House control of Crestron

For more than 40 years now, the US company Crestron has been working with 2,500 employees in more than 50 offices around the world to make the building technology as comfortable as possible. As a technology and market leader in the field of control, it is able to control almost all of the equipment in the home. In the United States, Crestron the United States GmbH takes over the coordination of the qualified system houses in order to relieve the customer of the installation and programming of the complex equipment.Crestron is based on Three pillars: Media technology, Crestron Home and Light & Building Technology


The choice of weapons


At the bargain price, all these control options are not available with the enormous installation effort. Example calculations for a single-family home with all sockets, switches, touchpanels, multiroom control, the corresponding installation speakers and what else is necessary for operation can quickly exceed 20,000 euros. More complex systems for larger objects are even beyond 50,000 euros. For this, Crestron fulfills almost every desire for home automation. In addition, it should be borne in mind that one device comprises several trades and at the same time combines them comfortably: parts of the electrical installation, telephone, intercom, alarm system, AV system, heating and climate control. The professional implementation from a single source also ensures increased operational security.


Music in all rooms


Crestron is flexible when it comes to operating the system. The best freedom is offered by a smartphone that offers a number of control options via an app via WLAN or mobile network. A notebook is also capable of logging into the system, and can, if desired, use the web browser to manage all control tasks.


Television in every room


However, in times of constantly emerging viruses and Trojans, the Crestron compositions are more reliable in the form of more than 100 different handhelds.


The tailor-made home cinema


The touchpanel TPMC-9LW-T is a luxurious variant. With a price of over 4,500 euros, it is a real all-rounder. It first has a video input, through which all sorts of information can be streamed from the server. Since a loudspeaker and a microphone are installed, it also acts as a house-keeper.


The user interface can also be designed freely according to customer requirements. The panel is installed by the installer in walls or furniture at will, with the customer selecting the design.


Trivial tasks, such as changing the program on the TV, selecting a piece of music from the server or diming the light, can also be used to perform simple remote controls. But even Crestron has it all.


For example, the MLX-3 for around 500 euros: a two-way radio remote control with 20 meters range. It can acknowledge a key press to tell the user that his command has arrived.


In the built-in display, the server supplies texts such as music tracks or RDS text. Its scroll wheel makes it easy to search through long lists like an MP3 or movie collection. By means of countless icons, the programmer can also link symbols with switching tasks in order to assign them unambiguously. A motion sensor activates the MLX-3, so the batteries do not discharge so quickly.


Crestron has developed a waterproof remote control for wet areas. The WPRI-48 costs approximately 1,000 euros. It offers up to 48 command sequences with nine freely programmable duplex keys. Even with an extensive bath, the inhabitants can still select pieces of music.


Thanks to its built-in lithium-ion battery, it stays a long time ready to use even though your buttons are backlit. The included docking station ensures that the battery is always charged.


The multi-room audio system can be supplied from amplifiers in the central station, and can be used to supply each area with a different source. In order to supply more distant rooms without loss of sound, the music center supplies local amplifiers with audio signals over a network cable.


One of these centers is the Adagio Entertainment System (AES) for around 5,500 euros. It integrates multi-room functions, amplification and control in one device, distributes ten sources to six rooms, and has twelve built-in amplifiers. The system can record up to six plug-in radio tuners and relay further four external audio sources.


The house technology in the grip


In the individual rooms the multi-room loudspeaker systems are fired. They can be designed as ceiling speakers or can be let into the wall. In order to fit the boxes to the best possible design, there are different screens. Or you can ask the painter to make them disappear completely under the surface plaster or the wallpaper.


Additional bass speakers can be hidden unobtrusively in cabinets or walls. The selection of the installation speakers ranges from the two-way, 75-watt box to the 125-watt sound transducer with a 20-cm bass chassis. If you prefer powerful stand-alone boxes, let the engineer schedule a separate amplifier module.


Control centers


Videobilder takes over the system from all current sources, be it DVB-Receiver, Blu-ray-Player or Media-Receiver. It transmits it to installed TVs, which can be mounted on wall or ceiling mountings.


Particularly exclusive is the variant in which the flicker box is retracted at the push of a button into the TV rack. The developer also works with a projector and screen. There are no limits to the imagination - provided the planning is coordinated with the interior development team.


Crestron offers HDMI distribution systems, such as the DM-MD6X4, for almost 4.500 euros for the distribution of video signals. It controls the screens in the room via HDMI, but can also send more rooms with signals.


Security


For this only a Room Solution Box DM-RMC-100-C has to be installed in every room with video connection. It receives HD-compatible video material by cable and forwards it to the TV set there.


A complete home cinema system can also be implemented. High-quality televisions or projectors should be self-evident in the budget for the peripherals. For the corresponding audio background, Crestron provides a high-quality Dolby Digital amplifier. The loudspeaker system, consisting of up to seven loudspeakers and an active subwoofer, can also come from third-party manufacturers. The player is an HD player or a central video server. A wireless and mobile operation is more practical for a home theater than a touchpanel embedded in the wall. The Crestron planners have a variety of sizes as well as wireless touchpads in the range. Their graphical surfaces follow the logic of the entire system.


This also applies to the operation for heating, air conditioning or the safety system. They are also controlled via the graphical interface. Simple switches, which can also be combined to form key fields, are easy for simple switching tasks, such as for light. They solve simple switching operations or work off entire command chains: dim the light, extend the screen, and turn on the projector. The system partner NIKO supplies the appropriate switches and sockets, which meet almost every customer 's requirements in terms of design. If all interfaces to the house systems are implemented with the central control units and the corresponding hardware is installed, the planner programs the components as well as the user interfaces of the Graphical user interfaces. You can also integrate subtleties such as a password protection or a fingerprint sensor to prevent unauthorized access - either as a child safety device or to restrict the powers of guests. Crestron offers a quite costly and high-quality system for home control Fully oriented to the wishes of the inhabitants. It can not be more individual.


With the control centers, there is a wide selection to meet all requirements. Crestron offers its own 15 different models to their customers so that they can be adapted to the size of the respective systems in terms of scope and control options. And it becomes times tightly, the specialists can expand it. Because of the many interfaces adapter the system also has devices of foreign manufacturers firmly under control, whether it is light, shading, heating or air conditioning. The audio and video technology of other companies can also include the developers in their control. The control signal required for this can be transmitted, for example, via infrared, via the network, an HDMI cable (CEC) or a serial interface. The video distribution is usually done via HDMI cable or a special network protocol.


The combination of monitoring and intercom systems ensures safety. The house phone system, also called intercom, consists of an audio and video branch. More than a dozen cameras and even more consoles can be managed with it. A visitor can thus be received from any panel and, if desired, can also be given access.


By the way, the user can also tap other intercoms. The monitoring system is completed with an alarm system that has all doors and windows in view. In addition, motion detectors are integrated. All sensors can be visualized clearly on an image of the ground plan so that the owner always has an overview. Depending on the version, he can see whether a window is open, whether a glass breakage has occurred or a motion detector has triggered. If he is looking at the corresponding area, he can also control remote-tilt and tilted dome cameras with the selected option. This is, of course, quite intuitive by fingerwiping on the touchpanel.


In the field of media technology Crestron develops suitable control systems for the central monitoring and transmission of image and sound signals, and Crestron Home is used to control and visualize the building technology. As usual with Crestron, a touchpanel or a browser is used. In this way, customers can intuitively control both lighting and shading as well as heating and air-conditioning via visualized surfaces. This includes the regulation of multi-room audio and video technology. The area of ​​lighting and building technology includes home automation. Lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems are included in the regulation. The various building systems are controlled by comprehensive installation cables or bus systems, which can be implemented via cables or can be retrofitted by radio.