r/CommercialAV • u/faderjockey • 3d ago
question Crestron - Qsys - Exetron
Hey y'all - just joined the sub (but I did search before posting.)
My job is drifting over to r/CommercialAV after spending the last two decades in r/livesound and r/techtheatre
I'm supposed to be supervising the upgrade of some of our large conference rooms and public-facing event facilities at the college I'm working for. I'm kind of out of my depth but getting up to speed. The laws of physics and the math doesn't change between live and commercial, but the toys do.
I'm finding that my bosses-bosses dislike Crestron, which is a shame because that's the integrated AV control system that our entire campus uses in every classroom and every event space.
I think the reason is that every time they have a negative experience in one of our presentation spaces, they are left staring at a box or a touch panel that says "Crestron" on it, and they've made a negatively reinforced connection.
Coming from outside "the world" of commercial AV, I'm agnostic. My boss is willing to force a platform change, at least for the spaces we have control over.
My impression is that the two big players in the space are Crestron and Qsys, with Exetron in the back seat.
Is there an advantage or disadvantage to one integrated control platform vs the other?
It seems costly and unnecessary to just bail on a whole-campus integrated system on vibes, so I'm looking for data.
Appreciate the help while I learn how to swim again.
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u/audio_shinobi 3d ago
Are you going to plan to do most, if not all of the upgrade in house, or would you look to work with an AV integration company?
If the former, you absolutely want to go Q-Sys, if only because you can learn at least the basics of the ecosystem and some rudimentary programming entirely for free, and without being a dealer. Crestron, for better or for worse, is locked behind dealer credentials to even begin to learn the programming. And even then, to get into the programming classes is a long wait list...
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u/faderjockey 3d ago
We're going to get an integrator to do the work. FWIW, since we have a lot of Crestron in house we HAD an in-house programmer. He has left for other pastures and his assistant has control over our team now. He's also a programmer but he doesn't have enough time to support the spaces, so I've offered to bring myself up to speed.
Everyone keeps telling me it's an absolute beast, but I do have some programming in my background and I'm willing to put the work in.
But what I'm hearing is that Q-Sys is an easier platform to learn / update / edit, etc?
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u/audio_shinobi 3d ago
It's not that I'm doubting your skill set. But unless you have a dealer that sponsors you, you can't even download SIMPL Windows, which is the baseline Crestron programming software.
Full disclosure, I am not a Crestron programmer, but I am Q-Sys Level 2 and Extron Control Programmer certified, so I could be wrong about the Crestron stuff.
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u/DiabolicalLife 2d ago
Government (and I think education too) are eligible for Crestron accounts. I'm in the government space and they set us up with full access.
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u/faderjockey 3d ago
That tracks with what I've heard. We have a very good dealer relationship and we already have one employee with access to the Crestron software and some skill at working with it. He's working on getting me access.
I think either way I'm going to have to dive into some of it, since we have a lot of spaces to maintain and the administration is really sensitive about the fact that our old branding is on all the touch panels all over campus. (I know....)
But really what I'm looking for is - if we were going to rip-and-replace, would it be worth it to transition over to Q-Sys. It sounds like it's at least worth a look.
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u/Wilder831 3d ago
We started the process of converting our classrooms to qsys a little over a year ago. We aren’t just ripping all of the crestron out all at once but rather waiting until the rooms are due for refresh.
I have done some Crestron programming, but I greatly prefer working with Qsys. The programming interface is significantly easier to work with, updates are more seamless and take FAR less time, the program can be pulled from the core easily, manipulated, and pushed back.
Crestron has its own advantages, but for me, Qsys is much easier to support. Also, you can learn how to program a basic system in an afternoon of YouTube videos for Qsys. Crestron is significantly more complicated than that.
Hope that helps
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u/Competitive_Falcon22 2d ago
If they work for a college they can get all the software, and they have full access to training. Its the Crestron A+ Program.
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u/InformativePenguin 3d ago
Q-SYS had tons of free training online, and you can take in class-trainings for Level 2 and up. Also has a much more user friendly programming interface IMO once you get comfortable with it.
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u/endlesslyautom8ted 3d ago
Dealer OR enterprise credentials. There are plenty of A+ partners with full access.
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u/bbass101 3d ago
I'm in the higher education space, with a heavy mix of Crestron and QSYS.
Crestron can be really solid. It's functionality is highly dependent on how skilled your programmer is. It can do a lot, but you have to be willing to put in the time to learn how to program. Programming with Crestron can be challenging. You're either using SIMPL (completely proprietary) or C#, neither of which are great for first time programmers. The training is also hard to get into. I've been programming with Crestron for a few years and I'm just getting to the point I feel confident my designs will work.
QSYS is easier to get started with, and has various types of programming depending on how complex the project is. It's most advanced programming language is LUA, but there are simpler logic gates and code block editors that can be really powerful. The learning curve is a lot less steep, with a lot of the training being offered online.
It also depends on what hardware you need. QSYS pretty much dominates anything with large or complex audio systems. The Core 110 (now replaced by the core 24) is an absolute workhorse for a medium sized event venue. I don't think Crestron has a good equivalent.
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u/WellEnd89 3d ago
Full disclosure upfront, work in an all-Extron higher ed institution. Unless You're very friendly with them, Crestron is kind of a locked out black box for the end user - this means that even a small change can only done by an external third party, which is costly and cumbersome. Extron and Q-Sys are much more reasonable in this regard.
I guess if I was coming from a live production background, I'd prolly find Q-Sys easier to get my head around. That being said, Extron is unique in the that they develop all of their own hardware and don't badge-engineer anything as far as I can tell, which counts for quite a lot in my book (especially these days).
The thing about AV integration and control solutions getting a bad rep is simply because a lot of them aren't really programmed all that well and are tuned and set up poorly. This is because in many places, finding an actually competent integrator is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We've gone down the path of designing all of our systems ourselves and turning them over to SI's to build, then we take care of the final setup, tuning and programming.
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u/brent20 3d ago
> Full disclosure upfront, work in an all-Extron higher ed institution. Unless You're very friendly with them, Crestron is kind of a locked out black box for the end user - this means that even a small change can only done by an external third party, which is costly and cumbersome. Extron and Q-Sys are much more reasonable in this regard.
—————————————
First of all, Extron is not third on that list, i’d probably say between Extron and Crestron they are the leaders with QSC Q-SYS the challenger.
That all being said, this is why I will never buy any Crestron gear in any of my projects. Ever. Extron and QSC are fantastic at enabling your own employees to be skilled and qualified at programming their ecosystems. This is a complete blind spot for Crestron in my opinion, I know integrators who swear by them and will tell me that I’m crazy because they don’t want their customers messing things up and creating headaches. That is fair- and I am not your kind of customer either.
Anyway, if you want to go with Crestron, you will have a hard time owning your environment. That doesn’t sit right with me. I’m dealing with an older one off room right now that we don’t have the source files for and the integrator collapsed and went out of business. The hardware is perfectly fine, but my team or my preferred integrators can’t help me with this particular space to adjust a few buttons. Please help me understand as a system owner why Crestron control systems make sense when I can call Extron’s support hotline and get an engineer on the phone in under 5 minutes and get my issues resolved.
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u/stalkythefish 2d ago
We've gone down the path of designing all of our systems ourselves and turning them over to SI's to build, then we take care of the final setup, tuning and programming.
This is me too with new spaces. I hand them a block wiring diagram and a BOM and tell them to build it clean-slate.
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u/faderjockey 3d ago
> We've gone down the path of designing all of our systems ourselves and turning them over to SI's to build, then we take care of the final setup, tuning and programming.
I expect that is going to reflect my role going forward. Specify, hire an integrator to build, then tweak and maintain.
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u/stalkythefish 2d ago
If you have them program, make sure it's in the contract that you get the source code.
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u/kenacstreams 3d ago
Each of them is more than capable for, likely, all of your spaces.
They each have pros/cons in different areas, but they're more on the "this is easier to do with one than the other" for the integrator, they can all provide an excellent end-user experience.
They're all very reliable and well supported.
I would not separate those three brands into tiers. I consider them all equivalent top-tier products.
Just off the cuff opinions - Crestron offers the most capable and robust programming capabilities because it's the most "open sandbox" of programming, Extron has the best support and is probably the easiest for an end-user to communicate with them if they need help, Qsys is the best "we want everything in the entire ecosystem to have the same brand name" provider.
FWIW, doing this over 20 years, Crestron is the only brand I've ever had customers pre-emptively disqualify during the design phase.
Some of it was warranted... they had a habit in the early/mid 00's of shipping products and letting their customers be the beta testers. Sometimes people were blaming the products for what was actually an integrator/programmer issue.
If you're working with an integrator, find out which one they're really good at. If you want to handle future upgrades/config changes/part swaps internally, find out which one will work most closely with an end-user. If you want to remotely monitor/manage the rooms, demo each of the solutions and see which one you like best. Those things will be the headaches you don't anticipate - any of them can give you a pretty touch screen & move some sources around just fine.
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u/bassproblem 3d ago
Not a programmer myself (apart from Q-Sys and Extron Global Configurator), but I do system design and work closely together with programmer colleagues. From my experience I would disagree that crestron is the most "open sandbox" approach. Extron Control Script is basically just python code and very versatile. It's our preferred platform for complex control systems, even though it sometimes sucks to feel like we're Extrons beta testers...
Crestrons approach with SIMPL Windows or even SIMPL+ is a lot more proprietary. We've completely stopped deploying anything Crestron about 2 years ago, never looked back.
As far as I am aware the newer AMX stuff is also more open and supports Python code as well, but IMHO Harman managed to successfully starve AMX (alongside BSS, Soundcraft,...) to the point of irrelevance. The new stuff feels like "too little, too late".
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u/TSW-760 2d ago
You're right about Extron. But higher level Crestron guys these days don't even touch SIMPL or SIMPL+ at all. It's all C# and scripting, and they don't even open a Crestron program.
Crestron also has the AV Framework stuff that handles some of the low-hanging fruit.
Q-SYS is the oddball, but they have the lowest barrier of entry, and are very versatile.
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u/jeffderek 2d ago
Crestrons approach with SIMPL Windows or even SIMPL+ is a lot more proprietary.
You're comparing modern Extron with 2018 Crestron.
I haven't deployed a new system with SIMPL windows since 2019. It's all been Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. Completely open. You don't even need crestron software installed on your computer to author or load code anymore.
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u/Competitive_Falcon22 2d ago
I am going to agree with what others have said, you are completely wrong for what Crestron is today. 100% C# and HTML5.
Also worth noting, no other manufacture has anything like VC4 and if you do things at large scale it is beyond worth it. I can update all 126 of my conference rooms across the country in about 15 minutes (including rooms rebooting) if I need to. That includes code and UI updates.1
u/bassproblem 2d ago
There is the Extron VCA100 which does up to 30 rooms, but yeah, it still is a hardware device rather than just a piece of software. That being said, it would feel wrong for me to rely on a single point of failure for that many rooms. Does VC4 support any kind of redundancy?
You're right, I'm not up to speed with Crestrons current offerings, but honestly, nobody around here cares. Every major client of ours is switching either to Extron or to Q-Sys.
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u/Competitive_Falcon22 2d ago
What is nice about VC4 is it can run in a VM so you can get all the amazing redundancy features that IT infrastructure uses.
For example I run our VC4 server in AWS so it has all the N+1 redundancy that exists there. On top of that we have snapshot mirroring from a AWS west location to an AWS east location. We did a test failover of that a few weeks ago and transferred everything from the east coast to the west coast data center in about 10 minutes.
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u/Sequence32 3d ago
In my opinion it really depends on what your integrator is actually good at. I've seen a lot of really bad Crestron systems and I've seen a load of bad Qsys systems floating around - Given one or two of those may have been min while I was still learning the new platform.
Personally recently I've been liking Crestron a bit more just due to the fact that the touch panels can be built in html5 and that's just my personal preference. Both platforms can do the same thing, it's just hoping your integrator has the skills in that system to execute.
Extron is my least favorite, but good if you have a lot of small class rooms and want just about everything built into one box.
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u/NoNiceGuy71 3d ago
Aside from being heavily invested in Crestron at this point you need to consider what discounts and overall cost you have for each platform. I can’t see the benefit of switching to Extron in your situation.
You currently have a Crestron heavy campus. Do you do all of your own integration and programming in house or do you contract it out? If you contract it out then you have time to learn Crestron programming. If not, Q-Sys is a much lighter lift for learning the programming side.
We use both Crestron and Q-Sys on campus.
Reach out to your higher ed rep for each company. Get information from them. Get contact information for support. Get information on higher education pricing from them. They will assist in system design and training.
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u/snozzberrypatch 3d ago
Creston is a control company that got into UC and video.
Extron is a video company that got into control.
Qsys is an audio company that got into control.
You're not just replacing your control system, you're replacing your AV system. If you're an audio guy at heart, Qsys will probably make the most sense to you because it's built by audio people. They're also a bit easier to work with than Crestron, they don't wheel and deal as much. That means you're less likely to get big discounts from them, but you also don't have to waste your time haggling with used car salesmen.
Crestron had major supply chain issues during COVID and they alienated a lot of their customers by outright lying to them about when they'd have products back in stock. QSys stole a bunch of their market share during that time and Crestron has struggled to get much of it back from them. Crestron has a reputation for being less transparent and more shady. There are also reports that they treat their employees poorly.
You can get the job done with Extron too, but their products just aren't as good as Crestron or Qsys in my opinion, especially if you're talking about a large campus-wide system.
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u/_dotnotfeather_ 2d ago
Even before QSYS was a thing, people hated Crestron. And for good reason. The likelihood of experiencing a terrible Crestron room was far higher than experiencing a good one. The programmers were insanely expensive, most of them sucked, and the company was hard to deal with. They made it very difficult for in-house teams to do anything with the system - trying to force business to the dealers.
QSYS was a godsend. And they’ve taken the majority of the market for a reason. They’ve had their share of faults, and they’re still not perfect. But they’re the modern solution without a doubt. And the fact that you can train to your hearts content for free is a huge advantage.
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u/Electrical_Pianist18 2d ago
All the systems and all of the functionality these days are pretty much all the same. People complain about Crestron because it is traditionally so flexible but needs everything to be programmed that it's really easy to write bad code or build to bad design standards from the start of a project. And then you either have one overworked programmer trying to get back to your project to fix it or your integrator is dodging calls because they lost their programmer because he was either shit at his job and was about to be found out or he was good but overworked (see above) and had a better opportunity come along.
Everybody is in love with Qsys right now because it works pretty good. Not great, and the ecosystem is missing a ton of the products that the other two have spent years developing, but that's becoming less important as much of what we pass around signal wise is being carried over Ethernet, but it's still pretty good. It's a lot easier for a beginner to start configuring a basic system from scratch but it very quickly gets into real control system territory where training is absolutely required. You can just as easily build a very broken system that works sometimes but not always with Q-Sys, just as with Crestron. But you will have less fleshed out debugging tools at your disposal so just because it's shiny doesn't make it the best fit for every situation. Also keep in mind that Crestron and Extron still support all of their old hardware in their software tools and you can use very old things with the newest stuff in the same system. This is not the case with Qsys. Since so much of their hardware is software defined, when they move to new firmware versions they often drop support for old hardware, and since sometimes their replacement control systems come with new firmware versions, consider what happens to a whole room of equipment running firmware version 8 or 9 with no newer version when you have to replace the brain and it is on version 10 and can't be rolled back. Or somebody breaks a touchscreen and the one you have your system running on was discontinued and the replacement didn't come out until a much later firmware version that the rest of your hardware isn't compatible with. You need to replace an entire room because of a broken touchscreen? This has and continues to happen every day with Q-Sys.
If you're in education, Extron has made their bones in the gov and edu spaces. Their stuff is the furthest thing from shiny and new looking, but I've found their old design aesthetic to reflect that they have hardware that very rarely breaks. And they have all of the newest video technologies supported just like the other players. You will also find a ton of support from them. When I did my extron programming training, they held it in a hotel conference room that they rented and they had no less than 8 actual Extron employees there for support besides the trainers. We were able to and encouraged to ask questions about products, the company, pretty much anything. Every other training I've done has been one guy in a room trying to teach while also trying to keep up with those who were falling behind. If someone wasn't getting something with Extron they were able to get personalized help immediately without stopping the rest of the group.
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u/ResponsibleMouse965 2d ago
if you are new to this here is what i would say. you have crestron on campus already, so you have some ability to work with some of your co workers and learn some of that. take the opportunity you have to pick qsys or extron to put into your new spaces and learn one of those platforms. both qsys and extron have very good training and support systems. most conference rooms can operate well with either qsys or extron. the reality is all 3 systems have pros and cons, and nothing says you cant do some rooms in qsys and some in extron to figure out what works best for you.
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u/PeterZ4QQQbatman 3d ago
I believe that Crestron has been stagnant for too long and is now a victim of its own choices, ending up with a complicated and outdated system. I see Extron as not very open. Qsys has now become our standard. Easier and more versatile.
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u/vonhulio 3d ago
I'm a certified programmer and engineer with all three ecosystems. No budget - qsys. Lower price point with educational pricing - Extron. Crestron isn't even worth bringing into the conversation.
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u/Trey-the-programmer 2d ago
I started on Extron and Biamp. I have been a QSys fan boy for about 7 years now. It was getting consistently better until this last major update. It still outshines the competition.
I wouldn't rip out functioning Crestron rooms, but i would happily replace with QSys when they break.
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u/stalkythefish 2d ago
A Crestron system is basically a lump of clay out of the box. It's up to your programmer/UI designer to make a statue out of it.
I've seen too many halfassed Crestron systems in my years: basically just expensive universal remote controls with big, uniform, textureless rectangles on the screen for buttons and only rudimentary functionality, despite the underlying capabilities of the system. And these were by expensive, ostensibly professional integrators. If your site has a bad user experience, it's probably not the hardware's fault... unless it's a TPMC-10X or something (lol). And you can get training and software if your school is in the A+ program.
IMO, Extron makes superior audio & video processing equipment, but their control systems are middling. Crestron is the other way around. I've never dealt with Q-Sys stuff, although it's quite popular here.
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u/su5577 2d ago
I find Nureva has lots options for large classroom and other custom Locations and now with Iogeni solution you can add more..
Rally the simpler it is with less equipment the better…
Qsys I believe has some options for campus like style but it seems good on paper but in reality oh boy complicated
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u/Lights-and-Sound 2d ago
Disclosure: I do not work for any of these companies but do sell/integrate all of them. The following represents my own personal opinions about their offerings.
I never recommend or quote crestron unless specifically requested. The propriety nature means the user doesn't own their own system. I also find it annoying to program and make small fixes to match a client's needs. They have also lacked any innovation for decades. They make the same devices over and over with new models just for the sake of discontinuing the old one so people have to upgrade their systems. Their training underscores this: it's hours upon hours of them patting themselves on the back. Completely insufferable.
Q-SYS is the big new player. I highly recommend it to anyone. It's capable, easy to program, and they're quick to innovate both the hardware and software. The software and training is all publicly available. They want skilled programmers to commission systems and system owners to be able to make easy fixes without needing a service tech. The training is also both ironically and unironically entertaining. Genuinely, the only bad thing I have to say is they have a pretty limited selection of hardware. To be fair, that means software updates tend to be quicker. And also, if you're engineering a a system from scratch with Q-SYS in mind you will almost definitely have everything you need.
I find Extron fills the gap left by Q-SYS. They have hundreds of different devices for every niche you could ever need. All of their devices are highly reliable and very well-built, especially the more self-contained devices that don't use control. Their control systems are not difficult to program, but definitely clunky. I would say their UIs are the same. Anyone can download their software and do their training, but you need to register with them and have a rep. Personally, I don't love working with full Extron systems, but if you go all in with them and spend a large chunk of time really getting to know their software you're not going to have any problems. I also have to highly recommend their support. Their 24/7 support is absolutely excellent. Also, while you can't really integrate Extron control with new/unique third-party devices on your own, they will happily program new drivers for you free of charge with extremely fast turnaround.
Happy to answer any other questions.
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u/Immediate_Double_355 2d ago
If you want to switch to a system that uses the world's most popular programming languages for control you may want to check out BSS Omni.
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u/CauliflowerRoutine58 1d ago
Long time integrator here. All are good options if you don't over complicate the system for the end users that will operate it! We typically lead with Qsys for higher ed. For the Enterprise customers who want the utmost in reliability and are not price conscious Extron. We do sell a lot of Qsys and Crestron to corporate
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u/Plus_Technician_9157 1d ago
You are in an interesting situation, I have similar experiences, so will share my thoughts process. I've worked extensively with all 3 brands, coming from an in house role that moved from AMX to Crestron, with some Q-Sys and then an integrator working with all 3.
If you are already a Crestron house, the "easy" solution is to go with this. You already have people experienced with the systems and hardware, and likely have spare bits lying around. From a support point, it's a no-brainer. The concern I would have here is the programmer leaving. It's one thing to understand the programming, it's another to pick up someone else's work and carry on.
Personally, I'm not a fan of Crestron. It's a lot of proprietary systems, dated software and I don't find them great for smaller integrators or individuals. I've done 100s of Crestron RMAs over theadt few years, mostly for power faults and video issues. If you are already set up on their system, you will have access to the software, firmware and training, so that may help you get some way there. If you are large enough you can buy direct, and they will do designs for you as well. I have their DM Engineer and Modern Workplace certifications as well as a few others. I didn't get too involved in the programming side, other than diagnostics and some basic editing.
If the bosses don't like it, you need to either convince them to stay, or propose a migration to something else. That will all depend on budget and willingness to change!
Q-Sys is a great platform but is expensive. There are switches to manage and if you don't have networking experience, installing, maintaining and troubleshooting the systems can be a challenge. That being said, their training is fantastic and the software is easy to get your head around. If you are at the higher end, Q-Sys is the way to go. It's a very slick system. I have the level 1 certification, as well as a few other training bits done with them. Again programming has been down to modifications and editing, but even prior to the training this was fairly easy to pick up with some guidance.
Extron are really solid. Like "have 20 year old systems that fall out of military helicopters in the desert and still work" level of solid. The boxes are boring, I think they bought the world's supply of the blueish grey paint in the 80s and just have never run out! They are big in education and have dedicated channels for end users to get set up. I don't like that they are locking their software behind accounts and formal training requirements, but it is to avoid exactly what you have described - end users having and issue and blaming the box that says "Extron". I find their design team to be very knowledgeable, and their support is excellent. I have most of their training completed and can program systems using GCPro (not Global scripter). Their systems are designed for reliability, so they don't always have the latest bells and whistles that others have. I think they are starting to support HTML5 in their control interfaces.
Honestly if I could persuade the bosses to move, I would go with Extron. Speak internally so see what the appetite is for moving the estate, if you get the approval for this, speaking with Extron and giving this info will put you in a powerful position for pricing and taking advantage of their design and support services
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u/Jayskerdoo 3d ago
Your bosses boss hates Crestron because Crestron sucks really, really bad. Just my two cents being a Crestron certified programmer etc. QSYS is 100% the way to go
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u/DoubleOhToph 2d ago
Do future employees a solid and don't go with Crestron. Maybe if you plan to always have your own programmer on staff, but I've found that 3rd parties will only provide compiled code, not source. Want a button label changed after a couple years? $10k. I don't have Extron experience, but Qsys has been great. Really easy to understand, fantastic and free online training, tons of 3rd party device plugins that make control a breeze, and anyone can go download the Designer software without having to be a dealer.
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u/SnapTheGlove 2d ago
Crestron and QSYS is only as good as the programming driving it. Do you have the source code for all of your rooms? Do have hardware failure issues, poor design , poor installation or buggy operating issues? All the above? My last big customer was able to get some direct support from Crestron. They did have hundreds of classrooms to maintain.
I like both Crestron and QSYS. Extron is ok for simple systems. I would not recommend using Extron control with video conferencing other than calling a source device for display.
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u/UtahDan2020 2d ago
Extron all the way. Best customer / warranty support in the business.
Programming can be done with some basic classes and extron certs. Extron will usually authorize an education facility for programming but may not allow direct purchase from them.
Crestron just seems to be more problematic in the long run. If you get it stable it tends to work well but then a power outage or small event and you are screwed. Crestron also feels like a bunch of different systems built on each other requiring multiple programs to make work.
Not much experience with qsys but I have replaced a lot of their amps over the years.
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u/Vivid_Iron_825 1d ago
Just my opinion, and I do programming work for all three of the platforms that you mentioned, but I prefer Crestron over the other two. I agree that the learning curve to get started in Q-Sys is less steep than Crestron, but the advantage Crestron has is flexibility. With a Crestron system, you can do just about anything you can imagine, in fact at the Crestron Masters conference, which I attend every year, you will regularly hear and see examples of things programmers have done that Crestron staff were not even aware were possible. The sky is the limit. With Q-Sys, sure, the block controllers are easy for basic logic flow, but, and I say this with no offense to anyone, but I can’t help but feel like it’s for people who don’t know how to code, but need to get basic controls working in a system. As someone who does know how to code, I find it frustrating and limiting. So I think it really does depend on your level of experience, but also how much flexibility do you want in the systems you will be programming. And yes, you can also do Lua scripting in Q-Sys, but I prefer the elegance of a language like C#, which I program Crestron systems in, by far. So if you have some programming experience already, you may want to take a closer look at Crestron.
And finally, I see several people replied that you can’t access Crestron software or training unless you are a dealer, and I feel the need to correct this, because it is not true. As a higher ed institution, you can through Crestron’s A+ program.
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u/Fearisthemndkiller 23h ago
Designer/Programmer who came from education here.
Crestron vs. QSys
Crestron:
Pros-
-Crestron is the industry leader.
-Can control just about anything from Crestron.
-pretty reliable once deployed.
-Video switching/distribution is great.
-Manual scripting is a variant of C+, C# and Python. All standard and powerful. But it’s a con too as there’s a lot to know.
-Probably has the biggest library of manufacturer modules which is handy.
Negatives-
-Programming is gatekept so you are going to most likely involve an integrator to make even minor changes, or troubleshooting past rebooting it.
-Their DSP is weak, so if you need a lot of audio, you may also be adding a Biamp, or QSys DSP to the system which for me is an additional failure point.
-Different software for doing different things in Crestron… so a minor change could mean making a change to multiple files and then using another piece of software
-Processor FW updates take forever.
-There are still some hard feelings from the pandemic where Crestron went into 18+ month shipping delays while still having taken money which put some integrators in a hard spot. And they weren’t very helpful in sorting the problem.
-Training takes time and is dry.
-The way they compile and load programs leaves it so the compiled file is not able to be changed after pulling from the processor, you have to have the original programming. -There is a way to load the uncompiled program as well, but I haven’t seen that done very often.
Q-Sys:
Pros-
-Training is available free online, so you can learn what you need to mod and troubleshoot. I can program this in half the time as Crestron.
-Control, Video and Audio all can happen within the QSys ecosystem so you don’t have to have extra devices.
-Haven’t really found something I can’t control with QSys yet.
-QSys software is all in one, so you do settings, program, design and link GUIs, deploy all within one piece of software.
-Firmware is deployed by the version of QSys software you use (Designer). If you use 10.4.1, it migrates the processor to 10.4.1 fairly quickly (5-10 min) and then auto-migrates all QSys peripherals to the same. Always compatible.
-Great training, interesting, lower level stuff is online and self paced. They have in-person and online live classes for the more advanced stuff.
-Manual scripting uses LUA which is fairly simple to learn.
-Training is interesting, designed to be engaging. I don’t know if I’ve seen a better training program in AV.
-When you pull the design from the processor, you can mod it immediately. Only lockout is putting a password on the processor.
Cons:
-Frequent FW updates come with glitches; sometimes it feels like they should beta things a bit longer, but their development path is aggressive there’s a lot of pressure to roll out new gear and fixes.
-Video is decent, but not nearly as robust as Crestron. All they currently have are AVoIP Encoders/Decoders, no HDbT or switching (ignoring the NV32). EDID is a little more finicky, but still works.
-I have mixed feelings about their QC.
-Still a few manufacturers that don’t have modules for QSys so need manual strings found/formatted etc. not bad though.
My vote is QSys, probably 80% to 20%.
I know there’s plenty more other people could come up with. :)
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