.

Ideal Foundation supports KidsCan

Poverty is real in New Zealand and even more apparent in the current environment COVID19 has set upon us.

The Ideal Foundation is a trust inspired to supporting NZ communities and have reached out to KidsCan charity with a commitment to making a sizable donation over the next few months. This will be used to support Kiwi kids is some of life’s simple essentials like food, shoes, raincoats and general wellbeing. Your support of Ideal Electrical and the products that support the Ideal Foundation have made it a privilege to make a huge difference to children living in hardship.

Emergency range

KidsCan is nationwide, supporting 787 schools across New Zealand and 55 Early Child Education Centres. Click here to find where the KidsCan supported schools are.

We at Ideal Electrical thank you on behalf of our supplier partners and the Ideal Foundation

Ektor Emergency Range

Ektor Boxit Emergency Exit Signs

The bases are the same as some of the competitors versions, so the contractor can swap out the new LED gear tray and diffuser into the former exit sign base, which will save on repairing or repainting the wall!
Older buildings use the Boxit style extensively as a wall or ceiling bulkhead luminaire, without the running man decal, for the general light, and EM when required.
The Boxit can be wired as a non-maintained luminaire, but for new installations the AS/NZ standards would require the exit sign to be connected to a smoke alarm.

Mercury Basic Exit

In continuing Ektor's commitment to environmentally friendly products, the new battery technology contains no known carcinogens or toxic heavy metal contaminants. The same cannot be said for previous generations.
The Lithium batteries last up to twice as long as older technologies extending service intervals and further reducing environmental impact.
To maintain the economic life of this product, it is required that the battery be discharged and recharged at least once every six months. The battery life can be reduced if the battery is not discharged as per the requirements of AS/NZS 2293. Increasing the number of duration tests above that as defined in AS/NZS 2293 or an equivalent standard can have a positive effect on the battery performance as long as 12 discharge cycles per year is not exceeded

Mercury IP65 weatherproof Case

Polycarbonate plastic is a lightweight, high-performance plastic that possesses a unique balance of toughness, dimensional stability, optical clarity, high heat resistance, chemical resistance, and excellent electrical resistance.
Some applications and processing plants have chemicals in the air, or use chemical cleaning solutions that will damage a luminaire, and therefore require a chemical resistant enclosure. Sending a copy of the Ektor chemical resistance chart to the customer via email is the simplest way to confirm the resistance of the Ektor PC products

LEDFIRE Basic D32

The LEDFIRE Basic recessed emergency luminaire, battery and inverter are a combined unit, for a fast and tidy installation.
Comes with a 140mm O/D outer ring as an accessory, used when covering an existing larger hole size.
Logged and qualified 32-hour functionality test is performed on 100% of the Ektor luminaires before they leave the factory. They are fully charged, discharged and then recharged again, to check the quality.

Check out our range of Ektor emergency products

Your best connection just got better

Webshop Article

Juggling the right products and tools for multiple jobs is always a tough balance for any electrician – and being able to get your hands on what you need quickly is vital. Unfortunately, our old website and the online shop wasn’t making that easy for you – so we decided to do something about it.

Introducing our new webshop – launching November 1st.

Being part of the global Rexel Group means we’re lucky enough to have access to global resources. The new online platform has been used in 11 countries (including in the USA, France, and Germany) with over a million customers visiting the shop each month. Thanks to this huge growth in online sales (France’s digital sales grew by 47% in 2018), it is getting plenty of investment to ensure it’s as user friendly and practical as possible.

Through the new webshop, you’ll be able to:

Get access to far more information about products online. See product images, supplier declarations, stock availability across the country, and technical specifications.
Create lists of products you might use for specific jobs or ones you frequently use to save time later, rather than individually selecting products again and again.
Save time ordering and have more time to get on with the essential things. Order 24/7 and either swing by a branch later to grab your order or have it delivered. If you order products in the evening, they’ll be ready and waiting for you in the morning.
Directly access statements and price files by logging into your account online, including direct integration with Fergus.
Give different workers within the business their own accounts, so they can order what’s relevant to them as well.
Scan barcodes of products you’ve already got to reorder them easily through our app.

Thanks to the new platform, our staff will spend less time punching numbers into a computer, and more time helping customers with practical advice and technical solutions. You’ll know what is in our branches before getting there and our saved list feature saves adding products to shopping carts over and over.

We’re looking forward to the change it’ll bring, and we can’t wait to keep finding new ways we can make life easier for electricians.

The Industrial branches get a signature to match

Industrial Sig

Step inside the industrial zone at any one of the selected branches and you will know you have landed with a product offering to compliment your needs.

Clint Brown and the team at Ideal North Shore were the first Ideal Branch to have the new Ideal Industrial signature put in place. Every one of the twenty six Industrial branches will be easily recognisable with unique livery branding on site.

The focus was to create a space inside every Industrial branch which identified a zone with common Industrial product in one area. Although a challenge with every branch having a slightly different foot print, it will be easy for client partners to locate product in the Industrial space. Four Industrial segments of the New Zealand economy have been selected as the base of the Industrial signature. These include Timber, Dairy, Irrigation and Industry Process which will be evident as you move around inside an Industrial branch. This doesn’t mean the Industrial team have resources limited to these sectors – available is a wide product depth to match any Industrial application.

Key elements of the livery will be easily recognisable with an industrial signature on the exterior of the branch and wayfinding signage inside to identify your desired direction. Shelves will be wrapped and dressed to set it apart from other general product shelving. Floor mats and display stands will directed and allow featured products such as VSDs and motors to be highlighted.

Getting Back to Our Roots

Ideal Electrical Suppliers has been a wholesaler to the Electrical Industry in NZ for nearly 20 years, for many of those years a large portion of our sales were industrial related products and servicing.

But over time, the focus on the industrial sector of our industry fell away. We are Now bringing an Industrial focus back into the company, re-establishing and focusing on partnerships with Industrial customers and supply partners.

Ideal Electrical are getting back to their roots. Our new Industrial team is set to bring value to industrial Customers across the country. The company has invested in a new Industrial team having recently employed five dedicated business development managers all with proven industry experience. These BDM’s are tasked to solely support the new industrial focus each taking responsibility for one of five regional areas across the country.

The BDM’s and I are in constant daily contact and work as very effective team calling on our considerable collective Industrial experience to give product, application and service advice at the highest level.

Initially, 27 of Ideal’s 48 branches will stock a wider range of industrial products, however, in time the plan is to gradually roll out the expanded industrial product range and supporting services across all Branch’s.

To support this initiative Ideal is partnering with key Industrial suppliers (KIND) to provide a selection of products that will be second to none.

The KIND partnerships will allow us to provide a good range of industrial products and in time industry related support services including:

Product Training and selection advice
Power Factor, Harmonic, machine safety and compliance audits
Project Product Management
New product awareness
Enhanced specification advice
Technical Liaison with KIND suppliers

While others may be moving away from stocking more products, as a company we are going in the other direction – investing in products, staff, and training.