Hi:

I currently own 2 ML600's and I am happy with them.
I am finishing up my basement where we will have our 3rd home theater.
The component rack will be in the closet so it will be completely hidden.
The components will be
Epson 8700 projector
Denon 3311Ci AV
Standard bluray player

This system will be hooked up to whole house Crestron adagio.
We will also have Crestron iLux CLS6EX to control the lighting in the home theater.

ML600 is nearly the same price as an IPAD. We will use the home theater a few times a month.

In terms of usability which one would you take IPAD or ML600?
Since the equipment is hidden how will IPAD work? Will it use WiFi?
Will I have to add new hardware to Crestron AES?
Will programming be more expensive for one over the other?


Thanks for sharing your expertise.

Neither. If you have the 433mhz gateway, use an RTI T2-c. iPad is not an appropriate media remote since it lacks a hard button directional pad that is used for 80% of media activities. The ML-600 is a rebranded low-end URC remote and the screen is somewhat limited in its functionality.

The ML600 uses a 418mhz gateway.
But I would agree the iPad is not appropriate and love using RTI T2C / T2Cs on jobs.

The clients we deal with are older and are familiar with the "button" remotes.
I believe most people are "tactile" people and using the T2C etc. gives you a very familiar way of controlling your equipment.

Creston do have an iPad "dock" thing coming sometime this year which the iPad slips into and gives cursor and some hard button controls.

if you need a low cost one way 418 mhz remote I would look at the URC MX-980, it will work quite well...CCP software has over a thousand joins...only PIA is you have to program two remotes...the urc and the emulated crestron.

Since you already have two ML-600's you're happy with, it would be best to add another one, or perhaps both the iPad *and* the ML-600.

The T2C is a nice remote, but it would require a 433 gateway. Rather than the T2C, I'd recommend the URC MX-980 or MX-900, which will work with the 418 gateway already installed, provided the new room is in range (75 to 100 feet) of it. Because you're already familiar with the ML-600, I'd only go with a different remote if you're willing to replace all of them, i.e. get three new remotes, so they're all the same.

The ML-600 is a great remote. The range RF range is exceptional and given your equipment list, 2 way feedback is not necessary. The IPad, at this point in time, requires that you connect, then you will have to wait a couple of seconds for the manifest file to load. IMO, it's still a bit too long to wait to turn your system on. We always suggest that our clients use a traditional remote and then compliment their system with an IPad for cool factor



ML-600 as your primary and add an IPad for cool factor


You will need a good wi-fi signal connecting the IPad to the AES network.
To verify that you will not need any additional hardware for the ML-600, take one of your existing remotes into the basement where your home theater will be and test to see that you can control the existing devices on that ML-600. If you can, you're good to go. If you can't, you'll need to add an additional gateway for the new ML-600.


Not to add an IPAD. Possibly, if you need more ir or serial ports to control the new equipment. You will need to pay the 99.00 Crestron App fee as well.


It depends on what you're adding to the IPad. If you want to roam with the IPad and control your whole home audio, then yes, the programming of the IPad would be considerably more. If not, then it's six to one and a half dozen to another.

I would have more or less said the same thing as Tony. ML600 is what you're used to using and for video or single room control it's perfectly adequate. It's what I use in my home. But iPad is nice addition for bi-directional sources such as the radio cards in your AES, iPod, mp3 collection and so on. You could introduce streaming audio, AppleTV macros, sub-system control over lighitng, HVAC and so on.

If your contractor does those URC remotes, fine. Otherwise, I'm not sure there's a real benefit in this application. As for iPod performance, I've only done 6 and its RF performance has been superlative. Roaming is always an issue, not because of signal strength per se but without a managed WiFi network the device tends to hold on to the WAP to which it first associated even when there are others with better signal strength. Battery and RF on the iPad has been unbelievable. As a secondary remote, the iPad is great. The real question is can you get a iPad control on an AES. New native iPad firmware says yes but I've not done it nor heard of anyone else who has. Once you can load the graphics into the iPad this will be a moot discussion.

I'll be testing shortly, however.

What Alan said. I cant see how, at this point, the aes will have enough power to run a full blown ipad program.

I just finished an install with an AADS-XM where iPad is being used for control of XM radio and a iPod with CEN-IDOCV. I built the system using Systembuilder and the iPad works fine.

However, the iPad GUI which Systembuilder creates does not look like the GUI on the Crestron website. It doesn't support gestures or touch scrolling. For example, when browsing an iPod music list, there are buttons where you can page up and down through the list. You can't touch the list and use your finger to scroll.

I haven't yet tried adapting the iPad Simpl demo programs to run on an Adagio system. Most folks seem to be think these won't work unless you are using a processor with CF support. But I'm thinking that it might be possible to remove a large number of the pages in VTPro and make it work. So it might work for simpler systems where you just need audio control and music list browsing.

I have an AMS using both ipad and iphone interfaces as well as an exe xpanel and although they use up a lot of space there is still available space. I had contacted Crestron with regards to having a CF processor and they said the only reason they are saying this is due to the ipad file size.

Like someone else has stated once the VT file gets saved onto the ipad (next two months I was told) this problem will not exist.

I do agree with everyone stating that they like the use of a remote rather than a touch screen for theatre control and if you like the ML600 then stay with it why fix something that isn't broken? The ipad is nice as it will allow for you to control the whole house audio and with some programming possibly each theatre room as well. Like Snarfsharck has said though the gui that SB builds is not the same as the sample app that crestron shows. It is quite ugly and although works well it does require a lot of programming when using RSD's for lights and HVAC.