Exclusive Interview: How Crestron Home Is Shaping the Future of High-End Smart Home Integration

In this exclusive interview, Vice President Global Marketing Operations & Residential at Crestron Electronics Michael Short sat down with Jay Basen, one of Residential Tech Today’s contributors and a long-time developer of Crestron systems, to discuss Crestron’s vision for the development of residential projects and the integration of third-party products into the systems that Crestron dealers develop for their customers.

Here’s how the conversation unfolded…

Jay Basen: Can you describe how you see positioning by Crestron of smart home systems built with Crestron Home versus though those with SIMPL Windows?

Michael Short: Crestron’s legacy and leadership in the custom, professional smart home dates back 30 or 40 years. Because we were a custom-programmed system, our systems could be designed to do nearly any outcome which was really important. Now, the world has changed over the past 10 years as smart homes have become more prevalent. With the popularity of the iPhone, people have gotten used to experiencing a single operating system. This has led to the progression towards a standardized operating experience that many of our dealers and our customers have began to look for even more.

When you look at Crestron and our offerings, there are two approaches we provide. The first is that Crestron Home is the focus for us on the residential side in terms of development and integration performance. We are continually refining and improving the experience for both the end user and the dealer. On the backend, we’re striving for an amazing, easy, and simple way for the dealer to deliver more Crestron Home projects with speed and at scale, because the operating system allows them to do that. This gives our dealers growth opportunities to be able to achieve more, develop more, and really drive revenue by doing more projects. Then on the front end, because we own the operating system look and feel, we have an entire development team focused on refining and developing better ways for it to look, feel, and function. That is a huge focus for us.

The second thing to approach is the custom side of our Crestron residential offerings, which is still exceptionally. Many of our dealers still like to develop their own experience. They want to develop something completely unique in the experience that they deliver to their customers and certain projects require custom designs and custom programming. So, we’re not taking that away. Both are still key elements of Crestron.

For example, our super yacht business is comprised entirely of custom projects. The demands on board of a superyacht, including the way that these large vessels function and the demands of the integration of some of the solutions on board, these need to be custom projects because of the difference of the demands.

Now on land, we say there is really no project that couldn’t be done in Crestron Home. We know the size and scale of Crestron Home can deliver a Crestron Home experience on any size project. However, some of our dealers have the scale, the expertise, and the skills to still want to deliver custom experiences where needed. So, dealers are finding that mix. Each dealer is different and each region across the world is different. But our focus is Crestron Home, which we see as the future of our residential platforms. We want to make sure that dealers have that choice and can do the right thing for their business to thrive. That’s really important in terms of the decision making between Crestron Home versus custom.

JB: My focus, when I was building residential systems, was really big houses. The largest house I ever did was 75,000 square feet. So, I don’t know if I’d quite feel comfortable tackling a project of that size and complexity with Crestron Home. It comes down to the integration requirements. For example, on that project, Crestron didn’t have switchers that could seamlessly handle the requirements of the project, so the logic to control five tiers of stacked Crestron switchers became overly complex and completely custom.

MS: We would work with you on that. You also need to consider, what does the customer want in terms of the integration and what are you delivering? As long as you, as the dealer, had all of the information and confidence across both, then you make the decision that’s right. At least with Crestron, we’re saying, hey, we trust you, we’re going to give you the tools and let’s make sure that you’re fully stacked in terms of experience and knowledge to be able to do this project. You’re doing custom, but for those five other projects I’m sending my mid-level guys. They can get them done in Crestron Home because it’s just configuring the system without any custom programming while you’re going to spend 6-7 months on one custom project. I believe that, as a dealer in this industry, that is an amazing position to be in, to have those options.

We’ve tested the scale. You can put up to 40 touch screens in a Crestron Home project now, along with 240 keypads, 200 shades, 600 lighting loads, 600 DMXC lights, and 40 thermostats. We’re talking big, big projects on a very large scale. This wasn’t the scale we had four years ago, but times have changed.

JB: I agree with you. I like that Crestron offers both of those paths.

Can you talk a little bit about the mixing of them? What I remember from when I was actively delivering systems to customers, Crestron Home had just been released and the ability to integrate a SIMPL Windows system on the back end to handle some custom requirements with Crestron Home handling the customer facing front end was, at that time, very limited.

MS: There are now modules within Crestron Home that allow you to do certain elements on SIMPL Windows in custom, and then you bring that into the user interface in Crestron Home. So, for example, with the DM NVX platform we recently launched Multiview; the ability to take all of your sources and put them on the same screen. The feature offers different formats including side by side, picture in picture, 4 by 4, or six by six. This is only available in custom.

We haven’t yet built the integration to allow Multiview control in the Crestron Home platform. It’s coming, but it’s not ready yet. So, if you were doing a project right now with a theater or a media room, and the house had Crestron Home, you bring in a Crestron CP4 processor, and you get a Multiview driver from a CSP. Then, you connect the CP4 with the Multiview driver to Crestron Home and you have a solution for the end user. So, you absolutely can bring custom into Crestron Home. We’re hoping, as time goes by, that there will be less and less need to ever do that.

JB: Those are some impressive numbers.

But, how about integration outside of AV switchers that are part of the core functionality of a Crestron Home system?

MS: Sure. Now, one thing which has been a massive focus of ours over the past few years is our driver portfolio. This is because it’s a key element that has to keep up to speed with all of the new products out there. Whether it’s TVs, receivers, displays, streaming boxes, or any of these third-party devices, the Crestron driver portal is key to bringing those devices in. The library has grown extensively over the past three years and is a big thing for us.

JB: Yes, which brings up one of my other questions, what’s Crestron’s vision for bringing in products like robotic vacuums and all of the IoT devices that are hitting the consumer market? While the massive homes will not have robotic vacuums running around, at least today, the smaller, more mid-sized houses, where a dealer can sell a Crestron Home system, probably will.

MS: Over the past year, we’ve been talking about content, collaboration, and control themes across our whole business. First, content is our video distribution and audio distribution with our market-leading DM NVX and DM NAX solutions, which is an exceptionally strong offering for us.

Then, we have our expertise in control for residential systems. That includes all of the ways that we’re simplifying configuration for dealers and making the platform really solid. It’s the UX in the operating system that our customers get, from all of our stunning remotes and keypads, and the touch screens to control the system.

Finally, that third C is for collaboration. For Crestron Home, that is all about those third-party products and IoT professional solutions that fall outside of the ecosystem. That collaboration C is extremely important.

One brand we integrate with is Philips Hue. Philips Hue is a huge brand for lighting within the IoT space. It works seamlessly in Crestron Home, but we also work seamlessly with Lutron Ketra because part of our “True Blue” mentality is that this is a collaboration that our customers want.

So, when it comes to IoT devices, these partnerships fall into that same collaboration bracket. Our integrations extend beyond this to have drivers for everything from pool controllers and cameras to climate and dishwashers, and even door locks and security systems. We have thousands of drivers and as more IoT devices come to the market, this library will continue to grow. But one thing that makes this challenging is that some IoT device manufacturers make a big splash in the market and then they just don’t survive.

JB: I completely agree with you. The industry has a real issue with IoT device manufacturers that come out with a very desirable first product, but then can’t maintain that momentum, and go out of business. The reliance of these products on cloud services means that, with the company gone, their products turn into bricks.

The industry also has a problem with large, established companies that decide to “sunset” devices and their customers are again, left with a bunch of e-waste that doesn’t function anymore.

MS: I think many of these companies and products fail because their manufacturers don’t, in my opinion, put their faith in a professional and treat the industry as it deserves. Installing professionally installed smart homes is a skill set, just like a plumber or an electrician. That’s where I don’t think these brands realize the power of the professional within our industry. It is very, very hard to do what we do and what our dealers do. And that’s really important.

However, there is always going to be space for IoT device manufacturers because there are things that Crestron is never going to make. For example, we’re not going to make robotic vacuums or smart dishwashers. So, we integrate and we collaborate. And it’s not just Crestron. Any of our Crestron service providers, or partner manufacturers, can develop a driver for Crestron. We have an open platform that allows for that. If Bosch decided they wanted to develop a new protocol for microwaves with Crestron, we’re in contact with them. They could develop a driver, it could go into our driver database, and then be available for our dealers and their customers. We have all of the building blocks from a driver standpoint to connect with any third-party solution.

It is a long-term vision of ours to constantly collaborate with all of the players in the market that are making fantastic waves, and we want to be a part of it.