The Crestron Home platform receives an update every six weeks or so, which includes everything from simple bug fixes to major enhancements and features for Crestron and third-party devices.
“We have a priority list of all possible features and all the devices that we need to support,” says Jason Oster, Director of Product Management, Residential Solutions, Crestron. “As you can imagine, some things are massive. It could be an eight-month project and we have other things that only take a few weeks”, adds Oster.
Oster believes that balance is the key when it comes to the range of features in a new version. “A good update, from our perspective, is a mix of large and small improvements, as well as third-party integration”, explains Oster.
The following are features of Crestron Home OS 3.12 Update:
Alexa support for the Crestron DM NAX product line: With this upgrade, end-users will be able to use Amazon Alexa voice control to control their music in any DM NAX zone.
“What makes this an even better user experience, is that if you set up grouping via the Amazon Alexa app, Amazon knows which Alexa mic you are talking to. You don’t even need to specify the room. You can simply say things like ‘Alexa, play Radiohead,’ and if you are in the kitchen, it knows that, and will immediately start playing that content in the overhead kitchen speakers being driven by DM NAX”, explains Oster.
DM-NAX-4ZSP Support: With the latest in next-generation Audio-over-IP technology, this update gives the user complete control over the Crestron DM NAX streaming preamplifier.
Device Health Dashboard: Regardless of the fact that the device health dashboard was only launched in January to support the Crestron PC-350V-18/12s, it now has capabilities to monitor the system more effectively.
“This is a good example of how we keep making things better at a rapid pace”, says Oster. “In just a few weeks we took the device dashboard that showed if devices were online or offline, and let dealers or end-users reboot failing devices. Now, as of this month, it can also show the battery status of remotes like the HR-310, and we added filtering capabilities to the dashboard too”, adds Oster.
Support for the DIN Rail Fan-Coil Thermostat for Heating and Cooling: With this update, the DN-TSTAT-FCU fan coil unit controller with Cresnet interface, can be simply integrated with the Crestron Home Platform.
Device support for Battery Shades: The Crestron Battery-Powered Shades now have a concealable battery pack that powers the shade motor while the SG radio transceiver handles control and status.
Support for the “Room Group” function: This upgrade builds on the concept of allowing dealers and integrators to construct many room groupings, sections, or zones, based on their terminology preference, in their Crestron Home configurator.
“The Crestron home configurator right now deals with pre-configuring lighting. You can create your lighting scenes so you’re not in somebody’s house doing all that work on-site, you can do it ahead of time”, says Oster. “Based on popular demand we have also added an option to the Crestron Home Setup app so dealers can quickly hide ‘Equipment Room,’ ‘Utility Closets’ and other ‘techy’ rooms that hold devices; all spaces end-users don’t need to see in their app”, adds Oster.
