CE Pro May 2021 - 58

CE Products
FIELD TEST | EDITOR'S PICK | NEW PRODUCTS

Crestron Home &
70 Series UI Deliver
Midas Touch
By Robert Archer
LAST YEAR, I had a Crestron
Home review system set
up in my house, and as with
any automation system it
is already evolving. At the
start my family was using
Crestron's 60 Series 10-inch
Touch Screen to navigate
the system and connected
devices, but the company
recently introduced the
next-generation series.
Fast forward a couple of
months and Jon and Matt
Herbster, owners of the
Danvers, Mass.-based integration firm Audio Innovations, swung by to add some
Crestron Home-enabled
light switches and upgrade
to the new 70 Series 10-inch
Touch Screen.
Features & Installation
A lot of the changes associated with the 70 Series
Touch Screens are subtle, yet
highly effective in improving
an already great, user-friendly experience.
Starting with the look of
the 70 Series Touch Screens,
note they are sleeker, with a
smaller footprint and more
room amenable. The 70
Series Touch Screens are
available in 5-, 7- and 10-inch

58 | CE Pro May 2021

C2105 pp58-59 Field Test.indd 58

sizes, and Crestron also
offers a tabletop version in 7or 10-inch screen sizes.
The Wi-Fi-enabled touch
screens incorporate upgraded processors and higher
screen resolutions compared
with previous-generation
models.
One advantage of the tabletop models, according to
Crestron, is that homeowners can place these control
interfaces in locations such as
kitchen countertops, nightstands and coffee tables.
Installation of the 10-inch
wall-mount 70 Series took
the Herbster brothers literally just a few minutes.
Designed for a quick
swap, all an integrator needs
to do is grip the edges of
the touchpanel and give

The 70 Series devices
have a smaller footprint
than the 60 Series.

The Crestron 70 Series Touch Screen features upgraded
processors and higher screen resolution than past products.

a tug. Through the touchscreen's bracket system and
single cable connection, the
old touchscreen popped out
of the bracket easily. After
the integrators disconnected the network cable on the
back side of the old touchscreen and connected it to
the new one, the 70 Series
10-inch model snapped into
place almost effortlessly.
A few minutes later, the
new 70 Series uploaded my
Crestron Home system's
programming and that was
pretty much the entire
installation. My system could
now be operated at the tap
of the shiny new 70 Series
screen.
I'll add that installing a
new touchscreen is easy too:
Just use the supplied template to cut the proper size
hole in the wall, insert the
installation bracket and pull
the network cable through

the hole to make it accessible for its connection to the
rear panel of the touchpanel.
Performance
& Final Thoughts
Due to its slimmer depth and
overall smaller footprint, the
new touchscreen integrated
into my kitchen space at a
more comfortable level than
the previous unit.
Interacting with the
touchscreen, it responds
a tad faster than the older
version.
Using Crestron Home via
the touchscreen is easy:
Hitting the " Home " button
brings you back to the main
page of the interface, where
users can call up numerous
subsystems. In my case, that
page features " house access "
and " climate. " Below those
options are the aforementioned " Home " button and
the " Rooms " button.

cepro.com

4/6/21 11:00 AM
http://www.cepro.com
CE Pro May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CE Pro May 2021
