Crestron Vs Cortexa

[bharat]

Hello to all the Gurus of "Home Automation"

This is my first topic in this forum...

We are new to automation and we are currently trying to finalize the main controller for the house
We did some research and found Crestron and Cortexa
Can anyone provide me with a detailed comparison of Crestron and Cortexa controller in terms of functionality, pricing and support for protocols

Thanks for the help in advance

 

[electron]

hi bharat, welcome to CT!

I am pretty sure the Cortexa system is much cheaper, while still offering a lot of functionality. Hopefully someone else can contribute more info, but if you don't get any responses, contact Cortexa with those questions, and report back with their answer, as it is a very good question, and would love to see a comparison as well.

 

[felixrosbergen]

I heard the Creston stuff was very expensive and pretty much requires one of their staff to programm it when you have any problem or want any changes. Which they will happilly do at some high hourly fee.

Is there any truth to this?

I must admit i havent researched Creston much after i heard it's expensive.

 

[sic0048]

That is generally true about Crestron. They are suppose to be exclusively installed and supported by professional integrators. They try very hard not to let their equipment or software "get into the wild" where it can be used by the average person. Plus, it has a steep learning curve from what I've heard, so even if you have access to the software, you may not be able to do much without spending a lot of time in training.

But it is also a very good, high end automation system that when installed by a integrator that know what they are doing will result in a very robust and reliable system. But if you hope to do a self install (or even hope to be able to modify or tinker with the system after installation), don't look at Crestron. It's as simple as that.

 

[Herdfan]

That is generally true about Crestron. They are suppose to be exclusively installed and supported by professional integrators. They try very hard not to let their equipment or software "get into the wild" where it can be used by the average person. Plus, it has a steep learning curve from what I've heard, so even if you have access to the software, you may not be able to do much without spending a lot of time in training.

It is a very steep learning curve. Trust me on this one. But there is almost nothing it can't do when programmed by a competent integrator. If a device takes an input of almost any kind (IR, RS-232, CC, etc), Crestron, or AMX can control it.

What is your budget? Are you also looking to do lighting?

 

[bharat]

Hello Dan,

Thanks for the warm welcome!!!

Cool advice... I will shoot a mail to Cortexa and lets see their reaction to my query

Thanks again
Bharat

 

[bharat]

Hi Guys!!!

Thanks for the quick response...

As per the replies i have received looks like there is nothing we can do on our own if we take the "CRESTRON" way for implementation

To give some more details on our ideas, we want to implement Access Control, Energy Management (Lighting, AC), Media Management and Security Management and our total budget is Indian Rupees 2,00,000 that roughly converts to USD 4,000

Considering the above requirement please advice, how we go about the implementation
Please also advice where we can procure devices for implementing the above features
I heard the Korean market offers a lot of products... Is this correct?

Thanks again for the response Herdfan, sic0048, MavRic and wishing you a very great year ahead