Essential Install | Touchscreens and Programming
DID YOU KNOW: Xxxxxx
Landing this
June, a new
portrait controller
from Crestron,
the TSW-560
thousands of colour combinations. What else makes
North’s new product stand out from the crowd? James
Palmer, business development manager at North
Building Technologies, explains: “Smart Switch menus
can be confi gured to display and control values in many
thousands of systems via our Commander controller;
including DALI, Lutron, Mitsubishi, Daikin, Honeywell,
Crestron, Savant, Control4, KNX, BACnet, Modbus open
standards and many others besides.”
Ease of use has also been a big driver in the
development. James explains: “Our over-riding design
criteria were simplicity and style. Smart Switch has to look
good, but also be intuitive. We were determined that the
user wouldn’t need training to use it. The rocker switches
play a big part in that, each resembles a light switch so
you have an idea how it works before you even touch it.
“The switches provide a secondary benefi t in that
many customers don’t like to use touchscreens and prefer
something more tactile. Smart Switch can be controlled
by its touchscreen or by the buttons alone. Being able to
adjust the temperature, a light scene, blind position or
even the audio volume from such a simple interface has
not really been done before. Most systems that provide
this level of functionality are large touchscreens often with
complex menu structures.”
Another neat trick the product offers is acting as a
reliable and well-positioned temperature sensor. For
aesthetic reasons sensors often end up being placed
in locations that are far from ideal to take a good
reading. James says: “Smart Switch solves this, as it’s
a temperature sensor in its own right and will typically
be mounted at the ideal height. The unit can share its
temperature reading with a North controller or any other
HVAC controller or BMS.”
Smart Switch also has its own output to control an
underfl oor heating valve and a second input for a slab
temperature. This means it can provide standalone
control of a heating zone without any connections to an
upstream device.
Smart Switch can form part of a wider network with
other Input and Output (I/O) modules on a high-
speed Zip network. North’s Zip modules include an
expandable four zone underfl oor heating controller,
boiler controller and generic IO cards. The network
allows many devices to be controlled over a distributed
network (up to 1km long).
Crestron has also been busy on the touchscreen front
introducing its TSW-X60 Series. Crestron says this line
combines high performance and high security with sleek
design and an exceptionally intuitive user experience.
This new generation of touchscreens are also designed to
be faster and more powerful, with several new features.
The fresh introduction includes an ‘ultra-fast’ processor
offering enhanced control and navigation delivering a
more responsive performance for areas such as homes,
boardrooms and classrooms. For more public areas,
Crestron says the TSW touchscreens provide enterprise-
grade network security by leveraging existing corporate
protocols, including 802.1X, TLS, FIPS-140-2, SSH, and
SFTP. Backlit capacitive buttons on the screen border
offer a further enhancement and deliver a sleeker look as
buttons that are not in use effectively disappear.
iOS and Android sytem control
with free app
Distributed in the UK by AWE Europe Ltd
[email protected]
+44 (0)1372 729 995
www.awe-europe.com
10th-11th May 2017, Sandown Park, Surrey. Sponsored by
April 2017 | 63