At its headquarters in Rockleigh, NJ, Crestron operates its Crestron Technical Institute (CTI), a hands-on training facility where integrators, engineers, and technology professionals learn to install, configure, and deploy Crestron systems at a professional level. As a refresh cycle approached to address outdated displays and aging mounts, the new environment needed to demonstrate what a modern AV deployment can deliver. What Crestron’s infrastructure team built, with the Chief Tempo flat panel in-wall mount system at its center, not only delivered on that goal, but added a training room where the technology itself became part of the lesson.
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The training rooms had last been updated roughly 10 years prior, with a pair of 86-inch displays and two 65-inch screens on traditional articulating wall mounts. The plan for the next chapter of the interactive, hands-on CTI courses called for five 98-inch LG CreateBoard touchscreens capable of supporting simultaneous input from multiple users at once. At that size and weight, traditional articulating mounts weren’t built for the job. Any flex or movement degrades the touch experience, and for a room designed to demonstrate precision AV, that wasn’t something the team could work around.
Two additional requirements shaped the install. First, Crestron wanted its DM NVX AV over IP solutions visible to students rather than hidden behind the displays, staged in dedicated accessory boxes beside each screen so trainees could see the infrastructure they’d be specifying in the field. That meant accommodating an unconventional three-box configuration per position. Second, the team needed easy serviceability.
Chief’s Tempo was selected for all 10 display positions across three classrooms. It keeps large displays tight to the wall, eliminates flex during touch interaction, and provides built-in service access without needing to remove the display.
“When you’re training the people who install AV systems for a living, the room itself sets the standard,” said Alex Villiard, principal infrastructure engineer, training, Crestron. “We needed mounting that could handle 98-inch touchpanels without any movement, support a custom layout that put the infrastructure on display, and let us get in and out for service without turning it into a project. The Chief Tempo flat panel in-wall mount system gave us the flexibility to build something that doesn’t exist as a standard configuration."
Making the DM NVX AV over IP platform visible has had a real instructional effect. The exposed Crestron solutions generate conversations in the room, where students ask about the hardware they’re looking at and get hands-on context for systems they’ll be specifying in the field.
“The Crestron Technical Institute is where our customers come to learn how to build with our systems,” added Villiard. “The touch experience is exactly what it should be, the infrastructure is visible and purposeful, and we can service everything without taking the room offline. That’s the environment we wanted to build.”
“What Crestron built in those training rooms is exactly what Chief mounts are designed to enable, a professional installation where the mounting solution supports the experience rather than limiting it,” said Dorian Haro, product manager, Legrand | AV. “Tempo was the right fit because it solved three distinct problems at once: stability for large-format touch displays, serviceability for a high-use environment, and the flexibility to support a custom layout that served a real instructional purpose. That’s the kind of deployment Chief is built for.”
