Agree completely. We have close to 75 systems out in the field, all programmed in SB with everything from small condos to 15k Sq Ft houses integrating everything.

We never let SB build anything in terms of touch panels. We bought one of the GUI FX template 3-4 years ago and created all the pages for all the sub systems for the 4 panel sizes we are using. We standardized on all equipment we have control over that we are using and we created a Master System Builder Template that we use for every job we do. It includes one of each panel as well as one of each equipment piece with everything from pool controllers, security systems (GE) to AVRs. We then do a "Save As" right away and delete all the stuff we won't be using for that particular job.

We realized pretty quickly that the way SB is building touch panels is pretty convoluted and pretty hard to really understand what's going on under the hood, so we choose to not use that feature.

For us the beauty of SIMPL have been to write the missing logic modules for the functions that SB can't do out of the box.
That is what makes the program a lot more powerful in my opinion.

Ever wanted to have SB display what source was being used in a particular room just with indirect text? What about having a separate scheduler for the events that you don't want the customer to see in the regular scheduler? Re pulling data for the Jandy comes to mind. A lot of really cool things can be done without having to be a SIMPL wizard.

SIMPL have it's place, and will always be there, but to keep hearing that it is the only "real" way to program Crestron gets old. Sure, the program writes an endless numbers of buffers and interlocks, but since the 3 series processors are roughly 5 times faster then any of the 2 series, what difference does it really make?

I am not surprised that Crestron wants SB to be the main programming platform out there. After all, they are a hardware manufacturer and that is where the revenue is. Consider how many badly programmed systems that are out there that are programmed by non qualified SIMPL programmers, CAIPs and others, why shouldn't they go that route? Can't exactly help selling hardware.

SB has helped us deliver many great systems with predictable results to many happy clients in the real world out there, and that is what is important. I friend of mine that wanted to get more into automation was thinking of using HAI instead of Crestron because he liked the programming better. I told him that "it does not matter what you like, it is about what will deliver the better system for the customer" Thankfully he listened.