Our booth at InfoComm offers a world of Crestron solutions built for enterprise business, education, government, hospitality and gaming, and much more
May 23, 2024 - The InfoComm® trade show is in Las Vegas this year, and that means the exhibitor space will be surrounded by some of the most advanced technological installations in the world. Vegas isn’t just a gaming, sports, and entertainment mecca — it’s a living laboratory for electronic solutions on a massive scale. From the resort casinos to the sports stadiums to The Sphere, technology that’s right on the cutting edge is impossible to miss.
Step into the entrance of the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, and Crestron will be equally hard to miss.
This year’s exhibit carries a theme introduced shortly after pandemic restrictions lifted, and is being refined and perfected with each trade show: The booth is more about experiences and less about the black boxes that bring those experiences. New gadgets and gear are always great to talk about and handle, sure — but the team’s especially excited about building solutions that are ultimately greater than the sum of their parts.
“We’ll have two core experiences at this show,” says Joel Mulpeter, Crestron’s director of product marketing. The first centers around solutions that are purpose-built for an organization’s most important spaces, sometimes called “impactful spaces.” Meaning: Places where C-suite meetings are held, large conference rooms, training areas — anywhere in which critical decisions are made or important information is being shared.
Impactful Spaces, Powered by Crestron Technology
“One really impressive aspect of this is how this technology is adaptable to any vertical,” says Mulpeter. Whether it's education, enterprise, or government applications — or anything else one could conjure — the solutions on display will work brilliantly.
The technology itself is robust: “Let’s start with content distribution,” says Mulpeter. We’ll have multiple displays and multiple sources, the bulk of which will be driven by DM NVX AV-over-IP technology.” From there, the experience addresses intelligent video — specifically, the Automate VX multi-camera speaker solution that employs visual AI for group framing, presenter and speaker tracking, and a host of other functions. “Intelligent video is a great way to ensure engagement, even among remote workers,” Mulpeter adds. “It captures more than conversations — it captures the emotion of the meeting.” The larger systems include cameras with optical zoom — zoom that occurs in the lens as opposed to digital zoom, which “blows up” a portion of the image, reducing its clarity.
Visitors to the booth will see how easily platforms offered by Microsoft and Zoom work with the solutions on display, and how all of it integrates with Crestron Flex products. “And it’s all backed by Crestron Control systems, which are designed to simplify a technically complex space into something anyone should be able to use or operate,” says Mulpeter. An overview demo of the experience will take roughly five to seven minutes.
The Flexible Solution
“The other primary experience is based on a multipurpose space, and it’s slightly smaller,” says Mulpeter. “It offers a ‘one-touch’ meeting experience that’s built for maximum flexibility,” he adds. It’s the kind of room that’s as likely to turn up in an educational setting as an enterprise. “We’ll have a Crestron Flex unit on a piece of mobile furniture with a camera and a second fixed camera, and the view of the room will automatically switch back and forth.”
As the visual elements react to behaviors in the room, audio will be provided with its own mobile solution. “We’ll have Crestron Flex Pods in that space, and each unit has its own speaker and microphone that can be placed wherever they’re needed,” says Mulpeter. Add easily movable furniture, and the ability of the space to handle whatever meeting, presentation, or collaboration session the user can come up with becomes immediately apparent.
The booth beyond those two spaces offers a bevy of solutions that work and play well with the experience areas. “You’ll be able to see how it all fits together,” says Mulpeter. “We’ll have all the elements of our ‘content distribution stack’ on display — that’s audio, video, USB connectivity, and control solutions.” As far as audio is concerned, the complete source-to-speaker chain is on display, with the new DM NAX® Audio Edge Devices ready for any connection from Bluetooth® communications to XLR cables, amplifiers in the middle, and a range of speakers, including the new Saros® PoE speaker options. “One network drop to these speakers, and you’re done: run four speakers off the same cable, and it’s digital the whole way for easy monitoring and management,” says Mulpeter.
From Smaller Meetings to Big Casinos
“There will be experience-based hardware demos that will also show how smaller spaces can be part of an organization’s entire Crestron ecosystem,” says Mulpeter. “We’ll have solutions such as the Crestron Videobar 70, some larger Crestron Flex stations, and something of a ‘petting zoo’ so that you can really get the feel — the heft, the fit and finish — of these devices.”
There’s one section of the booth, however, that is something of a gateway to the host city itself: Crestron Hospitality Solutions.
“What’s interesting is what’s showcased naturally in a city such as Las Vegas,” says Michael Short, senior director of marketing operations and residential for Crestron. Crestron technology is in more than 40 hotels and casinos in Las Vegas (not to mention sports facilities and stadiums). “What do we do in these hotels?” Short says. “Well, all of the things that Joel has just talked you through: meeting rooms, ballrooms, convention spaces, public areas, luxury suites — audio, video, lighting, shading, control, it’s all there. A hotel is the perfect representation of everything Crestron in one place.”
Back in the booth, however, a couple of important solutions will take the stage. “The first is a sportsbook solution,” says Short. The demo — driven by Crestron DM NVX® AV-over-IP technology — features a large display that can handle from one to 16 streams of sports content, and showing how easily that display can be split into multiple configurations along with control of a sports ticker in one portion of the screen. “We’re also rolling out an individualized sportsbook solution, a single-person carrell that allows the user to control the content, place wagers, adjust the lights, and even connect via Bluetooth and stream audio to your headphones.”
Control: The Heart of It All
As gaming becomes legalized in more locations across the U.S. (and as there’s almost always a sportsbook in resort casinos), the opportunities for dealers are clearly abundant. “The Stadium Swim at Circa Hotel and Casino is probably one of the largest examples of what can be accomplished with Crestron DM NVX technology,” says Short. It’s multiple pools with massive displays for sports betting, coupled with fantastic views of Vegas.”
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