As I reported last week, I attended the October 15, 2024, Grand Opening of the latest Crestron Experience Center (CEC), located in the prestigious New York Design Center in Manhattan. This CEC is remarkable in its own right, but as I reflected further on the Grand Opening I realized that the event itself was noteworthy. Not only did a top Crestron executive sit down with me to offer some interesting perspectives on the new CEC and business in general, but what I observed at that event itself was impressive as well.
So I have decided to augment my previous report with additional observations…and more photos.
See more on the Crestron Experience Center in NYC & find out what the CEO shared with me…
It was a cool, humid mid-October fall day as I boarded the train to head into New York City for the Crestron event. I’ve been to several experience center openings, so I had some idea of what to expect – but then it wouldn’t be unusual for Crestron to take a different path. I was interested to see the approach they might take at this event.
A Historic Building in a Historic City
As I left Penn Station and began the fifteen-minute walk to the historic New York Design Center building, I enjoyed the unique sights and sounds of the City. I always enjoy the diverse culture and historic architecture of the buildings that are present in one of the oldest big cities in America.
The nearly 100-year old New York Design Center is 16- stories and half-million square feet of at least 100 prestigious showrooms of “fine, traditional, contemporary, residential and contract furniture, as well as fabric, floor covering, lighting, wall covering, kitchen and bath and decorative accessory resources,” according to the NYDC. There are also over 55 galleries of fine antiques and 20th Century Vintage dealers.
An Impressive Group of Attendees at the Grand Opening
I entered the building, exchanged niceties with the front desk, and proceeded to make my way to the third-floor home of the CEC. As I walked down the hall I noticed an impressive etched city design on the glass by the entryway and opened the door to enter the CEC reception area.
It was noisy and I could see a fairly large group of folks near the rear of the facility at the event space – one of the commercial spaces at the CEC showcasing its technologies for event facilities, that served as a central gathering point for this event. It looked to me like the attendance for the grand opening was somewhere north of 100 people, including media, integrators, other prominent company customers, employees, and assorted invited guests. What I saw was an impressive group – including executives from Amazon, Pfizer, Comcast, NBC Universal, Warner Brothers, and more. It was an impressive show of support from some big users of Crestron technology.
Click here to see a full slideshow of my photos from the Crestron Experience Center Grand Opening
An Instant Sensory Experience with Residential Up Front
Entering Crestron’s Experience Center was an instant sensory experience – the dramatic lighting fixture over the reception desk was modern and dazzling – its contemporary aesthetic is further augmented and counterbalanced by a large dark wood desk featuring an elegant but substantial curvaceous design. And across from the desk is a well-designed exterior facade of a home. Through the front door is the way to the residential area of the CEC, which is meant to represent a well-appointed Manhattan apartment space.
It struck me as significant that the company chose to put the residential section first in line for perusal by visitors to the center. It is a clear statement of the company’s commitment to the rapidly growing residential side of Crestron’s business. Whether deliberate or subconscious, placing residential up front is meaningful.
An Intelligent Design
Crestron’s center is intelligently designed. Sometimes, other experience centers try too hard and go over the top…with original expensive paintings, statues, and the like. Here, we find a modern living space that looks real, and is well-designed with all the typical accessories you would find in a real home (or commercial space in the other section). The tasteful design choices really serve to place you in an authentic, believable home. This is probably not a billionaire’s apartment, but likely a millionaire’s. It is warm, accessible, and livable…the visitor puts themselves into the scene and almost certainly thinks to themselves…”I would love this!”
The systems employed are not ridiculously over-the-top, but perhaps a touch aspirational. The front door features a connected wireless door lock, the family room a large flat-panel TV, and a full multi-room AV solution – even a connected turntable for multi-room vinyl listening. There are motorized shades and curtains with simple open/close buttons on handy keypads in the appropriate places.
An Installation Full of ‘Best Practices’
Following best practices, remote controls to access the system are readily available on end tables and nightstands. In addition to this, there are keypads for major controls on the walls, along with large touchscreens for more sophisticated multi-subsystem control. Each room has multiple ways to access and control the system. Not to mention that users can pull out their phones, power up the Crestron Home app, and have total control at the tip of their fingers at all times.
At this point, I was pretty much hooked. The spaces were simple, sophisticated, pleasant, and attractively designed. Technology was there…integrated into the space, but not overly emphasized. The goal appeared to be to show visitors how technology is there to work for you and facilitate your enjoyment of the space – rather than you being forced to work the technology.
Click here to see a full slideshow of my photos from the Crestron Experience Center Grand Opening
Commercial Installations Shown in Work-Like Spaces
This is the first experience center or showroom of commercial products that I’ve visited that took pretty much the same approach. Most of them tend to show a grouping of their products that are segment or channel-specific. But here, Crestron offers visitors logically designed commercial spaces, that appear much as you would expect to encounter in most modern workplaces, showing the products in use. In Resi it’s called a lifestyle presentation…I’m not sure what they call it in the commercial channel (workstyle?).
There was a huddle space – a small meeting room for 2-5 people with wired and wireless (Crestron AirMedia) connectivity and a large screen for Zoom or Teams meetings with individuals in a remote space. Crestron calls this a plug-n-play huddle space, but thanks to AirMedia, you don’t even have to plug in to present your content to the folks you are meeting with.
Hot-Desking
There were meeting spaces of various sizes demoing innovative camera tracking technologies and more. Also displayed was a space set up to show Crestron technology facilitating “hot desking” – which are shared desks set up with screens and plug-n-play connectivity that are used by different employees on different in-office schedules…such as is found in a company employing a hybrid workforce deployment.
There was a space set up much like a hotel check-in desk that was again facilitated by Crestron technology. And, as I mentioned above, there was a good-sized event space with an 11-foot video screen and full PA that is perfect for presentations. Crestron plans to offer that space for others to use for their own events.
Scalability and Interoperability
At the beginning of the event, attendees were broken up into smaller tour groups that were each guided around the experience center by a Crestron employee. At each area, another Crestron employee was stationed to describe the space and the technologies employed within. These presentations were all well done…tight, cohesive presentations that were delivered convincingly…not robotically. Two big themes emerged – scalability and interoperability. Crestron technology, attendees were told, is designed to be scalable to an extensive degree…and to facilitate interoperability, or put differently, to work together better.
During a presentation to the gathered attendees, John Clancy (Chief Sales Officer), Dan Feldstein (Chief Executive Officer), and Brad Hintze (Executive Vice President of Global Marketing) toasted the Grand Opening with champagne – which had also been handed out to all attendees. Hintze, serving as the Master of Ceremony, noted that this experience center had been in the works for years and has come together thanks to the hard work of a large group of Crestron employees and contractors.
Click here to see a full slideshow of my photos from the Crestron Experience Center Grand Opening
‘The Power of Partnership in Tech’
The space, Hintze said contains no less than 26 miles of cabling (all hidden, of course) and untold man-hours of planning, designing, and construction. It is meant to demonstrate “the power of partnership in tech,” Hintze emphasized. Joining Hintze at the front of the space was Jonathan Garcia, Crestron’s Lead Technical Solutions Director.
Hintze asked Garcia what he felt was most important for attendees to know. “Well, the key point is scalability,” Garcia exclaimed. He added that the key AV networking backbone throughout the center is a “single solution” for the entire system.
Click here to see a full slideshow of my photos from the Crestron Experience Center Grand Opening
CEO Shares Thoughts on the Crestron Experience Center and Business
Crestron CEO Dan Feldstein took some time to meet with me to discuss the Crestron Experience Center and share his thoughts on the wild ride he’s had since taking over the CEO role in 2021 as the industry was struggling to recover from the rollercoaster ride of COVID-19.
I asked Feldstein his thoughts on the reception to the experience center he observed today. He told me that one of the company’s goals is to “focus on what makes this a fun industry.” The experience center was designed with that goal in mind and his feeling from the reception he observed is that the attendees experienced that fun.
What Would George Think?
I asked him what he thought his father – Crestron founder George Feldstein – would think about the CEC. “Oh! He would love this space,” Feldstein exclaimed, adding that one of his dad’s fundamental philosophies was to take a “customer first” view. He also said the company must “take the long view.” Those themes, he said, flow throughout the presentation of Crestron technology in the experience center.
Since Crestron’s founding, “Our company culture didn’t change much at all,” Feldstein told me.
Optimistic About 2025; Crestron Has an AI Team
After all the industry has been through in the last three years, Crestron’s CEO told me that he has an optimistic outlook for business in 2025.
“I’d say I’m very optimistic about next year’s prospects,” Feldstein said. “Once we get through the election cycle, things will settle down and the world will get back to focusing on their daily lives.”
Feldstein added that – now that supply chain issues are behind them – his focus is on getting Crestron “to be more nimble and adaptable.”
As an engineering-driven company (Feldstein himself is an engineer), Crestron is always looking to the future and investigating emerging technologies. He said that the company has created an AI team that is doing a deep-dive investigation into the ways that artificial intelligence may impact custom integration. He has nothing concrete to share with me now, other than to say they are on top of developments.
Crestron Home – A Platform for the Future
Finally, I asked his thoughts on the importance of Crestron Home. “Crestron Home is a platform for the future,” Feldstein told me. “It is a more collaborative and a more integrated platform.”
He also mentioned the company’s most advanced technologies, like the DM NVX and the new DM NAX platform, bring a level of scalability and reliability to integrators that exceed other systems. In this way, Feldstein said, we can all avoid “getting caught up in the race to the bottom.”
Pro Grade Products ‘Designed to be Installed by Professionals’
Feldstein added, “Crestron makes Pro Grade products designed to be installed by professionals!”
Learn more about Crestron by visiting crestron.com.
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