Working with custom integrator 360 Media Innovations, Valastro now has three ELAN g! Entertainment and Control systems — one at his New Jersey home, one at the Carlo’s Bakery Lackawanna Cake Factory in Jersey City, NJ and one at the brand new Carlo’s Bakery location in Ridgewood, NJ.

“I use ELAN g! every day at home and at the Cake Factory,” Buddy says.

“So I knew it was the perfect choice to give my employees and managers total control of the audio and video at the new Carlo’s Bakery in Ridgewood. Technology is changing the way retail businesses operate, from the new ShopKeep app that allowed us to replace traditional POS systems with two iPads to the instant audio and video control the ELAN g! provides. As Carlo’s Bakery continues to grow I’ll need technologies that make it easier for me to manage operations at multiple locations, and one of the reasons I love the g! system is I can expand it later to provide remote access to security and surveillance.”

With plans to open several additional Carlo’s Bakery locations by the end of 2014, Valastro will benefit from the remote capabilities of the advanced ELAN g! system and be able to quickly check in on multiple locations right from his iPhone. With the move to two iPads as POSes in the Ridgewood location, it’s clear that technology will play an increasingly important role in the bakery’s continued success. It’s now possible for employees to take the cash register with them to take orders from anywhere in the store, and a simple four-finger swipe takes them right to the ELAN g!Mobile app where they can adjust settings for the store’s TVs and audio zones. That means they can take an order, swipe to the AV controls and swipe back to take another order in under 15 seconds.

According to 360 Media Innovations co-owner Abiose Gale, the technology at the new Carlo’s Bakery isn’t just the wave of the future, but the reality of the present that can make managing retail locations easier and even provide financial savings over the long term. “The ELAN g! system is a perfect solution for retail stores because its so easy to use there’s no learning curve and it can integrate everything from TVs to lighting to electronic door locks. And as businesses continue to use apps for business purposes like the ShopKeep POS app, the ability to instantly switch to the ELAN g! app means they can avoid having all sorts of different remotes to control everything. It’s pretty incredible that the whole store can be operated from a single iPad.”

Carlo’s Bakery Ridgewood has two main areas — the storefront that features a Cake Building Station where customers can watch the baking artisans decorate their cakes and a Party Room for hosting birthday parties and special events. Each area has its own audio zone and video zone, and the Party Room has HDMI presentation capabilities so guests can use their own media devices to display content on the two 47” LG TVs during their parties.

360 Media Innovations installed a total of six 47” LG LCD TV’s and 13 in-ceiling speakers throughout the store which play content from an iPort IW20 in-wall iPod dock, a Fusion media server, two Cablevision cableboxes and a BrightSign XD230 digital signage player. An ELAN HC6 is the brains of the control system, with an ELAN S86, SnapAV B300 4×4 matrix and Crown CDi 1000 amplifier providing distribution and power for the store’s speakers. The store uses two WAPs to provide uniterrupted Wi-Fi which is vital for consistent operation of the iPads as POSes.