The top-line news on the latest Crestron Home® OS update: Functionality for the Crestron Home Configurator is now expanding beyond lighting.

“The implications are huge, because the Configurator is now not just for lighting,” says Jason Oster, Crestron’s director of product management (residential solutions).

Dealers who’ve used the Configurator for lighting will find the new features familiar. “They can do all the heavy data-entry ahead of time, back at the comfort of their office, with their PC, Mac, or laptop — in the past, they could only do their lighting load, but now they can add all their shading motors, shade scenes, and they can tie in all their keypad buttons to actually control the shades,” Oster explains.

Adding shading to the Configurator is yet another step on the trajectory to include every part of the platform. “We’ll eventually include everything that Crestron Home Setup can do, not just lights and shades, but we'll be adding thermostats, AV, pool controllers, name it,” says Oster.

Reports and Adjustments Made Easy

The Crestron Home Configurator then allows a dealer to generate PDF reports that outline wiring needs and power supplies for each shade, or in the case of wireless devices, display the location and number of gateways required for the installation. If there is a handoff to a third party for this aspect, communication becomes that simple.

From that point, on-site adjustments are equally convenient. Oster outlines the process: “A dealer can then enter a deployment code into the Crestron Home Processor. It reaches out to the cloud. Based on that code, it pulls down the right configuration and loads all the data, all the lighting loads, all the shading motors, everything right into the Crestron Home Setup app.” It’s a simple manner to tweak lighting and shading live with a client or lighting designer once basic setup is complete.

Want to get involved with the latest Crestron advances? If you’d like to be part of the group testing OS 3.14 — and providing feedback on the next update — drop us a line at techsales@crestron.com.