[Greg]

Anyone have any experience with Crestron? My new VA campus is loaded with their controllers. Every building has them, they control everything from lights dimming, tables up and down, shades up and down to even turning power off to ovens.

Since I'm gov't., Crestron has given access to all of their software and training for free, which I have taken advantage of I might add.

Just wondering what people's experiences have been with their products, and/or any tips they have learned for dealing with their (Crestron) products.

 

[dronai]

Anyone have any experience with Crestron? My new VA campus is loaded with their controllers. Every building has them, they control everything from lights dimming, tables up and down, shades up and down to even turning power off to ovens.

Since I'm gov't., Crestron has given access to all of their software and training for free, which I have taken advantage of I might add.

Just wondering what people's experiences have been with their products, and/or any tips they have learned for dealing with their (Crestron) products.

I done one Crestron, and a few of the similar type of systems. Same principle, relay modules, dimming modules, etc. inside of enclosures, controlled by a cpu, that gets it's inputs from low voltage keypad controllers. Good quality equipment

 

[ecelectric]

Excellent stuff , good programmers are hard to come by . seen a bunch of systems installed in high end homes we do , and the programmers seem to be there long after everyone is gone .

 

[guest]

^^^ What those guys said.

I work with AMX hardware myself and do my own programming. Both AMX and Crestron are pretty robust, seem to last forever as long as no one tries to put 120v on the control bus. (We had a client's "A/V expert" do that and he fried a lot of stuff.)

AMX programming is what I call "line oriented" and Crestron is "object oriented", I tried doing some Crestron programming and didn't have much luck at it. By contrast, with AMX I am completely self-taught and learned by first editing existing system code, then starting over and writing my own code from scratch. The system in my apt. (soon to be house) has code entirely written by me.

The really cool part of Crestron code is that it is done as "modules" which you link together to do what you want. Very handy really. (For AMX I have saved certain sections of code as "templates" in a similar manner.)

Both systems can be controlled by iPads now (Crestron's app is better and less expensive.) so you can control your house from anywhere in the world literally.

Both brands have a variety of interfaces and hardware..AMX has a slight advantage in that most of the AMX controllers have more Relays, I/O and other ports built in to the master controller..Crestron often needs outboard boxes/modules for expansion.

Fun stuff to work with..and you can even make your toilets flush with them!! (I did it as a gag for a client once...he was so impressed he paid me a bonus.)