pstuart Posted June 8, 2014 Share Posted June 8, 2014 So, in the interest of potentially doing something positive with HA instead of complaining about the current state of C4 vs some Apple future... I stumbled upon the Smart Things Hub and starter kit on Amazon, and it appears they have a completely open API... This kit, http://www.amazon.com/SmartThings-Know-Control-Your-Home/dp/B00EORV53G/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1402250137&sr=8-3&keywords=smartthings seems like a good start? Has a fully documented API http://docs.smartthings.com/en/latest/ Anyway, what I am looking for thoughts from the C4 "User" community is if there would be any interest in either way integration with this system. There would be a couple of ways to do this... Option 1. Control4 sends commands and gets status from SmartThings Hub / API Option 2. SmartThings tries to control devices in a Control4 system So, I'm polling the user community to see if there is any interest? If so, please state which direction you'd like to see done and why. I haven't bought one yet, but really curious what the C4 world thinks about this platform and potential integration? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 8, 2014 Share Posted June 8, 2014 Can Control4 hardware such as dimmers be controlled with a non Control4 Zigbee controller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 8, 2014 Author Share Posted June 8, 2014 Not that I am aware of, but there is nothing restricting someone from writting a driver that maps them to another system / controller. For example, Create a fake dimmer in SmartThings wired to a request to C4 driver on a specific port. Then have a C4 driver listening on that port for device id and then control the device id. Heck take this a bit further, and you could parse the project.xml via the SOAP interface and populate SmartThings and make the connections. Integration would be a pain, but the hardest thing is which way to go. I am leaning towards having control4 programming send commands to SmartThings and SmartThings able to trigger programming in C4 via simple drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEORY Posted June 8, 2014 Share Posted June 8, 2014 Why not make both possible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 8, 2014 Author Share Posted June 8, 2014 Why not just solve all the worlds problems? I'm looking for use scenerios and where the need might be, versus doing everything and finding out only one side was needed. Both are easily possible for a single device, but integration is the hard part. Why don't you buy me the starter kit and I'll see if I can do both Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 8, 2014 Share Posted June 8, 2014 Yes, I'm curious why the Control4 hardware wouldn't work with another Zigbee system directly. Isn't Zigbee open source? Has Control4 made the hardware incompatible intentionally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 8, 2014 Author Share Posted June 8, 2014 I don't have the complete details, but Zigbee Pro and the HA profile that C4 uses makes the C4 devices only able to work with C4 controllers. But then again, so are Hue Zigbee devices, they require their hub, etc. Essentially everything requires a hub it seems. Getting the hubs to talk to each other is interesting... Anyway, what I like about ST is that it is all cloud based, so all the programming is done in the cloud, the hub just relays the requests to the devices. I just might have to pick up a starter kit and see what I can do with it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 10, 2014 Author Share Posted June 10, 2014 Ok, made the leap, ordered a starter kit and will see how this whole thing works. Cloud based controller... Interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 Let us know how it goes. I am very interested in this type of HA. I can definitely relate to the author of this story. The Boy Genius Report: Why Home Automation is Being Disruptedhttp://bgr.com/2014/...-wave-nest-hue/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 Well, all I can say is WOW! This thing is amazing. In just a few hours I was able to do the following: -Out of box, plugged in, firmware upgrade and connected to a motion sensor and a contact relay (about 15 minutes) -Set up geofencing via my android device, and a presense dongle -Setup up the Nest Thermostat and was able to have full control within the App -Setup my Sonos Connect and Control the play, pause, next and back commands along with the volume -Play the weather report through the Sonos (A SmartThings Lab App) when the contact is opened Then I wanted to figure out how hard it is to write a custom SmartApp to send a command to Control4... First of all, I had the Web Events Driver installed from Control4 (Thanks Ryan!) In C4 Programming I set up a simple setup, that if The Web Events Driver-> COMMAND EQUAL TO Test Toggle the Room->Light So this means when I request the url http://[c4controllerip]:8080/Test this programming will fire. Then over to the Developer tools in SmartThings portal. I was able to find enough (albeit very disconnected) documentation on how to send a hub network request to the C4 controller defined as above. I wired that SmartApp up to a button press in the SmartThings App, and viola, the light toggled in my room. Proof of concept of SmartThings to Control4 functionality achieved. I can now trigger any programming in Control4 via SmartThings. This SmartThings is a game changer for sure. This means I can use all the geofencing functionality in SmartThings and trigger programming within the Control4 environment. Next, I will try to send commands from a control4 driver to SmartThings and get status back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 That is absolutely freaking AMAZING!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 And best of all, its $299 on Amazon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Is the Web Events Driver available to users? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 yeah, think I grabbed it from here... http://untestedhacks.com/2013/web-events-driver/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Hot dam! I didn't know Ryan had a site. I'm going to investigate this more. They don't do TV's yet do they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 Not exactly... This is so raw and young... IP TV's would be fairly easy if it has a known command set. There is some development in Ardino which can then output IR commands. I am really curious about CA's Zigbee to IR adapter, as this could be the ultimate. I need to get one of those. The zigbee implementation is really crazy. I have a few CA relay's and motion sensors that I don't use and will see if I can pair them with ST's Zigbee controller. If I can figure that out then that IR device could work... This is like the wild west of HA. But I love the cloud based programming in Groovy language. So easy to test and debug. Makes LUA look like it was written in the 80's. This was clearly developed for the programmer in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Great stuff! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 My goal for this, is use the geofencing automation to trigger control4 scenes. Since no Nest driver in C4 yet, I can now use ST to set the Nest away. Tie in a Control4 driver to send custom commands to a device, and I should be able to send if the security system is armed over. I could even query the ST presence area and see if anyone is home. Best of all, I can automatically disarm the system when my presence dongle gets close. Ironically, I can now truely do Home Automation / Geofencing with a 3rd Party and no where in Control4 is native presence detection or identification. Anyway, my hacking for tonight is done. Color me impressed with this little toy... Give it a few years and it could be the one to beat. I just want to make sure I can still get the most out of the control4 investment I have already made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 Holy customer service batman... These guys sent me an email because they saw my order had been shipped and linked me to all the support. Then they sent me another email from a support engineer saying they saw my hub come online and that they were there to help get things set up. Wow, these guys seem to have this model figured out... The future will be very interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Holy customer service batman...These guys sent me an email because they saw my order had been shipped and linked me to all the support. Then they sent me another email from a support engineer saying they saw my hub come online and that they were there to help get things set up.Wow, these guys seem to have this model figured out... The future will be very interesting...That's exactly the way it should be. It's time well spent when you get support like that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Have to admit the amount and variety of sensors available for such a young product is awesome. Add to this the reasonable pricing and I'm intrigued to see how it all works and what you're able to accomplish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 Lol...They actually found this thread and are monitoring it. Hi st devs. Hope this leads to some really cool integrations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qVAMPIREp Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 If they could talk directly to C4's dimmers without a C4 controller in the middle I'd be ecstatic!!!! Their hardware looks amazingly reasonable and I'm surprised by the variety of sensors (water leak, motion etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/technology/personaltech/your-coffee-maker-garage-door-and-air-conditioner-all-controlled-by-one-device.html?hp Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstuart Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 There is one significant flaw in their design. Take away the internet connection, no automation. I hope they have offline caching of the programming in the near future... The margins on this stuff better be great, cause they have to sell alot of 300 kits to compete revenue (and R&D) wise with the big boys... This kit is going out to my dad's place, and I'll try to convince the wife to grab me another starter kit for fathers day... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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