Matt Scott takes a walk with Crestron’s Nic Milani through the company’s expansive booth were the themes are incremental changes and key partnerships.
Crestron’s booth is often one of the busiest at ISE, and this year is no different as the company showcases a mix of new products and innovations on more established ones. Milani tells Scott that this year, Crestron is taking a more IT-centric approach by focusing on firmware updates that underscore functionality changes, expanded features, and viable partnerships. This is especially true on the first leg of the tour, where Crestron’s DM-NVX network over IP solution is in the spotlight.
“We are building this on an Intel platform,” Milani says. “We’re working with the top display manufacturers and we are bringing in Microsoft for the cloud management portal. So we have really responded to the industry demands to have an ecosystem of devices and partnerships all service the enduser. That’s what we are really showcasing here across the board.”
Crestron’s AirMedia 2, which works with Miracast and features a new AM-US-WIFI dongle, is also in the spotlight along with the company’s range of scheduling solutions, which reflect the company’s commitment to taking their portfolio of technology and hardware and expanding on partnerships via partner applications.
The just announced PoE Occupancy Sensor serves a bridge to discussing Crestron’s entry into the digital signage space with the NME-100 (Network Media Endpoint), which was created in partnership with Appspace.
“The idea behind this is you can create video walls, single display signage, kiosk-ing applications, a number of different functions with a single unit at great price point,” Milani says, noting that Crestron got into the digital signage market because of it made sense as a “best of breed” company handling the hardware and Appspace.
“Our management software allows you to deploy,” Milani says. “One thing Appspace gets right is speed of deployment and ease of deployment. While XiO cloud, on the management side, allows the hardware to be deployed just as quickly, just as simply.”
The tour also touches on Crestron’s Mercury X UC system, which offers one-touch-to-join simplicity, but also now offers the BYOD capability, and the company’s partnership with Logitech.
“The customers wanted a single management platform from XiO cloud,” Milani says. “They wanted a consistent user interface or touch panels, but they want to have additional peripherals that might play out better in certain spaces. In the case of a huddle, if you have a preference for a meetup, cool. We are giving people the assurance it works to together and can be effective.”
Scott and Milani cap the tour off in the Future Innovation Pavilion, where Crestron wants to “show people what it means when we project our technologies out in to the future.” There, Milani emphasizes Crestron’s commitment to working on next generation technology, again through, partnerships. To underscore the point, Scott and Milani, discuss Crestron’s work with Intel, demonstrated by a current DM NVX integrated with Intel Reference to produce and deliver 8K content.
