Creston And Multiple Houses

Now that the summer is underway, many luxury homeowners will undoubtedly begin spending more and more time at second or even third homes. Be they beach houses, lake front abodes or mountain getaways, GMI and the #DoneRightNotEasy crew use our experience and know how to bring the power, comfort, and familiarity of a Crestron automation system to your home away from home.

When two or more separate Crestron control systems are connected to one another, they each maintain a separate group of processors and control equipment, built and stored locally at each site. Through the powerful network integrations, we include with our Crestron packages they are then linked together through a secure internet connection. This process allows the systems to directly communicate with one another and provides access to everything from cameras, media, and access control. In a recent dual build, we even included a robust intercom system which allowed the end users to use any control panel to speak with someone at any other control panel, no matter in which house they happen to be.

Streaming HD Audio

Maybe the coolest feature of connecting multiple Crestron enabled homes together is the flexibility with regards to streaming music. Using our go to streaming device, the powerful MMS-5 streaming server by Autonomic Control, our music loving clients can stream from Pandora, Spotify, and any other streaming music service they desire at any of their homes. The most powerful feature of this connected streaming is the MMS 5’s integration with Google Drive. This integration allows us to link music stored on a hard drive at one location into a custom built cloud streaming platform giving both homes access to the same music library without having to duplicate and store large music files in more than one location. This means that when an end user purchases and downloads a new record or song, it is instantly available at all of their Crestron enabled locations.

Multiple Homes

Of course, with proper engineering of the automation system, adding an entire second home doesn’t necessarily mean that the two systems are connected and communicating with each other. One of the advantages of using an experienced integrator like GMI is that we have the knowledge and technical skill to create a seamless user interface experience. Meaning that the end user at either of their homes will see almost no difference in how their Crestron control system operates, eliminating the learning curve required to learn a new system.

Planning & Deployment

None of this would be possible without the level of documentation and planning that goes into every one of our Crestron system deployments. Engineering jobs out through documentation at every stage of the installation allow us to streamline our system infrastructure and create more simple, reliable and intuitive systems. This level of documentation is critical when designing similar systems at more than one location to ensure the end user experience is streamlined across each home.