COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS IN A CRESTRON HOME

People count blessings in different ways, whether it be related to personal accomplishments, the accumulation of wealth or material possessions, the ability to travel to Africa to explore scenic vistas of gazelles, lions, and zebras, or the quality of day-to-day life.

If you are fortunate enough to live in an automated Crestron Smart Home, you experience a unique set of blessings every day that most people only dream about.  Let’s explore those that are possible with a Crestron Home Automation System:

AUTOMATE ACTIONS FOR AN EASIER LIFE

Within Crestron Home’s proprietary ecosystem, there are a whole host of smart devices that synchronize with each other to automate the operation of all smart devices in your home in order to make daily mundane tasks happen as part of a pre-programmed scenario.  In today’s fast-paced, high-tech world with its tendency to add high stress levels to our lives, it is only fitting that you have the opportunity to use automated technology to make home life as easy and relaxing as possible.

Crestron’s latest release of its operating system for residential use, Crestron Home OS 4, offers you an easy way to personally set up Quick Actions, also known as Scenes, to facilitate the automation of scenarios that routinely take several actions to complete.  This gives you the ability to enable multiple actions at once with a single tap on either a wall-mounted Crestron Horizon keypad, a Crestron Touchscreen or remote control, or the app on your smart phone.

For example, a popular Quick Action is one that would possibly be named “Good Morning.” With one touch, this scenario could open window treatments in designated areas of your home to allow natural morning light to flood into those areas, prompting your body to sync up with the natural circadian rhythms of the sun that ease the awakening process.  At the same time, the Crestron tunable LED lights in areas without windows would automatically adjust to match the real-time color and intensity level of the morning sun, also providing the benefits of morning light to the awakening process. 

And, of course, other actions can be added to the “Good Morning” Quick Action, such as turning on the automatic coffee maker, turning on the shower and adjusting the water temperature according to your preference, or sending an announcement such as “Rise and Shine” to the childrens’ bedrooms, perhaps adding a chime to it to make it impossible to ignore.

LIGHT THE WAY THROUGHOUT YOUR PROPERTY

As human beings, we are naturally drawn to light, and for good reason: it directly affects our well-being and mood.  So it is no wonder that automated smart lighting systems are so popular.

With Crestron Home, you can enjoy setting up Quick Actions that control the color palette and activation time of your lighting systems for any special occasion, such as a birthday party or a cookout, in addition to those that are a part of your daily family routines, such as automatically dimming the lights in the home theater just before the movie starts.

Combining Philips Hue wireless lighting options with Crestron’s system of tunable LED lighting provides you with a versatile way to achieve the desired aesthetic effect of lighting throughout your home, and adding occupancy sensors, as well, allows Crestron Home to illuminate and extinguish lighting according to the presence of family, friends, pets, or even your friendly neighborhood burglar.  In addition, special sensors can be used to synchronize outdoor lighting to the rising and setting of the sun.

Likewise, linking outdoor lighting from AiSPIRE with Crestron Home provides the same versatility outdoors.  Motion sensors can be added to selected zones, such as entrances to your home, your garage, and any other buildings on your property, as well as to the gazebo and pool areas or the tennis court.  And, of course, colorful outdoor lighting can be used to highlight the façade of your home and create the desired ambiance for any holiday.

MONITOR ACTIVITY ON YOUR PROPERTY

The ability to monitor and record activities on your property 24/7/365 is another smart home feature that is currently in high demand. A surveillance camera monitoring system such as that from IC Realtime  can be easily integrated into Crestron Home.  And you have the ability to access either the real-time or recorded footage at all times on either your smartphone, a Crestron touchscreen, or even a smart TV.

CONTROL ACCESS TO YOUR PROPERTY

Whether access to your property begins at the main gate, or at the front entrance of your home, you can feel confident that it is capably controlled by Crestron Home.

No matter the type of access devices in use, such as smart locks from Yale, biometric readers from eKey, or a video doorbell/intercom from 2N or DoorBird, Crestron Home capably integrates them into its vast ecosystem.

ENJOY TRUSTED NETWORK SECURITY

As an early partner with many government agencies in the field of video teleconferencing technology, Crestron has a trusted reputation as a pioneer in highly reliable network security.  Those high standards have been successfully integrated into Crestron Home.

CONTROL 3^RD PARTY DEVICES

There are, of course, many smart devices within the Crestron Home ecosystem that were specifically designed by the company to carry the Crestron name and to easily integrate with their control processing devices.  For security reasons, Crestron is rather selective about integrating some 3rd party smart devices into their system (as is Apple^®), but recently they have made more of an effort to work with many vendors to integrate the drivers for those devices into Crestron Home.  This is a major upgrade available through Crestron Home OS 4, which greatly enhances your capability to integrate some of your favorite devices into the Crestron Home ecosystem without having to do it using the specific app for that device.

STAY COMFY AND COZY THROUGHOUT YOUR HOME

Crestron Horizon smart thermostats, when paired with multizone heating and cooling systems, maintain an optimal temperature throughout your home at all times.  In addition, these versatile thermostats are also capable of controlling floor warming and humidity control systems.

ENTERTAINMENT THAT FOLLOWS YOU AROUND THE HOUSE

Crestron Home provides networked audio and video throughout your home (inside and out) that allows you to access any TV show, movie, or musical score anywhere in your home simultaneously.  Send Justin Bieber tunes to the game room, the movie “Frozen” to the kids’ playroom, the Super Bowl to the sports bar, the movie Avatar to your home theater, or a slideshow of popular constellations to the Rose Garden for stargazing, catering to everyone’s entertainment tastes at once.

INSTANTLY COMMUNICATE TO ANY AREA OF YOUR HOME

With the advent of Crestron Home OS 4, you have the capability to make announcements across your whole-home speaker system, either to the entire house at once or exclusively to selected zones, such as the west wing, the children’s playroom, or the hi-fi listening room.

In addition, you can select a chime from the Crestron Home library, or upload your favorite sound clip, to add to your announcement for emphasis.

KEEP IT ALL RUNNING 24/7/365

Crestron Home paired with an Energy Management System such as that from Adapt Energy^® equals true peace of mind in an automated home that is 100% dependent on modern technology.  An energy management system constantly monitors the status of solar panels, back-up batteries and generators, as well as the energy usage levels of all electrical devices in your home, allowing you to understand which devices are “energy hogs” and then take steps to reduce that usage.  This process is greatly simplified in a Crestron smart home, where all the controls and usage data are at your fingertips on a Crestron touchscreen or other mobile device.

AND BEST OF ALL…

With Crestron Home, you have the ability to monitor your home over IP from anywhere in the world, as long as you have internet access.  Whether you are on the road to Nashville, Tennessee to see “The Polar Express™” holiday ice sculptures, or sunbathing on a beach in Cancun, Mexico, you can receive alerts about unexpected activity on your property or communicate with visitors through your video doorbell to allow them access to your home to deliver packages, do housekeeping, or care for your pets.

Our team at AV Enthusiast wishes you and your loved ones health and happiness as we head into another new year.  May you receive unexpected blessings throughout 2024!

Got questions?  AV Enthusiast has the answers! 

Please call us at 256-882-5081. 

The AV Enthusiast showroom is located at 514 Madison Street in Huntsville, Alabama.  Our office hours are Monday – Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM and Saturday from 10 AM to 3 PM.