It’s time for the annual program of recognition of our marine integrators and the excellent work they do. We’re proud to announce this year’s call for entries for the Crestron Marine Technology Awards 2026. It’s an honor that tells both clients and shipyards that you’re doing work that’s genuinely defined as “best in class.”

Marine integration is a notoriously demanding business, and its complexities are ever-expanding. Projects have grown to include incredible AV packages, high-end lighting design, and really “bulletproof” cybersecurity. It’s all for an incredibly demanding clientele, as summed up by one of our Crestron integrators earlier this year: “A customer often doesn’t know what they want until they’re out on the water,” says Dimitrios Kouskoulis, CEO of the marine integrator SSP, a firm based in Greece.

It's also a clientele that’s changing, as mentioned in the same blog post that quoted Kouskoulis:

There’s also a generational shift, according to Juliette Warter, who handles marketing and communications for VBH France. “There is a significant difference between older owners and tech-savvy younger owners,” she says. “Older customers just want to have it plain and simple — just a remote control, no touch screens. Even if they have a really cool system on board, they’ll just want to downsize it and simplify it. Younger customers want every feature we can give them — and those digital natives have no problem controlling everything from their phones.”

“As far as ‘wants’ — we don’t see wish lists as much as we see a list of things clients don’t want,” she adds. (Internally, the VBH team uses a very colorful term for that other “list” — you get the picture.) “They’ll tell us they don’t want five remotes, they don’t want to have to check to see if their phones connected every time they step on board — and we can build products and experiences that eliminate those things they dislike.”

With all that in mind, we’re honoring the integrators who really met the challenge over the past year in the four categories below.