Crestron has announced significant updates to its Home OS 4, focusing on enhanced lighting support, expanded audio-over-IP capabilities, and improved functionalities in the myCrestron portal. The new Crestron Home OS 4.1 update aims to refine user experience and provide integrators with more tools to manage and configure smart home systems effectively.

Introduced last year, Crestron Home OS 4 is now equipped with its first major update since launch, dubbed OS 4.1. This upgrade will be available at no additional cost to existing customers and looks to improve the user experience with several new features and improvements.

One of the key updates in Crestron Home OS 4.1 is the improved support for various lighting ecosystems. The new version introduces digital lighting drivers for third-party devices, enabling seamless integration with popular lighting systems like Philips Hue. Users can now import lighting scenes directly from the Hue hub, making it easier to create customized lighting experiences.

In addition to Philips Hue, Crestron Home OS 4.1 also supports Lutron’s lighting systems, specifically the HomeWorks HQP7-RF-2 wireless processor. This expanded compatibility allows homeowners to integrate their existing lighting setups into the Crestron ecosystem without the need for extensive reconfiguration.

Crestron Home OS 4.1 also brings extensive support for a range of DM NAX audio-over-IP devices. This update includes compatibility with the DM-NAX-4ZSA-50 amplifier and the DM-NAX-XSP Audio Return Processor. Furthermore, support for audio edge devices such as the DM-NAX-BTIO-1G, DM-NAX-2XLRI-1G, DM-NAX-AUD-IO, and DM-NAX-AUD-USB has been added. These enhancements provide users with more options for high-quality audio distribution throughout their homes.

The inclusion of audio-over-IP support aligns with the growing trend towards IP-based audio solutions, which offer greater flexibility and scalability compared to traditional audio systems. By incorporating these capabilities, Crestron Home OS 4.1 promises that users will enjoy a seamless audio experience, whether they are streaming music, watching movies, or hosting parties.

The myCrestron portal, a cloud-based platform for managing, deploying, and configuring Crestron Home OS projects, has also received a series of updates designed to enhance dealer efficiency. New features include the ability to upload and download diagnostic files, which simplifies troubleshooting and system maintenance. This functionality allows dealers to quickly address issues without needing to be on-site, saving time and resources.

Another significant update is the integration of thermostats and temperature sensors, along with support for occupancy and motion sensors. These additions enable more sophisticated climate control and automation scenarios, enhancing the overall smart home experience. 

Advanced device settings and the ability to copy and paste configurations further streamline the setup process, making it easier for dealers to replicate settings across multiple devices or projects.

Crestron has also expanded the Home Configurator tool in Home OS 4.1. This tool now allows for the setup of digital inputs and outputs before dealers arrive at the job site. By pre-configuring these settings, dealers can expedite the installation process, reducing the time and effort required to get a system up and running.

These updates are part of Crestron’s strategy to provide a more integrated and user-friendly home automation experience. By expanding the compatibility with third-party devices and improving configuration tools, Crestron aims to cater to the evolving needs of both end-users and installers.

Crestron Home OS 4 was initially launched to offer a new level of interoperability and control over both Crestron and third-party devices within the smart home ecosystem. With these latest updates, the system not only enhances its core offerings but also ensures that users can have a more cohesive and controlled home environment.

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The latest update of the Crestron Home® OS — version 3.15 — has several features taking center stage: new collaborations with high-end manufacturers such as Black Nova and GUDE, and the ability to remotely reboot most Crestron IP devices in a home.

Software Reboot of Crestron Devices in the Device Health Dashboard

“We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on the power cycle feature for our Crestron power controllers in Crestron Home’s Device Health Dashboard,” says Jason Oster, Director of Product Management – Residential Solutions, Crestron. “If, for example, a cable box locks up, it’s a straightforward matter to power cycle that device with a single touch. Those features have been in Crestron Home for a few months now, and with this 3.15 update, we have extended even further what the Device Health Dashboard can do,” he adds.

“With this software reboot feature, it doesn’t matter if you have a Crestron power controller — you can reboot most Crestron IP devices from anywhere,” says Oster. “If something misbehaves, if a device is unresponsive, this allows for a remote reboot. Instead of rolling a truck, spending all that time and resources to perform a hard power cycle — or buying another PDU to be able to power cycle any Crestron devices in the rack — this can all be accomplished off-site. The process is extremely simple. From the Crestron Home app, or a Crestron Touch Screen, you can simply go to the Device Health Dashboard and right in the existing list of devices, if it can be rebooted, the reboot button will automatically be shown.”

Support for GUDE PDUs

In terrific news for European integrators (and their clients), Crestron Home® has added support for the GUDE line of German-made precision PDUs. These products are designed for AV IT experts, as GUDE is a familiar name to commercial and residential integrators in the EMEA region. Much like PDUs already offered by Crestron, one can power cycle devices through the Crestron Home app. GUDE is known for its high-quality and reliable switched PDUs with intelligent feature sets, such as remote reboot, extensive power metering, and surge protection. All these features mean faster service and increased operational safety.

Growing the Black Nova Partnership

The partnership with Black Nova is also expanding with this update, as Crestron Home will now support the elegant ARIA TT keypad, a luxurious glass panel with ten addressable touchpoints, and the ALBA M1, which includes a temperature display.

One of the key reasons Crestron was so keen to add Black Nova to Crestron Home was the company’s dedication to a wonderful experience for the end-user. “Black Nova’s products are as intuitive as they are beautiful,” says Alberto Mornico, CTO & Co-Founder, Black Nova. “We are always building control products that allow guests to live in an environment that doesn’t require a learning curve and delivers an unprecedented level of comfort, To that end — creating what the company calls a “customer-centric experience” — Black Nova has built an R and D department three to four times the size of a comparable firm,” adds Mornico.

Finding these elegant, simple solutions is a process driven by the dealers themselves. “All of this, of course, is helped along by dealer feedback,” says Oster. “Adjusting and expanding the platform to give integrators what they need is a top priority.”

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Internationally acclaimed smart lighting control company, Casambi recently announced its partnership with Crestron, a global leader in commercial lighting control and automation. By joining the Casambi Ecosystem, Crestron plans to integrate Casambi control within its Zūm® lighting control portfolio.

This partnership will deliver cross-compatibility between Casambi’s wireless mesh network capabilities and the Crestron Zūm product line – a widely distributed lighting control system that uses industry standards, such as 0-10V, DALI®, DMX and phase control all merged on one enterprise IoT network.

This interoperability means Casambi’s Bluetooth wireless mesh can extend a Crestron Züm system to enable luminaire level control of any “Casambi Ready” light fixture by Züm control devices and software.

“This partnership will benefit both organisations in a meaningful way,” says Peter Augusta, VP of Sales, Casambi North America. “Crestron customers and representatives gain access to Casambi’s world-class wireless mesh network as a “snap-on” option for Zūm, while Casambi’s ecosystem expands to include the prestige of Crestron’s products and services.”

“Crestron is excited to work closely with Casambi to expand our Zūm ecosystem to integrate with ‘Casambi ready’ fixtures,” said Jim McGrath Executive Director, Lighting Business Development, Crestron.  “Working with manufacturers such as Casambi provides reliability to the specification community to ensure that control systems and fixtures are tested to integrate with each other prior to specification and deployment.”

“The Casambi Ecosystem is predicated on the notion that diversity plays a central role in helping the lighting industry to innovate and transform. We’re extremely pleased to have Crestron onboard”, said Kari Metälä, CEO, Casambi. “By joining the Casambi Ecosystem, Crestron can immediately leverage our core competencies in wireless lighting control while focusing on the value they create for their customers. Conversely, this cooperation will undoubtedly reinforce Casambi’s usability – especially in high-end offices and conference rooms – further strengthening our presence in North America, and indeed, globally”. 

Casambi’s system compatibility with Crestron products will benefit the industry in a big way by enabling smarter system installations to scale across a broad range of commercial applications, in addition to improving the integrated user experience with Zūm products via the use of Casambi smart wireless controls. As the Casambi Ecosystem grows throughout North America, its partnerships are making smart buildings smarter through the provision of large-scale lighting systems that are more reliably connected, secured, and effortless to control.

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The upcoming Crestron Home® OS version 3.13, which will be available in May, has a number of new features, but one of the most intriguing is the addition of Circadian Rhythm settings, which allow you to “auto-tune” lighting to mimic natural light patterns throughout the day.

Everyone who uses Crestron dimmers will now have the ability to modify the light intensity in this “bio-centric” manner. This upgrade will make every feature of Crestron’s tunable LED light fixtures, as well as those provided by its partners, available in the new fixtures, including the Circadian Rhythm function’s color.

Setup is remarkably easy: “There are really just five steps to it, and any Crestron dealer will find the process familiar,” says Jason Oster, director of product management (residential solutions) for Crestron.

Those steps are:

1.  In the advanced Crestron Home menu, press “Circadian.”

2. In the Circadian menu, set desired color temperature levels for morning, day, evening, and night. “Throughout the day we take those points at various times of day and create a nice smooth curve to adjust the color temperature,” explains Oster. “The homeowner doesn’t concisely see color temperature levels since the color temperature shifts are being slowly executed behind the scenes by Crestron Home.”

For systems that only have traditional dimmers, instead of color temperature, the Circadian feature can adjust the lighting intensity. Oster explains, “Even before the Crestron fixtures are released, with traditional Crestron lighting systems, people can now take advantage of this Circadian feature.”

3. Run the preview. “This allows the integrator to play back a whole day in one minute,” says Oster. That’s when all the adjustments to a day-long program are made. “They can do this either by themselves or with a lighting expert. Or, if they want to, and the homeowner’s interested, they can walk around with the client and adjust via a tablet or use the touch panel on the wall, tweaking all these settings, pressing the preview button, and asking the homeowner. ‘Hey, what do you think of that? Do you want it lighter, darker, different color temperature?’”

4. Repeat step three for each room featuring Circadian lighting.

5. Choose the trigger. “There are different ways of automating this,” Oster notes. “You can trigger Circadian mode from a Horizon keypad, a schedule, a touch panel, or, of course, from your Crestron Home app.” One can also set certain override scenes. “Suppose I want to clean the kitchen, but it’s midday on a sunny day,” says Oster. “I’d want all the light at one hundred percent, even though normally I wouldn’t want that with noontime sun pouring into the windows. I’ll add, say, a ‘Clean’ scene button, and that’ll give me maximum light in that room to temporarily override the automatic Circadian scene recall.”

SolarSync, which uses an exterior Crestron SolarSync sensor to pick up the actual outside color temperature of the sun in real-time and adapts your inside lighting to match that light, is also included in this version.

Warm Dim is another feature of the update: “You can think of it like the old-school incandescent bulbs as one dims the light, it starts to go towards more of a yellow or an orange hue,” says Oster. “It feels more natural to most people because many of us grew up with incandescent bulbs.”

Dashboards and DM NAX Updates

Beyond lighting, the device health dashboard is seeing more features added with every update, too. “It’s now capable of much more than just power cycling a device. For example, with this release, we support tracking and monitoring the battery life of TSR-310 remotes and even see the last time the remote checked in with the control processor to glean if someone has left a remote off the dock for a few days,” says Oster. 

This update also includes battery life information from the door and occupancy sensors. Additionally, as Crestron publishes new upgrades to the device health dashboard, additional devices and features are immediately added to the dashboard.

There’s news on the Crestron DM NAX front as well. “Previously we added support for Amazon connected speakers,” Oster explains. “With this release, we’re now supporting the Spotify Connect app, which allows each user to save favorites — you like classical music in the morning? Call it up with a single press with any Crestron Home device, including presets from keypads.”

New drivers and Crestron Home Extensions are constantly being released to the driver portal. Among the most recent third-party driver releases are two from the UK-based Lighting Control: 

1. An “Intercom” feature that allows door station to touch panel or touch panel to touch panel communication.
2. “Vacation Recording” feature that learns the homeowner’s lighting patterns, and gives the illusion of occupancy when the client’s away. 

Like so many other features, this update comes from the feedback loop that Crestron nurtures: “The CSP/Dealer community that are making these drivers are getting very creative and create a very useful list of drivers for the Crestron Home community,” says Oster. “They’re using both our SDK driver as well as the Crestron Home REST API for controlling Crestron Home.”

“Almost every single week, we have multiple extensions being submitted to Crestron so we can post them up on our cloud,” says Oster. “It’s always incredible to see what our dealers and CSPs are coming up with.”

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The Ultimate In-Wall Subwoofer, created in collaboration with Origin Acoustics, and the DM NAX 4-Zone Streaming Pre-Amplifier for high-performance Audio-over-IP are two new residential audio solutions announced today by Crestron Electronics, the global leader in home automation (AoIP). Both the Crestron Ultimate In-Wall Subwoofer and the Crestron DM NAX Streaming Pre-Amplifier will play a significant role in Crestron’s growing array of residential audio solutions.

“Both the Ultimate In-Wall Subwoofer and the expansion of our DM NAX solutions help us further our goal of providing integrators the most comprehensive suite of home audio solutions possible,” stated Michael Short, Director of Residential Marketing, Crestron. “These products natively integrate with each other and with the broader Crestron Home platform giving integrators the ability to hit the ground running, whether they are starting a new project or scaling the smart ecosystem for an existing client”, added Short. 

Crestron Ultimate Subwoofers made by Origin Acoustics

The Crestron Ultimate In-Wall Subwoofer is the newest addition to Crestron’s home audio arsenal, adding a lineup that already includes over a dozen architectural and landscape speakers. The new Ultimate In-Wall Subwoofer helps provide an immersive sound experience with deep, rewarding bass for demanding multiroom audio setups or home theatre applications when connected with Crestron speakers from the Ultimate or Reference ranges. The Ultimate In-Wall Subwoofer, like the rest of the line’s products, is manufactured with high-quality components and paintable grilles for a bespoke look. 

The Ultimate Subwoofer is compatible with the Crestron Home ecosystem and DM NAX AoIP technology, making it simple for homeowners to broadcast full, rich sound throughout their house.

Crestron DM NAX Audio-over-IP Distribution Solution

Crestron’s first pre-amplifier is the newest addition to the DM NAX family, expanding the range of options for homeowners and integrators searching for residential AoIP distribution platforms. Slimmer in form (1RU) but similar in function to the DM NAX Amplifier, the DM NAX 4-Zone Streaming Pre-Amplifier natively integrates with Crestron Home, is interoperable with AES67, and Dante® audio networking. It employs hardwired connections and doesn’t require any special network architecture or hardware, so it can be smoothly connected to existing amplifiers in retrofit or new construction projects. 

Integrators can give consumers entire control of the audio environment using DM NAX AoIP’s flexibility, scalability, and interoperability, allowing them to toggle between TV audio, streaming music, podcasts, alarms, doorbells, and even paging and intercom usage to any speaker in the house.

The Ultimate Subwoofer will be available for purchase on March 23, and the DM NAX 4-Zone Streaming Pre-Amplifier can be pre-ordered now.

About Crestron Electronics

Crestron creates the technology that makes smart homes truly intelligent. No other firm is better positioned to deliver the success dealers seek and the experience clients demand after decades of leading the smart home category. To know more please visit , https://www.crestron.com/

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Crestron Home clients can now enjoy, intuitive control of their AV content using natural voice commands.Josh.ai received exclusive development access to expand its audio and video distribution capabilities to Crestron Home systems. Crestron Home customers can enjoy intuitive control of their AV content using voice commands. All performing without requiring a professional installer to pre-program scenes or quick actions.

A hardware-agnostic approach allows Josh.ai to support any system design, no matter the complexity or specific brands that are installed. While Crestron Home acts as the control backbone, Josh.ai will be able to communicate with a home’s devices, using its intelligence to find specific content with compatible service providers.

Josh.ai announced the deployment of Crestron Home projects. Integrators will continue to follow the same process as was previously used with one addition.
After connecting to the network, Josh.ai requires the authorization of the Crestron Home hub. A second authorization token is now needed to support AV distribution, set by the installer. After both authorization steps are taken, Josh.ai will begin auto-populating all compatible devices programmed within Crestron Home’s interface. In addition to AV source distribution, Josh.ai natively works with Crestron Home’s lights, shades, thermostats, locks, scenes, and quick actions.

In addition to the convenience of voice automation, users will interact with Josh.ai’s stance as a privacy-focused assistant dedicated to the smart home. Clients benefit from the peace of mind that Josh.ai is committed to providing an elegant experience without selling or leveraging customer data for marketing purposes.

About Josh.ai

 Josh is a conversational agent aware of your surroundings with an effort to make predictive suggestions. Josh is envisioned as a voice-based OS that seamlessly connects to any smartphone, smartwatch, and other connected gadgets. The goal is to make Josh.ai the personal assistant users today need.

About Creston

Crestron leads with av integration equipment. Whether users need to control an AV presentation, video conference, or update their digital signage, Crestron Electronics keeps consumers connected and in control of your technology. Crestron Home brings life to a house, made possible with smart home technology that is intuitive and simple. A complete smart home system engineered to become invisible, so all that remains is an experience

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