Hi all,

I'm an existing Sooloos owner and am about to step into a new home that has an existing Crestron system. As you might imagine, I'm working with an installer to customize what's there for my own usage needs. What I'm curious about is what the current state of Crestron integration is with Sooloos. Several helpful pieces of information to know about this scenario are:

1 - My original Sooloos dealer no longer carries the line and hasn't for at least 18 months, so they aren't a good source of current info.
2 - I will likely be stepping up to an MD600 and some number of MS200 units to replace some older Store and Source components.
3 - There is a local Meridian dealer in my market, but for a variety of reasons, I will not be engaging with them on the Crestron work and would only be buying the hardware form them.

With that said, here are my questions:

1 - There used to be a bridge hardware unit that I understand is no longer needed in order to interface with Crestron systems. Is that correct and/or is that only true for certain Sooloos hardware (I'm wondering if the need for the bridge was eliminated only with newer pieces like the MD600, MC200, MS600, etc)? I'm just wondering if I will absolutely have to step up to the MD600 in order to

2 - Does Meridian provide a "module" for easy integration into Crestron systems or is it simply a set of protocols that a Crestron programmer could make use of in order to get 2-way communication with Sooloos? In other words, should I expect to spend a bunch of money on Crestron programming just for the Sooloos integration piece that almost has to be built from the ground up or are the tools from Meridian good enough to drop in and make use of with minimal customization? By the way, my knowledge of Crestron programming is VERY limited, so that last question is probably a huge oversimplification. For reference, yes, I know about the ready alternative of using the Crestron iPad app alongside the Meridian Core Control App. If it can be integrated easily though, there are definite benefits to having Sooloos control from within the Crestron interface.

3 - How does the latest Crestron control of the Sooloos system compare with something like the Meridian Core Control iPad app? Is the functionality comparable or is the Crestron control more like basic playback controls with folder style browsing of the library? If anyone has or can link to screenshots or a video of Sooloos control from a Crestron panel in action, I'd be very grateful.

Jeff

Last edited by Jeff; 2012-11-21 14:17.
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