Third-Party Additions — and More Configurator Power

Dealers will immediately note another key benefit of Version 4.1: The ability to import scenes from select third-party lighting ecosystems. Oster explains: “We released Digital Lighting drivers for third-party lighting devices, including the Phillips Hue driver— but it hardly stops there. With 4.1, we expanded the Digital Lighting driver framework, so now Crestron Home is also able to import lighting scenes directly from the Hue hub.”

It’s all part of an overarching philosophy when it comes to the Crestron Home platform: It’s designed to “work and play well” with others. “The more, the merrier,” says Oster. “We're known for control, so the more drivers, the more manufacturers that support lighting and other products, the better.” Another of those manufacturers is Lutron, and with this update, there’s also support for the HomeWorks® HQP7-RF-2 wireless processor.

Those familiar with past updates know that there’s another aspect of the OS that Crestron is constantly evolving: the power of the platform’s configurator. “We’ve expanded the Crestron Home Configurator even further, allowing for the setup of digital inputs and outputs before the dealer even hits the job site, for example,” says Oster. “This makes it a snap to include devices such as door sensors or occupancy sensors, so when a door is opened, or motion is detected in a closet or some similar space, you can have the system automatically turn on those lights.”  (That’s just one example of the many updates Crestron has made to the configurator — watch this space for an update soon.) “On the output side, dealers can also now preconfigure relay-controlled devices such as gates, garage doors, and more,” says Oster.

“The whole point of the pre-configuration tool is to get your work done ahead of time. You can do all the data entry for your lights, for your keypads, for the engravings, and now you can also add your digital inputs and outputs as well,” he adds.