Editor’s Note: Our editors published this reported blog about the opening of the Crestron Experience Center NYC on Oct. 18. We updated it on Oct. 23, adding additional detail.
I attended the grand opening and ribbon cutting for the new Crestron Experience Center NYC on Tuesday, Oct. 15. About a hundred industry luminaries gathered in the expansive space at 200 Lexington Ave. in midtown Manhattan. Attendees included not only media members but also trade association executives, partner manufacturers, analysts and channel partners. All of us were impressed by the meticulously curated spaces contained within the Crestron Experience Center, offering a glimpse of Crestron technologies across a range of commercial and residential use cases.
Our hosts for the grand opening included Dan Feldstein, president and CEO, and Brad Hintze, executive vice president, global marketing. Key stakeholders who were essential to supporting the NYC Crestron Experience Center, including Richard Sasson, Jonathan Garcia, John Clancy and others, were also on hand.
Opening Remarks at the Crestron Experience Center NYC
During his opening remarks, Hintze declared, “Our mission is to inspire customers and to empower partners through our ecosystem of technology products and technology platforms.” He highlighted three foundational imperatives that underlie Crestron’s strategy:
- Building an ecosystem of products to enhance lives and enable greater productivity for organizations and families.
- Building and fostering a robust channel of pros to install and support that technology.
- Harnessing Crestron’s reach to deliver consistently excellent workplace and smart home experiences globally.
Building this new, NYC-based Crestron Experience Center naturally aligns with that tripartite vision, Hintze said, reflecting Crestron’s “…commitment to shape the future of intelligent spaces and our long-term growth and innovation strategy.”
The Crestron Experience Center brings technology to life for channel partners, dealers, customers and even sales team members. Photo courtesy of Crestron.
Ultimately, the Crestron Experience Center brings technology to life for channel partners, dealers, customers and even sales team members by offering them an opportunity to see Crestron solutions in a truly experiential format. “They say a picture says a thousand words,” Feldstein remarks. “Well, an experience is a million words.” He elaborates further, explaining why Crestron, as its technologies advanced over the years to greater levels of complexity, chose to invest in showrooms like this one. “Having a showroom where people could see it…experience it…feel it — that’s what created an emotional attachment,” Feldstein reflected. “That’s what got people excited. And then, without fail, it either closed the deal or it helped make the deal bigger than it originally was.”
Inside the Crestron Experience Center NYC
The Crestron Experience Center convincingly replicates meeting rooms of all sizes — every kind of space from boardroom to small huddle room. Moreover, it boasts a fully furnished NYC-style apartment, including kitchen, living room, home office and more. “Each space within [the Crestron Experience Center] tells the story of how Crestron is shaping the future of intelligent spaces,” Hintze said with pride.
Starting with workspaces, showroom visitors get to see contextual, in-situ deployments of Crestron technologies like the Crestron Sightline Experience, 1 Beyond cameras, Crestron Flex videoconferencing, the Videobar 70 (recently certified for Microsoft Teams), AirMedia wireless presentation technology, and room booking and desk booking solutions. What’s more, the Crestron DM NVX AV-over-IP platform sits at the center of the experience, powering the entire space. Indeed, according to Hintze, the Crestron Experience Center is “…a great representation of the flexibility and scalability of DM-NVX.”
The Crestron Experience Center boasts a fully furnished NYC-style apartment, including kitchen, living room, home office and more. Photo courtesy of Crestron.
On the residential side, including throughout the furnished apartment space within the Crestron Experience Center, the Crestron Home platform takes center stage. “It’s the best platform for any residential space looking for intelligent automation and control,” Hintze declared. The breadth of residential quarters represented — from home office to bedroom — reflects Crestron Home’s centrality to not only productivity in residential environments but also empowerment for families looking to unwind and relax.
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
These days, integrated systems depend upon numerous manufacturers’ products working seamlessly together to deliver outstanding experiences. The NYC Crestron Experience Center reflects this truth, incorporating a slew of key vendor partners to create fully functional spaces within the larger showroom. These partners include Shure, Sennheiser, K-array, LG, Sony, Leon Speakers and NETGEAR, along with several others. “It’s more important than ever that you have a cohesive ecosystem that’s working together,” Hintze observes. He shouted out Diversified, Crestron’s integration partner for the Crestron Experience Center initiative, for delivering beautifully functioning spaces.
As an industry leader, Crestron keeps a keen eye on developing trends. Whether it’s return-to-office initiatives, the drive to foster genuine meeting equity for dispersed teams or the need to have collaboration spaces “mold” themselves to the user (rather than users having to adjust their workflow to fit the room), dominant trends underpin almost every choice in the Crestron Experience Center. “It’s designed to showcase how these solutions address these evolving needs,” Hintze said.
The NYC Crestron Experience Center is also the ideal “taster” for someone looking to learn a bit more about Crestron but who isn’t yet ready to travel to the company’s sprawling Rockleigh, N.J., headquarters. “But once they see this — once they get a taste of it — then we can build on that experience,” Feldstein states. “Then, we can bring them to New Jersey, show them manufacturing [and] show them engineering.” He concludes with a gastronomic metaphor that seems apropos for the technology feast we all enjoyed: “This is kind of the appetizer,” Feldstein quips. “And then you come to New Jersey for the entrée.”
If you’d like to arrange a visit to the NYC Crestron Experience Center, visit the company’s website.
