Audio Command Systems

STREAMLINING CRESTRON SYSTEMS FOR ONE OF THE LARGEST INTEGRATORS IN THE NATION

Audio Command Systems (ACS) is known throughout the U.S. for their high-quality commercial and home automation systems. The national brand has offices in New York, Florida, and California, with approximately 100 employees across their locations.

In business since 1976, ACS has always been predominantly a Crestron dealer, and as such, their residential Crestron programming skills are consistently top-notch. That didn’t stop ACS from considering alternative approaches to their programming process, so when Co-Chief Technology Officer Michael Grady heard about ADAPT in June 2016, he decided to see how this software could benefit ACS.

41

Years in Business

100

Employees

4

Locations Nationwide

ABOUT ACS

ACS is among the largest residential and commercial Audio, Home Theater, Lighting Control, Motorized Shades, IT and Home Automation companies in the nation. As an industry founding pioneer with offices in New York, Florida and California, ACS has designed and installed thousands of custom systems for some of the most discerning clients across the world. ACS holds a Crestron Gold Master Programmers certification.

Vist Their Website

Before ADAPT

Michael Grady and ADAPT creator Troy Morgan met to discuss the state of Crestron programming. During that discussion, Troy was able to share his vision for a better way to program Crestron systems.

“We both had very similar ideas about where the state of programming was and where it should be, and what people were currently calling ‘home automation’. As an industry, we’d focused on remote controls for a bunch of systems rather than actually automating homes and making them easier to live in. Once I saw the capabilities and amount of control available from the ADAPT software, I knew the game had changed.”

- Michael Grady, Co-Chief Technology Officer at ACS

With Adapt

That initial conversation between Grady and Morgan led to a webinar with ACS’ senior programmer, who had the chance to see the ADAPT suite at work. Grady soon realized that ADAPT had value to far more than just the programmers on his team.

Man using Adapt System Manager application on iMac

SOFTWARE THAT BENEFITS THE WHOLE COMPANY

“What Troy and his team did was create a beautiful front end that made it so that someone besides a programmer could make the most common changes that get requested. Reordering a room, Renaming something from office to den, changing the way the interface looked - all the tiny changes that used to require a phone call to the programmer can now be done by my technicians with ease. It’s empowering the rest of my team so that my programmers can focus on what they do best.”

- Michael Grady, Co-Chief Technology Officer at ACS

Faster Back-End Customizations

The area where ACS found significant time savings was actually after the initial project completion. When clients would call and ask for small changes to their systems, ACS now had a way to make those changes almost instantly, dropping their support time by 50-60 percent.

“Almost all of the support requests for system changes are now just a checkbox or name change away. It has been fantastic, and because of all the feature sets are there, it’s a matter of what we unlock and make visible to our clients. We normally try to provide a simple, easy to use system, then in cases where we have clients that want to do everything, we can press a button and reveal it all instantly.”

- Michael Grady, Co-Chief Technology Officer at ACS

Support that ACS Can Count On

What ACS values most about the ADAPT software is the full support that comes with it. From the initial training through ongoing support, the team at PanTech Design is one phone call away for any Crestron project using ADAPT.

“I feel like we have a real team behind us. We call up PanTech Design and say ‘hey, my client needs XYZ, and PanTech is able to deliver that first-class experience in no time. The user interface and ease of programming is fantastic, but it’s the support they provide behind the scenes that I love the most. One of the most important things to me is that we do business with people who support us, and PanTech’s support has been second to none. You call and you get a human on the phone right away.”

- Michael Grady, Co-Chief Technology Officer at ACS

Man using Adapt System Manager application on laptop

Upgrades to Existing Systems

Occasionally, existing ACS clients will want to upgrade their older Crestron systems. In these cases, Grady has heard firsthand the difference that ADAPT makes on the client side. The clients prefer the look and user-friendliness of the ADAPT systems.

“The response from clients who had our previous systems, which were working very well, and upgraded to ADAPT has been very positive. They’re pleased with the new systems, which is great to hear.”

– Michael Grady, Co-Chief Technology Officer at ACS

Reduction in Programming Time

Over the years, ACS had developed templates and procedures for streamlining the Crestron programming process. With Crestron Certified Gold Master Programmers on staff, setting up the systems was not difficult. However, even with that solid programming foundation, ACS has still seen a 30 percent reduction in the amount of time it takes to program a residential Crestron system.