Crestron and Your Home Office

Today’s busy professional is constantly on the go, and often spends time between their proper office, and an office built in the home. In fact, studies show that nearly 40% of all white collar professionals are telecommuting most if not all of the time.GMI and the #DoneRightNotEasy crew are well aware of the changing landscape of where people work, which is why we ensure our clients who spend their time working from home have reliable and intuitive automation connected to their home office.

It’s important that even when working out of a home office, that our client’s days starts out on the right foot for maximum productivity. This is the crux of a great Crestron automation system. Our client can wake up and walk down the hall to their home office, and with no more than a press of a button can trigger lighting and climate scenes to their exact liking, even local to the exact path they would walk to their office, making every morning as simple and stress free as possible. We make this happen by engaging with our users and understanding exactly how they plan to use their automation system, and programming the systems to create ease and comfort in their life.

Working from home isn’t without it’s risks, and one of the biggest is the reliability and security of your home network and data systems. As we’ve discussed many times in this blog, network reliability is at the core of a great automation system, and is especially important to telecommuters who need to be able to connect to a remote location at a moment’s notice. Reliable networks are also needed to ensure adequate video conference experiences, allowing our work at home clients to connect face to face with colleagues and customers throughout the world.

To secure these home networks when sensitive business information is moving through them, we install what is known as an advanced threat management system. Advanced threat protection, or ATP refers to a category of security solutions that defend against sophisticated malware or hacking-based attacks targeting sensitive data. Using Sonicwall managed switches we are able to run software that anticipated threats from the outside, and intelligently mitigates the system to prevent them from getting in.

Throughout the work day, our client may need to grant access to the home or part of the home for deliveries, housekeepers, or even business meetings. Crestron automation integrated directly to the security, access control, and video surveillance systems of the home allows the user to view visitors and unlock doors from any Crestron panel or device, including their own mobile phone. This means not having to pause a project in order to walk to the door during any of these events, which increases productivity and lessens frustrations.

One of the hidden benefits of telecommuting is the ability to provide entertainment for yourself without infringing on the space of office mates. Luckily for our users Crestron makes this a breeze with streaming audio centralized and distributed throughout the home, our clients can listen to their choice of radio stations or pull from a bank of preloaded songs to keep them energized throughout the work day. This is all controlled directly from a panel or remote in a seamless and intuitive manner. Mounted televisions in the home office can even be programmed to go directly to the channel of the user’s choice as soon as the enter the office and turn on the lights. This is especially valuable for those in the financial industry who may need quick access to news and information at their fingertips.

It’s for all these reasons and more that our client’s continue to trust GMI and the #DoneRightNotEasy crew to automate and streamline their homes and lives.