How confident are you in your third-party Crestron Home Drivers?

Writing drivers for Crestron Home can be quite a challenging task. Lots of things can throw up problems - from the platform itself, to the proficiency of the driver developers, to the hardware that you’re writing the driver for  - all of these things can impact on driver reliability for your customers and for your callout charges.

Ultamation can never guarantee that we make all our drivers to perfection, but we do go to some lengths to ensure that the drivers that we produce - and that you then deploy in your customer systems - are as reliable as they can be.

We use software engineering techniques such as testing development, build pipelines and functional requirements analysis all as part of driver development ... even for something as simple as a notifications tile.

Next time you’re buying a third-party driver ask yourself "has it been through that process and am I confident that I won’t be getting a call on Friday night from a frustrated customer to say his system? Their system isn’t working?".

Browse our extensive Creston Home Driver catalogue here. 

Ultamation will be gradually rolling out a new licensing system applying to all modules.

Since we started selling modules the licenses have been issued as licence keys that you must enter into the driver. However with the recent explosion of drivers that we are developing, we recognised the need for a better way to manage licences benefitting both integrators and improving support. It also provides us with an opportunity to create driver packs and bundles.

Because of that, we have implemented a new licensing scheme which means:

• No need to manage or enter licence keys
• Integrators can quickly see the status of all Ultamation modules for a particular job
• Unlimited cloud licence transfers

For projects that are unable to access the Internet, we are still able to offer "offline keys" when requested for special cases. NB: All licence keys already issued are now considered as such.

For Crestron Home the upgrade path is as easy as… well... an upgrade!

For Crestron Custom with wrappers be aware that user attributes may move so please pay attention!

How it works

Cloud licensing is currently only available for drivers that have been migrated - so if you don't receive a licence key, it's validated via the cloud.

View your licence status at the Ultamation Integration Portal: https://portal.ultamation.com/

• From the home page, click the "Cloud Licence Status" button to navigate to the status page.
• Enter the MAC address for the processor you'd like to inspect the licences for.
• Enter any order number that has been historically associated with a licence purchased from the shop for that processor.
• Once successful, you may view all the licences attached to this processor's MAC with a status from the following:
  
  • Connected: The driver has made connection with the server, and has received the licence status.
  • No Contact: The product does support cloud licensing, but the driver hasn't contacted the server yet.
  • Cloud Unsupported: The product doesn't yet support cloud licensing and will require entering the legacy licence key.
  • Not Active: The licence is not active due to the reason provided.

Troubleshooting

If you have a driver unexpectedly showing 'No Contact' within the cloud licence status page please ensure you have first updated to the latest version and rebooted the processor to ensure an attempt has been made to reach the server.

As always, if you have any questions please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The new licensing system will be rolled out as modules and drivers are updated, so watch this space.

Wildcard Recipe: Nexus21 Apex Motorized TV Wall Mount

Problem

Your Crestron Home project includes one or more Nexus21 Apex Motorized TV mounts. The API requires HTTP POST commands.

Solution

<>The Ultamation HTTP POST Wildcard module can be used to send commands to the device, via manual button presses or by integrating the commands into actions and sequences in Crestron Home.

1. Add the Ultamation HTTP POST Wildcard driver to Crestron Home

2. Configure your chosen commands for buttons or discrete commands (under Actions/Sequences) using the information in the table, and examples below.

3. You’re in the 1-hour trial period window - give your new integration a test drive!

4. Once you’re happy everything is working, purchase a licence key for your processor from HTTP/S POST "Wildcard" for Crestron Home

5. Add the licence key to your Crestron Home configuration (under “Installer Settings”)

Command Table

Examples

The following examples show you how format the the commands in the Installer Settings of the module.

Send the TV Mount to the Home position

Send the TV Mount to Memory Position 1

Send the TV Mount back in

Kudos

Kudos to Nu Home Tech NuHome Tech New Site for suggesting this integration, providing API information and on-site testing.

We are now aware that the upgrade from Crestron Home 3.18 to 3.19 can adversely impact the Apple TV driver configuration.  The issue has a fairly simple resolution.

If you have not yet upgraded to 3.19 please do the following:

1. Using Toolbox/FileManager, an FTP client of your choice, or the Ultamation Apple TV commissioning tool - connect to the Crestron Home processor and extract a copy of the Apple TV licence file.
   If using an FTP client, this file is located under /user/Data/ProgData/Ultamation/licence.json
2. Update CH to 3.19
3. Copy the licence.json file BACK to the original location
4. Your Apple TVs should reconnect automatically when the file is restored.
   If not, reboot Crestron Home (but this should NOT be necessary)

If you have ALREADY upgraded to 3.19:

1. If you have a copy of the licence.json (as recommended in the commissioning documentation), please just go to step 3 above.
2. If you do NOT have a copy of the licence.json file you will need to re-pair the Apple TVs using the commissioning tool.
   Note: YOU DO NOT NEED TO REMOVE THE APPLE TVs FROM YOUR CRESTRON HOME CONFIGURATION
   1. Although not strictly necessary, best practice is to remove the "Remote Control" from your Apple TV (under the System menu)
   2. Re-run the commissioning tool from scratch - since you do not have the licence.json file locally, and the tool will not be able to retrieve it from the processor (it's been removed in the 3.19 upgrade)
   3. Upload the new licence/pairing file and the Apple TVs will come online.

Ultamation apologises for the inconvenience caused and we are making suitable changes to the Apple TV driver to move the config file to a location that will not be altered by future Crestron Home firmware updates.

This short video runs through our demonstration slides from ISE2023 where we are exhibiting the SIMPL Home integration on the Crestron stand.

The video shows the simple installation steps, the highlights of why SIMPL Home opens up so much power to Crestron Home (especially relevant when upgrading from existing 3-Series Crestron Custom system) and a couple of the more powerful endpoint types (Modular and Scripted) which allow integrators with existing programming skills to create their own custom extensions in Crestron Home without ANY C# or Crestron driver development knowledge.