I have long been a NON fan of Crestron and their costs. This may change the game on that opinion. While Control4 has gained market share, we have yet to jump on their bandwagon.

Will be interesting to see the “qualifications”  to be a Prodigy dealer as well as learn how easily this new line interfaces with third party apps and products.

Julie,

How did you get screens of the wizard?

One cannot help but compare this to what Cisco Systems did with their Express line of products. Cisco needed something that is low cost, easy to configure and at the same time will be biting into the competition - so they came out with the Express line that is low-cost, can be configured with a GUI (Cisco never shined when it comes to GUI) and has very limited capabilities and cannot work with other Cisco products.

The line has little success (at least with us), mostly because of all the reasons it was created: (a) Lack of features and (b) ability to upgrade (i.e. inter-operability with other Cisco products) and (c) the GUI gives you the basic configuration but you still need a Cisco Engineer to configure a Cisco product (not to mention troubleshoot it). I am always the one to root for the underdog, but let’s see what Crestron does…

@ShowMe, the kind folks at Crestron sent the screen shots to me.

Interesting play for the market, curious if crestron will go consumer like C4 intends to do?  How does CEPRO feel about Best Buy investing in Control4 last week? Seems that C4 is caterring to big box again!

Control4’s market strategy has always been to sell as many boxes to as many people as possible. They have not hidden that. The Best Buy deal should surprise no one. Part of their original plan was for Home Depot to sell it.

And the only way Prodigy will be able to compete is with a similar strategy. So as a long-time Crestron dealer, I hope they market Prodigy differently and they control distribution well.

And by that I mean I don’t want some newbie who sells a lot of Prodigy trying to figure out his first real Crestron system on a $200k job that he under-cut me on by 10% just to close the deal. Then I have to come back later and try to clean it up after a colossal failure just so Crestron doesn’t get a bad name in my market. Meanwhile the real loser is the client who paid twice.

That said, I think if it’s handled properly, Prodigy could be great for Crestron and customers. Competition always makes the products better. So what we may wind up with is better products from Control4 and more options for Crestron dealers to compete against them.

bring it.. i go head to head with full blown Crestron systems all the time..

Kudos to Creston!  They need something to compete with Control4 at this level.  Just wish they could sexy it up a little.  In a world of Iphones it looks like HAI/Universal Remote on Steroids.  Is it just me or is RTI, AMX and Savant the only players who care what the hardware looks like.

Julie,

Since you have the hook-up… See what you can find out about the “coming-soon” Pro3

Thanks,
ShowMe

This is exactally what Crestron dealers that don’t also do Control4 are looking for. It will be a very welcome product line to our mix, especially during this economy.

You might also note that the Crestron Adagio line also has a wizard based software programming interface option.  It is called interestingly enough “Composer”.  The results for dealers (at least some dealers) who attempted to sell the system with a lower cost “out of the box” feature set was mixed at best.

Ugly!

Let’s see how well that MLX-2 can be configured in the Prodigy software. Could make or break the entire prodigy line there. Did anyone else notice the Cresnet connector in the picture? But not active?

I agree with Trevor, you take the time to make a whole new product line with new plastics and molds and Crestron makes it boxy and non attractive.

I am all for spreading the love and having people enjoy a fully automated home at a common mans price and to have a model like Control4 to follow makes it easy for Crestron.

To not have it compatible with other Crestron product lines seems a bit weird to me.

I am anxious to see how well the integrate with other third party devices as simple as an IR or serial based device. Will it be as easy as Control4? Will it be on the network so that we can control devices over IP? Will the dealer be able to customize the GUI to what they want? Will it fit in the retrofit market or still have propriety wiring? I guess all these questions can be answered at CEDIA.

I don’t think it’s odd for Prodigy not to be compatible with legacy Crestron. Look at Lutron—4 different RF protocols (Homeworks, Aurora, Radio Ra, Radio Ra SR), none of which is compatible with the other. Different products for different niches.

I hope this is a prototype. It is very ghetto
looking. It looks like something Comcast or Verizon would give you as stock hardware.

You mentioned Audio Advisors getting on the band wagon… what is up with their new name - Ask the Advisors?

WOW! The Control4 shills are out en masse today! Ugly? Ghetto? PaLeeeeze!

Crestron and Control 4 are both a joke we only have jobs because this product requires us to constantly service the installs.  Some day a real company like apple or micro soft will get it and elimminate the need for us.  This is just proof we need to get a new focus if we want to stay in business.

By what it looks like in the picture, there will not be an on-screen menu?  How will you control it?  With that ugly RTI looking remote? I guess you can use the itouch or I phone… I am happy to see Control 4 is making that WAY overpriced automation company nervous…

@ a ... Jeff felt we needed a new image. After 27 years, a surprising number of local people associated us with our car audio roots or our retail A/V store and had no idea we had grown into primarily a home integration company that supplies all low voltage systems even though it’s almost 90% of our business. 

The problem with an almost entirely referral-driven business is that we have little brand awareness to the masses because we don’t advertise. Well the clients who provide the referrals don’t care what we call ourselves. They love us anyway (a rose by any other name, right?) so there’s no need to keep a name that is holding us back for those that don’t know who we have become. This transition will continue well into 2010 before the original Audio Advisors name goes away.

@Richard Johnson

maybe its time you learn how to properly design and install a system.. I dont get support phone calls..

and LOLOLOL @ Microsoft doing home automation.. they should just name it BSOD Systems.. that would be a great automation company name

What about HomeLogic? I think they are also a major player as far as control systems go.  They are also releasing new controllers this fall that will make things even more interesting.

Little off topic, what type of market share does homelogic have? My concern with going with someone like that is will they be around 10 years from now? HAI is usually a safe bet although there are some kludgy interfaces - nothing third party cant take care of though.

Richard, I had 2 service calls last year. We have been in business for 15+ years.

Some advice.. Surge Protection and UPS for each project no matter what the size. This practice almost elimated our service calls a decade ago.

For Crestron.. POWER POWER POWER. Spec enough power supplies for the project. Under powering systems is one of the biggest problems with Crestron instability IMO.