Smart Home

The Control Platform

Simplifying your home technology.

What is a Control Platform?

Your audio, video, TVs, air conditioning, heating, lighting are all controlled by something. This maybe a simple light switch or a hand held remote for the TV, we bring all these user interfaces into one system. Reducing wall clutter, making it easier to operate and many functions can be set to perform with no user action needed.

Control vs Automation

The difference between control and automation is rather subtle and often not immediately obvious.

An example of control would be a thermostat you set to control the heating or perhaps a smart thermostat that allows you to control the heating when you’re away from home.

Automation on the other hand will perform many, if not all functions automatically. When you arrive home the heating will come on based on the lights being turned on, or the door being opened. If you are in the cinema room and start watching a film, the lights will dim and the air conditioning will start automatically.

Automation links all functions together to provide a more seamless user experience, simplifying your home technology.

Crestron Home

AV Candy was founded in 2006, a time when universal remote controls were available from many manufactures. We perfected the Philips Pronto and supplied them on many installations around the UK. Later, when Philips Pronto was discontinued in 2009 we moved to AMX, primarily a commercial control and automation brand. It proved to be extremely stable and reliable, a major priority for us and our customers.

The above systems and many similar products had one problem, once installed and programmed they were expensive to update, either to add new functions or to add a new device. They were stuck in time.

People’s expectations are now very different to that even 10 years ago. Brands such as Apple, Android and Tesla have all taught us that new features should continue to become available, long after the initial sale and installation. Updates to automate new hardware should be added in minutes, not a day of programming, Crestron Home allows this to happen.

Crestron Home follows a similar model to the one we started with in 2006. We supply a very reliable and consistent hardware platform and allow software to be updated in this controlled environment so that new features can be added as technology changes. This leads to a much longer-term proposition which can grow and develop once we finish your installation.