What makes Crestron so special?

[ryuvann]

Was curious to see what their dimmers and so on look like so started googling them. I quickly found crazy hardware modules that look more like an alarm or something with several screw in terminals and so on, like here http://www.heimkinoraum.de/upload/im..._Prodigy_2.JPG

That looks soooo much more complicated than any Z-Wave, Insteon, Lutron and so on automation. Not looking to switch to it or anything, just curious why people use Crestron, Control4 and so on and why they look so complicated!

[AndroidDev01]

That is a DIM rail switch module. It is in a DIM rail rack by a equipment room. The "real" switch on the wall looks normals, this controls functions. Typically this allows for only scene controllers on walls.

[mrhappy]

X10 have done DIN rail dimmers/switches for years for the EU market (I think DIN rail itself is a German thing), CBus also do their own dimmers/switches, Loxone also...really they are not that much more complex than a normal dimmer, it is just that there is normally more than one in a unit and it is quite far away from the switch. It is more that you can have all your dimmers in one place than having all your dimmers over the house.

[ryuvann]

That makes sense, the image in the screenshot I posted was just one example. When I google image search Crestron Dimmers there's half photos of dimmer switches and the rest are those rail module type things. So I thought maybe Crestron was wired differently or something. Thanks!

[Uncle Michael]

So I thought maybe Crestron was wired differently or something.

It depends on what you mean by 'wired differently'. As mrhappy notes:

...really they are not that much more complex than a normal dimmer, it is just that there is normally more than one in a unit and it is quite far away from the switch. It is more that you can have all your dimmers in one place than having all your dimmers over the house.

The 'switch' or scene controller on the wall does not control the load, it communicates via wired or wireless to the actual switches, mounted in banks in a cabinet out of sight. Presumably, those are what you were seeing in the search results. The setup allows you to place 'switches' (or scene controllers) where you want them, independent of where the wiring is located or how many physical switches are required to produce the desired lighting scenes.

As far as what makes Crestron special, it's more about the hand holding and responsibility for design, installation and maintenance that they assume. It's a turn key system for someone with little inclination to make lighting control a hobby, and the money to pay someone else to do it.

X10 have done DIN rail dimmers/switches for years for the EU market (I think DIN rail itself is a German* thing)

[Pete]

100% sure control of the automated switch is still via a LV wire or proprietary wireless (sort of).

That said hobby style / not commercial is still:

1 - pure power line - X10 / UPB
2 - powerline hybrid with wireless bridging - Insteon
3 - wireless - Z-Wave, Zigbee and other propietary methodologies

Commercial / pro installations are leaning towards wireless Zigbee these days.

A commercially installed automation set up is configured for the user to use but not tinkered with and works 100% of the time.

A few years back spoke to a large Midwestern commercial alarm / automation company that primarily used one of the two oldest combination security / automation panels still being sold today.

He had a large customer base and the only issues he had related to the interface / console / touch screen.

You pay much more for this installation and support.

Here over the years build a rail with DIN mounted LED power supplies for pure LED 12 VDC lighting. This is automated on the HV end via UPB. 20 years ago looked at proposed automation in the fuse panel with multiple smaller circuits (breakers) all having LV connectivity for automation.