Crestron Home — The Smart Home Platform for Luxury Residential

The Crestron Home Platform, Expertly Installed in Luxury Homes

Crestron Home is Crestron’s dedicated residential smart home platform — a curated, preconfigured version of Crestron’s professional automation engine, designed specifically for luxury residential projects where the brief calls for reliable, elegant whole-home control without the programming complexity of a fully bespoke Crestron system. It delivers the integration depth and hardware quality that Crestron is known for — control of lighting, AV, climate, shading, security and access from a single app and a range of wall-mounted touchpanels — through an accelerated setup process that puts a complete smart home in operation faster than traditional Crestron programming allows.

Custom Controls are a five-time Crestron Integration Award winning Dealer of Distinction — and our five consecutive Integration Award wins are unique in EMEA. We design, install and support Crestron Home systems across London, Cheshire, the French and Swiss Alps and Dubai, and are among the most experienced Crestron Home installers in the UK.

Five-Time Crestron Integration Award Winners — Unique in EMEA

Five Crestron Integration Awards, won in five consecutive years. No other installer in EMEA has done it. The awards are judged by Crestron itself against entries from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Our award-winning entries were a Dubai estate with eight processors and 72 audio zones, a whole-home Derby lighting scheme built entirely on Crestron’s own fittings, two wins for Best High Rise in Europe at Claridge’s and the Beetham Tower, and the first Crestron Digital Media installation in the UK, on Baker Street. Open any award below to see the project behind it.

Best International Project — A Whole-Estate Crestron Installation, Dubai

Our most celebrated Crestron case study — and the project that won us the Crestron Integration Award for Best International Project — is a complete Crestron system spanning two large villas, extensive gardens, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a lake and a stream on a private estate in Dubai. Eight Crestron processors provide integrated control throughout, distributing audio to 72 zones, video to 32 zones and managing well over 400 lighting channels across both villas and the grounds. Five surround sound zones, five Kaleidescape movie servers, four Apple TVs, 24 audio sources and a full Crestron Sonnex audio distribution system serve the family villa, the guest villa, staff areas, offices and classrooms simultaneously.

The scope is perhaps best illustrated by its details: the basketball court has four cabinet speakers mounted on the floodlights with two sunken subwoofers; the garden fire pits are Crestron-controlled; the gym features Artcoustic speakers enhanced by subwoofers; and the master bedroom suite houses a bespoke Stax headphone system with a valve amplifier and DaVinci DAC for private listening. The dedicated home cinema room in the family villa seats eight in Cineak chairs with backlit Onyx tables, with a 3.5m screen and 17 channels of surround sound — one of the most comprehensive Crestron installations ever delivered in the residential market. Read the full case study →

Best Lighting Control & Design — A Whole-Home Lighting Installation, Derby

Where the Dubai estate shows what Crestron can do at maximum scale, this new-build home in the Derby countryside shows what it can do with lighting alone, done properly — the project that won us the Crestron Integration Award for Best Lighting Control & Design, and the first installation in the UK to use Crestron’s own dimmable LED fittings end-to-end, with nothing else involved in the lighting. Over 350 fittings across 200+ channels — each drawing roughly 18 watts while matching the output of a 50-watt halogen downlight — are managed through six distributed lighting racks for clean cabling and full redundancy. The client calculated that the entire house now uses the same lighting energy previously used by just the kitchen and dining room alone. Scenes, scheduling and remote access are available from the wall touchpanels, more than 50 keypads or an iPad, and every keypad is custom-engraved so each button says what it does.

Lighting sits alongside 24 audio zones and 16 video zones over Crestron Digital Media, full heating and air conditioning control, gate intercom distributed via touchpanels throughout the property, and a complete monitored security and CCTV system with automatic camera-follow logic — every part of it native Crestron, controlled from the same wall touchpanels and iPad interfaces used for everything else in the home. Read the full case study →

Best High Rise in Europe — Claridge’s Hotel Penthouses, Mayfair

Working inside the listed Claridge’s Hotel, we installed Crestron-controlled Loewe multimedia systems in two penthouse apartments of three rooms each — the project that won the Crestron Integration Award for Best High Rise in Europe. The interiors are listed, so no new cable routes could be created and nothing could be chased, drilled or rewired. Every decision about equipment and control started with the building rather than the product catalogue.

Every room has a Loewe LED TV and Blu-ray player. In the living rooms, 46-inch Loewe TVs are paired with upgraded audio: the Individual Sound Projector in one apartment and stand-mounted stereo speakers in the other, both supported by subwoofers. Wireless control removed the need for wall-mounted keypads or new wiring to each control position, which is what made a full Crestron system possible in rooms that could not be physically altered.

The design centred on the Crestron TPS-6X wireless touchpanel, which uses RF rather than WiFi for instant response and freedom from interference by neighbouring wireless networks. Each panel carries the Claridge’s crest in a bespoke finish, and guests reach the Loewe LED TVs, Blu-ray, Sky HD and hotel TV from one interface that had to be intuitive for guests of any nationality with no instruction. Read the full case study →

Most Innovative Control — The First Crestron Digital Media Installation in the UK, Baker Street

This modern townhouse near Regent’s Park was the first Crestron Digital Media installation in the UK, and won the pan-European 2010 Crestron Integration Award for Most Innovative Control Solution. It also became an official Crestron case study. HD audio and video from Sky HD, ArabSat, Apple TV and a Kaleidescape server reach eight TVs over Cat5e cable, with an audio matrix feeding ceiling speakers in each room, including DAB radio.

Centralising the sources means one Sky HD, ArabSat, Apple TV and Kaleidescape installation serves the whole house rather than a box beside every television. The Kaleidescape server holds the client’s film collection for instant access in any room, and the CCTV cameras appear as just another source on any screen. The interface was programmed from scratch around the property and the people living in it, with weather feeds and local times for each of the client’s international home locations embedded on the touchpanel home page.

Lighting, heating, Hitachi air conditioning and an Axis IP CCTV system run from the same Crestron interface, on a mix of wired TPS-6L and wireless TPS-6X touchpanels, with iPhone control from anywhere in the world, including switching on the underfloor heating during the transfer from the airport. The Axis cameras are viewable from the client’s laptop or full-screen on a touchpanel at home, with a large storage server keeping all footage available for analysis. The interface is so intuitive that the client turned down training, and it is used regularly by non-English-speaking staff. Read the full case study →

Best High Rise in Europe — Beetham Tower Penthouse, Manchester

The top two floors of the 168.87m Beetham Tower, the highest residential living space in Europe at the time of installation, won us the 2009 Crestron Integration Award for Best High Rise in Europe and became an official Crestron Digital Media case study. The biggest challenge was not distributing audio and video but controlling the building management systems: underfloor heating, ventilation, swimming pool temperature and the irrigation for a 4,000 square foot rooftop olive grove, all from Crestron 6-inch touchpanels.

Bringing these systems under one controller means the client never deals with a separate thermostat, pool controller or irrigation timer. Temperature setpoints are adjusted room by room with a simple scroll and tap on the touchpanels, and the heating, ventilation, pool and garden sit in the same interface as the audio, video, lighting and security, so the whole penthouse is run the same way.

Alongside the environment sit eight audio zones and four video zones with a Kaleidescape server that stores the client’s DVD and CD collection so several different films or albums can play at once in different zones, and an FM tuner that is particularly popular in the his-and-hers bathrooms. More than 60 lighting channels and 25 keypads give direct scene recall around the apartment, and CCTV, including the private lift lobby, records on a rolling basis alongside a monitored alarm that notifies the concierge and the client, all in one interface. Read the full case study →

Alongside the awards, we are a Crestron Dealer of Distinction, Crestron’s higher dealer level, and we have been certified Crestron dealers since 1998, the year Crestron was establishing itself as the dominant residential automation platform in the UK. For over two decades we have remained continuously active in the Crestron ecosystem, installing hundreds of systems across every generation of Crestron hardware and software.

What Crestron Home Does

Crestron Home places unified control of every system in the property — lighting, AV sources and distribution, motorised blinds and curtains, HVAC, security and access — into a single, consistent interface. The same Crestron Home app that controls the lights in the living room also controls the projector in the cinema room, the underfloor heating in the master bedroom, the gate at the end of the drive and the pool temperature. Everything is in one place, accessible from anywhere, and works the same way regardless of which room or which system it is controlling.

This consistency is the core of what makes a Crestron Home system different from a collection of individual smart home products — or even from a well-integrated but loosely connected system of different platforms. Crestron Home is a single system, designed as one, running on one processor, managed from one interface. When you press a scene button, every device in that scene responds simultaneously because they are all being managed by the same system — not because one device is telling another to respond, with all the latency and failure modes that introduces.

Crestron Home vs Bespoke Crestron — Which Is Right?

The honest distinction is scale and flexibility. Bespoke Crestron — what we call Crestron Custom — is the right specification when the project requires programming that goes beyond the Crestron Home platform’s boundaries: very large estates with hundreds of zones and multiple buildings, complex integration with unusual third-party systems, or clients who want an interface designed entirely around their specific workflow rather than Crestron’s default UI structure.

Crestron Home is the right specification for the majority of luxury residential projects — a property of any size where the brief is whole-home smart control, Lutron integration, cinema room automation, multi-room AV and climate management, and where the client wants the result quickly and reliably rather than waiting for a fully bespoke programming project. The Crestron Home platform delivers everything those projects need, at a faster pace and with a lower risk of the delays that complex bespoke programming can introduce. Read our complete guide to Crestron Home →

What Crestron Home Controls

Lighting. Crestron Home integrates with Lutron Homeworks QSX and RadioRA 3 — our preferred specification for lighting and shading on the majority of projects — placing Lutron scene control within the same Crestron Home interface as every other system. For projects running Crestron’s own lighting modules, these are also fully supported within the platform.

AV and home cinema. Crestron Home manages source selection and distribution for multi-room AV systems built on Crestron NVX and NAX. A cinema room source — Kaleidescape, Apple TV, Sky — appears on the Crestron Home touchpanel alongside every other AV source in the property. Starting a film from the cinema touchpanel triggers the projector, screen, processor, lighting scene and blinds simultaneously. Read more about Crestron AV distribution →

Climate. Room temperature setpoints, underfloor heating zones and air conditioning units are all accessible from the Crestron Home interface. Schedules, occupancy-based control and integration with renewable energy systems allow the climate to operate intelligently rather than on fixed timed programmes. Read more about Crestron climate and energy integration →

Shading. Motorised blinds and curtains — including Lutron Palladiom shading — are controlled from the Crestron Home interface and can be incorporated into any scene. A cinema scene dims the lights and closes the blinds. A morning scene opens every blind in the house in sequence.

Security and access. Door entry, CCTV cameras, alarm panel status and gate control are accessible from the Crestron Home app — from anywhere in the world. A visitor at the front door triggers a notification on the client’s phone; they can see the camera image, speak to the visitor and release the gate without being in the property.

The Crestron Home App and Touchpanels

The Crestron Home app is the primary control interface — available on iOS and Android, consistent across phone, tablet and iPad. It is the same app whether you are in the property or on the other side of the world; the same interface, the same rooms, the same controls. Remote access is not a separate feature or a bolt-on — it is built into the platform from the ground up.

For in-room control, Crestron’s touchpanel range includes wall-mounted models in a range of sizes and finishes. The TSW series of in-wall touchpanels mount flush into the wall and present a full-colour touchscreen interface showing the rooms and scenes the panel has been configured to control. In rooms where a touchpanel is not appropriate — bedrooms, bathrooms — Crestron’s range of physical keypads handles scene selection and volume control with the same hardware quality as their touchpanels. Crestron HR remotes handle AV source selection and volume in cinema rooms and media spaces.

Why Custom Controls for Crestron Home

Crestron Home is only available through certified Crestron dealers — and the quality of a Crestron Home installation is directly determined by the depth of experience the installer brings to the design, configuration and commissioning. A Crestron Home system that has been thoughtfully designed — with rooms, scenes and automations that reflect how the household actually lives — is a fundamentally different experience from one that has been set up with default settings and handed over. The design of the system is the work. The platform is the tool.

Custom Controls have been delivering Crestron installations since 1998. We have been five-time Crestron Integration Award winners — an award that recognises the quality of the installation, not just the fact of being a dealer. We pre-build and pre-configure every Crestron Home system at our workshop before it arrives on site — so the rack is in operating condition when it is installed and commissioning is about refining, not building. We also take over and restore Crestron Home systems installed by other companies →

Crestron Home FAQs

• What is Crestron Home?
  Crestron Home is Crestron’s dedicated residential smart home platform, a curated, preconfigured version of Crestron’s professional automation engine. It controls lighting, AV, climate, shading, security and access from a single app and a range of wall-mounted touchpanels, through an accelerated setup process.
• What is the difference between Crestron Home and Crestron Custom?
  Crestron Home is the right specification for the majority of luxury residential projects, of any size, where the brief is whole-home smart control delivered quickly and reliably. Crestron Custom is bespoke programming for very large estates with hundreds of zones and multiple buildings, unusual third-party integrations, or interfaces designed around a specific workflow.
• What can Crestron Home control?
  Lighting, AV sources and distribution, motorised blinds and curtains, HVAC, security and access. The same app that controls the living room lights also controls the cinema projector, the underfloor heating, the gate at the end of the drive and the pool temperature.
• Does Crestron Home work with Lutron lighting?
  Yes. Crestron Home integrates with Lutron HomeWorks QSX and RadioRA 3, which is our preferred specification for lighting and shading on the majority of projects, placing Lutron scene control in the same interface as every other system. Crestron’s own lighting modules are also fully supported.
• Can I control Crestron Home when I am away?
  Yes. The Crestron Home app is available on iOS and Android and gives access from anywhere. A visitor at the front door triggers a notification on your phone, and you can see the camera image, speak to the visitor and release the gate without being in the property.
• Can you take over an existing Crestron Home system?
  Yes. We take over and restore Crestron Home systems installed by other companies, and support the systems we install.

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