Joshua Pressnell Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 27 minutes ago, Stuart England said: Do other bonjour devices discover across your wifi / LAN? Some AP'a can block bonjour I'm assuming bonjour is in play here Yeah... HomeKit is discoverable via Bonjour. I'd have to do a little research to see if you can add devices into HomeKit without it. Would like to confirm that Homebridge is up and running with the imported configuration as well. It's a little finicky and will stop running entirely if it encounters errors rather than just moving on as best it can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 I've been researching this a little bit. A decent number of people had issues when their network was handing out IPv6 network addresses. Bonjour on the pi was working over IPv6 and not on IPv4, and the iDevices were looking for it in the v4 space. Many folks turned off IPv6 in the bonjour daemon on the pi and got things working solidly. So I guess the question is, what kind of router do you have, and is it configured for IPv6 and IPv4? What IP does the appliance get and what IP do your idevices get? If we confirm that homebridge is indeed up and running properly, then debugging the network configuration is probably the next step, and I'm more than happy to help with that. Need to include notes on this in the quick start guide if we discover the problem is something configurable in the network, although I may be able to adjust the pi config to handle it internally as well, in which case I need to update my system image for the appliance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 5 minutes ago, Joshua Pressnell said: I've been researching this a little bit. A decent number of people had issues when their network was handing out IPv6 network addresses. Bonjour on the pi was working over IPv6 and not on IPv4, and the iDevices were looking for it in the v4 space. Many folks turned off IPv6 in the bonjour daemon on the pi and got things working solidly. So I guess the question is, what kind of router do you have, and is it configured for IPv6 and IPv4? What IP does the appliance get and what IP do your idevices get? If we confirm that homebridge is indeed up and running properly, then debugging the network configuration is probably the next step, and I'm more than happy to help with that. Need to include notes on this in the quick start guide if we discover the problem is something configurable in the network, although I may be able to adjust the pi config to handle it internally as well, in which case I need to update my system image for the appliance. is it worth changing the appliance to only use IPv4? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 4 minutes ago, msgreenf said: is it worth changing the appliance to only use IPv4? If I can confirm that this is the issue for this person, then I can disable IPv6 at the bonjoir layer, which appears to solve the problem for most people. The thread with that info was a little old, but may still be relevant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted January 20, 2017 Share Posted January 20, 2017 Ok, got home this morning and set-up the HomeBridge Appliance for the first time and can report that all worked exceptionally well. The responsiveness is very impressive. I ask Siri to turn on or turn off a light or scene and it happens immediately. I thought I was doing something wrong at first as no C4 devics were being discovered, however I think it just take a bit of time. Is there a way to define rooms within the appliances web portal? It's a fairly slow process to move devices from "default room" to where you'd like them to really go and it seems like if that could be a drop down box next to the device name/type it would make it easier... OR if it could create room names from the room name in composer and then place each device in the appropriate room. Don't know if any of that made sense or is even remotely possible. Is you activate a scene in HomeBridge is there a way to trigger programming in Control4? Say a Good Morning scene in homebridge triggers the Good Morning macro in C4? I think you have the makings of a real winner! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 I cannot wait to get this going. Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 3 hours ago, cdepaola said: Ok, got home this morning and set-up the HomeBridge Appliance for the first time and can report that all worked exceptionally well. The responsiveness is very impressive. I ask Siri to turn on or turn off a light or scene and it happens immediately. I thought I was doing something wrong at first as no C4 devics were being discovered, however I think it just take a bit of time. Is there a way to define rooms within the appliances web portal? It's a fairly slow process to move devices from "default room" to where you'd like them to really go and it seems like if that could be a drop down box next to the device name/type it would make it easier... OR if it could create room names from the room name in composer and then place each device in the appropriate room. Don't know if any of that made sense or is even remotely possible. Is you activate a scene in HomeBridge is there a way to trigger programming in Control4? Say a Good Morning scene in homebridge triggers the Good Morning macro in C4? I think you have the makings of a real winner! Excellent. Good to hear. Since all five devices were exact mirrors, that makes me feel a little more confident that the issue with the other one is some kind of configuration-specific or network issue. I'm somewhat anxiously waiting to work that one out. On to your questions, though... 1) Delay pulling in C4 devices : I presume you're talking about those devices showing up in HomeKit, and not the C4 devices showing up during the configuration import on the appliance? If so, that would make a bit of sense. The first time you restart homebridge after importing the configuration, homebridge has to identify all those devices and make network connections and such to build its internal databases. If you've got a lot of C4 devices, that might take a little bit. 2) Create/auto-assign rooms via config : Unfortunately not possible as far as I've been able to determine. Remember, in the normal "HomeKit world" you're expected to be adding unique devices bit by bit. How would the devices in that world know to indicate what room they're in? Naming devices (done via the portal) is also a little tricky. It takes a bit to work out how to name things in a way that keeps Siri happy AND that makes sense to see visually. Siri still doesn't understand "front sconces" and wants to turn off all the lights in the house when I say "turn off the front sconces". That's all HomeKit's responsibility, though, and I hope Apple refines that over time. As it is, I really like having access to my home systems from the lock screen and command center. 3) Trigger scenes : There's a couple logical ways to do this, and I may need to expand my manual to cover "special use cases". Both center around using a virtual switch in C4 as a programming point. Some other folks used the legacy Calipsal Relay Driver (free and linked for download on the driver thread). That creates a virtual switch in C4 and you just hide that from the navigators. Import that into HomeKit, and then assign it to some "hidden" room at the back of the list. You can then use HomeKit scenes to turn on/off that switch and use C4 programming to trigger C4 scenes. You can use this same approach to program "room on/off" switches (and put them in the proper HomeKit rooms) and more. I could imagine having a set of virtual switches that represent the available AV source in the theater, for example, and when you use C4 to switch between them, you can use programming to update the switch states to reflect that in HomeKit. You can also, then, use Siri to turn on a particular AV source, a la "Hey Siri, Turn on the DVD Player in the theater" (not sure of the exact Siri phrasing/naming, but in concept it should work). The one thing you probably can't do is use HomeKit to select channels or particular videos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Excellent. Good to hear. Since all five devices were exact mirrors, that makes me feel a little more confident that the issue with the other one is some kind of configuration-specific or network issue. I'm somewhat anxiously waiting to work that one out. On to your questions, though... 1) Delay pulling in C4 devices : I presume you're talking about those devices showing up in HomeKit, and not the C4 devices showing up during the configuration import on the appliance? If so, that would make a bit of sense. The first time you restart homebridge after importing the configuration, homebridge has to identify all those devices and make network connections and such to build its internal databases. If you've got a lot of C4 devices, that might take a little bit. 2) Create/auto-assign rooms via config : Unfortunately not possible as far as I've been able to determine. Remember, in the normal "HomeKit world" you're expected to be adding unique devices bit by bit. How would the devices in that world know to indicate what room they're in? Naming devices (done via the portal) is also a little tricky. It takes a bit to work out how to name things in a way that keeps Siri happy AND that makes sense to see visually. Siri still doesn't understand "front sconces" and wants to turn off all the lights in the house when I say "turn off the front sconces". That's all HomeKit's responsibility, though, and I hope Apple refines that over time. As it is, I really like having access to my home systems from the lock screen and command center. 3) Trigger scenes : There's a couple logical ways to do this, and I may need to expand my manual to cover "special use cases". Both center around using a virtual switch in C4 as a programming point. Some other folks used the legacy Calipsal Relay Driver (free and linked for download on the driver thread). That creates a virtual switch in C4 and you just hide that from the navigators. Import that into HomeKit, and then assign it to some "hidden" room at the back of the list. You can then use HomeKit scenes to turn on/off that switch and use C4 programming to trigger C4 scenes. You can use this same approach to program "room on/off" switches (and put them in the proper HomeKit rooms) and more. I could imagine having a set of virtual switches that represent the available AV source in the theater, for example, and when you use C4 to switch between them, you can use programming to update the switch states to reflect that in HomeKit. You can also, then, use Siri to turn on a particular AV source, a la "Hey Siri, Turn on the DVD Player in the theater" (not sure of the exact Siri phrasing/naming, but in concept it should work). The one thing you probably can't do is use HomeKit to select channels or particular videos. Sorry for the long quote. Using my iPhone right now. Answer three. Could you not create 10 virtual switches labelled 1-10. Then using Siri, ask to turn on Cable (V switch) then turn on 1 (V switch), 6(V switch), 7(V switch). To emulate channel 167 you would have each switch press corresponding button on cable box as the v switch turned on? Siri, turn on cable TV then turn on one six and seven. ?????? Don't have HE appliance yet so I cannot try. But will gladly when that time comes Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Also, could you "translate" command into string variable maybe? A way to capture what Siri has detected similar to how you can see it type it out as you speak on the Siri screen. Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 48 minutes ago, VINCELdUB said: Sorry for the long quote. Using my iPhone right now. Answer three. Could you not create 10 virtual switches labelled 1-10. Then using Siri, ask to turn on Cable (V switch) then turn on 1 (V switch), 6(V switch), 7(V switch). To emulate channel 167 you would have each switch press corresponding button on cable box as the v switch turned on? Siri, turn on cable TV then turn on one six and seven. ?????? Don't have HE appliance yet so I cannot try. But will gladly when that time comes Happy Automating! I admittedly haven't tried too much with Siri, but she doesn't seem to be too good at chaining commands, and definitely not all together (like channel numbers). Plus I'm not sure a switch named "1" would even be commandable. Siri can be weird. At best, you'd probably have to say "turn on 1, turn on 6, turn on 7". But I doubt even that will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 50 minutes ago, VINCELdUB said: Also, could you "translate" command into string variable maybe? A way to capture what Siri has detected similar to how you can see it type it out as you speak on the Siri screen. Happy Automating! Nope. Siri doesn't work like that, at least not in HomeKit. Apple opened up some Siri grammars to third party devs in iOS 10, but none of them were related to HomeKit or home automation. It was for things like "make a reservation" or "hail a taxi". Siri translates human speech to discrete commands in HomeKit represented by specific changes in the device model. No parameters or dynamic updates are possible outside the bounds of the HomeKit device model. At least not yet. Theoretically I could use speech to text capture inside an app to make my own grammar... but it wouldn't be nearly as accessible as Siri is, as you'd have to be IN my custom app to say the commands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Hmmm so the apps that would work for "hail a taxi" could not open a dialog and input the grammar into your custom app that would then trigger something in home kit? Sounds round-a-bout. Possible? Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 By the Way, I really appreciate you answering these questions. Have a great night! Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 Perhaps technically feasible, but won't ever fly. Apple doesn't approve the unintended use of their APIs for other purposes, so such an app would never get live in the App Store. Could be a creative hobby project for personal use, but I wouldn't be able to get it in the hands of anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Thanks for the info. I honestly can't wait to fiddle with this. I see the value of the HomeKit and the ability to control locks,lighting and so on. Would like to help develop an A/V solution as well. This will most likely be my concentration. Simplicity with initial setup and a write up on how to accomplish this. Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 1 minute ago, VINCELdUB said: Thanks for the info. I honestly can't wait to fiddle with this. I see the value of the HomeKit and the ability to control locks,lighting and so on. Would like to help develop an A/V solution as well. This will most likely be my concentration. Simplicity with initial setup and a write up on how to accomplish this. Happy Automating! I'm still hoping that HomeKit will support AV devices natively in a near-future update (iOS 11 or 12)... but that might be asking for a lot. The best we'll probably be able to do is use virtual switches in rooms with AV to represent different AV states and room on/off commands. But with the virtual switch setup you could easily configure HomeKit scenes for certain AV modes along with light states, etc. Not ideal... but should work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VINCELdUB Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 This is the plan. Will condense all of the needed info and drivers as well as a "Best practice" in a thread to help the fellow DIYer Happy Automating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 24, 2017 Author Share Posted January 24, 2017 Okay... I haven't heard back from @eddy.trochez and I'm very much wanting to figure out what the issue was there. Did you get it working? PM me if you're still having issues and we can work together to figure out what's going on. I have initial reports from @cdepaola that his setup is working very well for him. I'm hoping it has continued to do so? I'm looking for ongoing beta feedback on how things worked, how easy setup was, and whether my documentation is explicit enough and accurate. Also looking for ongoing checkins to make sure things continuously keep up and work well before I start pushing these as production units. According to FedEx, @VINCELdUB's unit was delivered today. Still haven't heard from @dew1551 or @sturama about how their installs went. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 My set-up continues to run well, though all I have is lights and the garage doors. I was planning on getting some sensors to extend what I can test. The speed is what amazes me, its much faster and easier then Alexa. With my phone in my pocket I can say "Siri turn off all my lights." and almost before I'm done all the lights in the house are off. I will indeed be giving you some input on the documentation Is there anything else I can test or provide input on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 On 1/20/2017 at 8:59 PM, Joshua Pressnell said: 1) Delay pulling in C4 devices : I presume you're talking about those devices showing up in HomeKit, and not the C4 devices showing up during the configuration import on the appliance? If so, that would make a bit of sense. The first time you restart homebridge after importing the configuration, homebridge has to identify all those devices and make network connections and such to build its internal databases. If you've got a lot of C4 devices, that might take a little bit. 2) Create/auto-assign rooms via config : Unfortunately not possible as far as I've been able to determine. Remember, in the normal "HomeKit world" you're expected to be adding unique devices bit by bit. How would the devices in that world know to indicate what room they're in? Naming devices (done via the portal) is also a little tricky. It takes a bit to work out how to name things in a way that keeps Siri happy AND that makes sense to see visually. Siri still doesn't understand "front sconces" and wants to turn off all the lights in the house when I say "turn off the front sconces". That's all HomeKit's responsibility, though, and I hope Apple refines that over time. As it is, I really like having access to my home systems from the lock screen and command center. 3) Trigger scenes : There's a couple logical ways to do this, and I may need to expand my manual to cover "special use cases". Both center around using a virtual switch in C4 as a programming point. Some other folks used the legacy Calipsal Relay Driver (free and linked for download on the driver thread). That creates a virtual switch in C4 and you just hide that from the navigators. Import that into HomeKit, and then assign it to some "hidden" room at the back of the list. You can then use HomeKit scenes to turn on/off that switch and use C4 programming to trigger C4 scenes. You can use this same approach to program "room on/off" switches (and put them in the proper HomeKit rooms) and more. I could imagine having a set of virtual switches that represent the available AV source in the theater, for example, and when you use C4 to switch between them, you can use programming to update the switch states to reflect that in HomeKit. You can also, then, use Siri to turn on a particular AV source, a la "Hey Siri, Turn on the DVD Player in the theater" (not sure of the exact Siri phrasing/naming, but in concept it should work). The one thing you probably can't do is use HomeKit to select channels or particular videos. Thanks for all the answers! 1) Yes, that would be the case. Something in the documentation about timing would be helpful as not everyone, myself included, knows much about HomeKit/HomeBridge. Its easy to think maybe you missed a step or something is broken/not working properly. 2) Would it be possible to have a field in the portal that has all the room names in finds in HomeKit so you can quickly assign devices to rooms via a dropdown list in the portal. One of the most aggrevating things was assigning the devices to room, it was slow. Being able to do it via a dropdown in the portal would = awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 25, 2017 Author Share Posted January 25, 2017 2 hours ago, cdepaola said: The speed is what amazes me, its much faster and easier then Alexa. With my phone in my pocket I can say "Siri turn off all my lights." and almost before I'm done all the lights in the house are off. With recent versions of iOS and homebridge/homekit, there's zero need for an external network. A lot of standard Siri grammars are built into the OS, and so don't need network to do speech detection, and HomeKit/Homebridge/Control4 runs entirely on your local network. Using My appliance (or docker, etc) along with the C4 driver should allow HomeKit in the Apple world to be nearly as responsive as using Control4 natively. 2 hours ago, cdepaola said: I will indeed be giving you some input on the documentation Is there anything else I can test or provide input on? Ideas for things to do with it. Ways to setup scenes or control rooms or do things that are basic for C4, but might require some "creativity" in the HomeKit side... I'm open to out of the box thinking here. Once you get it setup as far as you have, I'm pretty confident that all the "device types" will play nicely. It was really the "make this thing a consumer-grade near-idiot-proof appliance" that I need feedback on. Someone with near-zero IT/computer knowledge should be able to unpack this thing and set it up, after having their dealer install the driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 25, 2017 Author Share Posted January 25, 2017 2 hours ago, cdepaola said: 2) Would it be possible to have a field in the portal that has all the room names in finds in HomeKit so you can quickly assign devices to rooms via a dropdown list in the portal. One of the most aggrevating things was assigning the devices to room, it was slow. Being able to do it via a dropdown in the portal would = awesome. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. There's no way for me to auto-assign devices to rooms. I would update the web portal to show which rooms the devices belong to, though, so it's easier to figure out which ones go where during HomeKit setup. I know that in my configuration, I have several devices that are just called "Lights" or "Overheads" because in C4 it shows them in rooms. I had to work out which ones went where based on their ID values, and that wasn't very fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdepaola Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 1 hour ago, Joshua Pressnell said: Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. There's no way for me to auto-assign devices to rooms. I would update the web portal to show which rooms the devices belong to, though, so it's easier to figure out which ones go where during HomeKit setup. I know that in my configuration, I have several devices that are just called "Lights" or "Overheads" because in C4 it shows them in rooms. I had to work out which ones went where based on their ID values, and that wasn't very fun. Not auto assign. Just pick up what rooms are currently available in HomeKit and the ability to choose one of those already defined rooms... Say I have already put into homekit Kitchen, Living Room, Family Room, Bar, Garage.... Then when you initially pull down all your devices they are assigned to 'Default Room" as they currently are, however that is in a dropdown field where you can from the portal reassign those devices. Sorry if I'm being redundant just didn't sound like we were on the same page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart England Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 @Joshua Pressnell if you get that docker image running I know that myself and @RobbieF will provide you with feedback and the documentation shouldn't vary very much from the physical appliance. I am relatively new to C4 so im still in the honeymoon season so probably more likely to invest time in giving you feedback Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Pressnell Posted January 25, 2017 Author Share Posted January 25, 2017 3 hours ago, Stuart England said: @Joshua Pressnell if you get that docker image running I know that myself and @RobbieF will provide you with feedback and the documentation shouldn't vary very much from the physical appliance. I am relatively new to C4 so im still in the honeymoon season so probably more likely to invest time in giving you feedback This is definitely in my todo list. Unfortunately I didn't realize it a the time, buy my shiny new Synology NAS is one model shy of allowing docker support. Docker is a bit weird on Mac, so I may have to get it setup somewhere else. I'll get to it soon though. Unfortunately, I have a few contracts that have deadlines coming up, so I've gotta get those out the door before I pick this back up in earnest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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