Remote Wattbox Control / OvrC Pro 100

[FLA]

7 hours ago, msgreenf said:

You can use open VPN from iOS or Android. Windows or Mac

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Thx, then it sounds like that's the way to go for me

[vitali]

1. Panamax? I can remotely reboot, system can pings Google DNS (8.8.8.8) if can't do it - reboots modem

2. Niles power switch? If you have 4 sign licenses you can do it from your smartphone. 

[SMHarman]

1. No would have to rip out too much wall. We have decided we can live with the fan issue.

2. HC 800 and only one TV has a Wyerstorm HD BaseT balun and that TV actually experiences the On / Off problem much much less that the others that are Binary B-300 Matrix and connected to a B 300 switch except for one that is close to the rack and uses direct HDMI cabling. So the direct HDMI TV and all of the Binary B-300 baluns experience the on / off problem. Some more often than others. My equipment list is below:

1 Snap B-300 HDMatrix 8X8

1 Control4 HC800 System Controller 

1 Control4 IO Extender

1 Control4 16x16 audio matrix

1 Control4 - 4 zone amp

1 Control4 - 8 zone amp

1 Control4 Music bridge 

1 Apple TV

1 Roku

2 Sonos connect bridges

1 Marantz AV7005 surround sound pre/processor.

1 Sunfire Theater Grand Amp

12 Audio Zones (4 outdoor, 8 indoor including 1 home theater). indoor = 8” episode 700 ceiling speakers. Home Theater = 5 Episode HT 700 LCR in wall speakers. Outdoor Zones = Episode outdoor speakers

8 Video Zones with Samsung TV's

8- RC250's

1 - 7" Touch Screen

Wattbox IP enabled

Araknis networks AN-300-SW-R-24 Gigabit Switch

Araknis networks AN-300-SW-R-8-Poe 8 Port Managed Gigabit Switch

Wirepath Surveillance WPS-300-DVR-9CH

C4 Door Station 1st Generation

Isn't the B300 one@Cyknight said was a problem matrix

[FLA]

12 hours ago, vitali said:

1. Panamax? I can remotely reboot, system can pings Google DNS (8.8.8.8) if can't do it - reboots modem

2. Niles power switch? If you have 4 sign licenses you can do it from your smartphone. 

Funny, I use to have a Panamax on my old home theater system that was about 12 yrs old. In fact I'm still using my Sunfire Amp from that system, anyway thanks but it doesn't make sense for me to shelf the Wattbox and go to another power conditioner at this point. 

5 hours ago, SMHarman said:

Isn't the B300 one@Cyknight said was a problem matrix

Yes, good memory and that is why I made an earlier post questioning the snap 500 series and the leaf. My dealer refused to talk to Snap to see if they will give me some type of compensation like they have to some others for the trade. He also states that he used the 500 series and has had problems on other jobs with it. It would be an expensive switch for me to purchase one of the other matrix's for an experiment not knowing if that would solve the on/off problem. I haven't heard from anybody else on this forum that has has that problem with a B300, in fact that is one of the questions I asked the Snap customer support gal along with would they give me some type of credit for my B300. Her answer was that she didn't know of any problems and to have my dealer contact them. As I said my dealer for some reason would not ask the question. Maybe he purchased the B300 on a close out price. Whatever the reason it makes the whole process hard on me. 

[Adidaswood]

I have to say, your dealer sounds like a grade A douchebag.  Why would he not look into all possibilities?  He is either lazy, arrogant or stupid either way he isn't solving his customers issue.  How would he know what is wrong unless he is trying things to reduce the number of possibilities assume this is the reason you are parting ways.  Clearly he hasn't fixed it up to this point.  so you won't try other approaches, why?

I also agree he should be guaranteeing the Low Volt wiring, unless you signed off on it.  It sounds to me like he just doesn't want to deal with you which is a shame.  I would expect he should have known and advised you on the right wiring, as well as him knowing the proper way to "cross" high voltage lines.

I can't believe he won't help you out on the HDMI matrix.  what does he have to lose?  I'm sure a new dealer would look into it for you.  There has to be a way for SNAP to transfer you "accounts" to a new dealer.

Sorry about the troubles... that sucks.

 

[SMHarman]

Yes, good memory and that is why I made an earlier post questioning the snap 500 series and the leaf. My dealer refused to talk to Snap to see if they will give me some type of compensation like they have to some others for the trade. He also states that he used the 500 series and has had problems on other jobs with it. It would be an expensive switch for me to purchase one of the other matrix's for an experiment not knowing if that would solve the on/off problem. I haven't heard from anybody else on this forum that has has that problem with a B300, in fact that is one of the questions I asked the Snap customer support gal along with would they give me some type of credit for my B300. Her answer was that she didn't know of any problems and to have my dealer contact them. As I said my dealer for some reason would not ask the question. Maybe he purchased the B300 on a close out price. Whatever the reason it makes the whole process hard on me. 

So you have a second Cat cable there and a bunch o IR on the HC800. You should just switch those problem Tvs to on off and other control by IR.

[FLA]

4 hours ago, Adidaswood said:

I have to say, your dealer sounds like a grade A douchebag.  Why would he not look into all possibilities?  He is either lazy, arrogant or stupid either way he isn't solving his customers issue.  How would he know what is wrong unless he is trying things to reduce the number of possibilities assume this is the reason you are parting ways.  Clearly he hasn't fixed it up to this point.  so you won't try other approaches, why?

I also agree he should be guaranteeing the Low Volt wiring, unless you signed off on it.  It sounds to me like he just doesn't want to deal with you which is a shame.  I would expect he should have known and advised you on the right wiring, as well as him knowing the proper way to "cross" high voltage lines.

I can't believe he won't help you out on the HDMI matrix.  what does he have to lose?  I'm sure a new dealer would look into it for you.  There has to be a way for SNAP to transfer you "accounts" to a new dealer.

Sorry about the troubles... that sucks.

 

You don't even know the half of it. He was a Crestron dealer that was recommended to me during the remodel. When he came over to introduce himself he wanted to sell me a Crestron system. I told him I definitely did not want Crestron and I wanted Control4 because I believed C4 was the future and had a better future then Crestron. He said that even though he wasn't a C4 dealer he had a friend in San Diego (not too far away) that would come down and help him and that he was personally going to become a C4 dealer. and really wanted the job and would go out of his way to do a great job. To make a long story short after interviewing other AV dealers I felt sorry for this guy and went with the underdog. My problem and my fault. I should have known. 

2 hours ago, SMHarman said:

So you have a second Cat cable there and a bunch o IR on the HC800. You should just switch those problem Tvs to on off and other control by IR.

Sorry don't understand

[vitali]

On 1/14/2017 at 0:36 PM, ILoveC4 said:

No charge for a VPN. I use OpenVPN. It's all free.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

just in case, don't you need static public IP to make system working stable? Im not sure, just asking.

 

[ILoveC4]

just in case, don't you need static public IP to make system working stable? Im not sure, just asking.

 

Nope.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SMHarman]

Sorry don't understand

Sounds like your dealer ran two or more cat cable from the rack to the Tvs.

So instead of using the balun in capabilities use a cat cable pair to run the ir directly from an ir output on the controller.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Audio-Video-Cables/Marmitek-IR-Eye-universal-extender/B000MBY1FC

Something like this cut in half

The 3.5 mm jack in the controller to the cat cable. The other end using the cat cable by the TV. Like you had at one point in the troubke shooting

[RAV]

FYI - wattbox ALL have the ability to use the wattbox dns service, it's built in. NO router VPN required or OVRC.

Before OVRC was released, dealers set them up to be accessed through wattboxdns. If you have a login with admin rights, you can set this up yourself.

Input your dns url, login with user and pass from anywhere.

( OVRC Home does require the OVRC pro monitoring box, and has a recurring fee. )

[Adidaswood]

 

13 minutes ago, RAV said:

FYI - wattbox ALL have the ability to use the wattbox dns service, it's built in. NO router VPN required or OVRC.

Before OVRC was released, dealers set them up to be accessed through wattboxdns. If you have a login with admin rights, you can set this up yourself.

Input your dns url, login with user and pass from anywhere.

( OVRC Home does require the OVRC pro monitoring box, and has a recurring fee. )

Are you sure about that?  The DNS service would just help you find your stuff through DNS name resolution.  However it won't let you through your firewall.  You would need port forwarding or a VPN.

[FLA]

14 hours ago, SMHarman said:

Sounds like your dealer ran two or more cat cable from the rack to the Tvs.

So instead of using the balun in capabilities use a cat cable pair to run the ir directly from an ir output on the controller.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Audio-Video-Cables/Marmitek-IR-Eye-universal-extender/B000MBY1FC

Something like this cut in half

The 3.5 mm jack in the controller to the cat cable. The other end using the cat cable by the TV. Like you had at one point in the troubke shooting

My dealer did run two Cat 5's or more to each TV. At least that's what he told me. All of the TV's at some point in time don't respond to the SR 250 on/off command. Some more often than others. The Master Bedroom TV has that problem less than the others and it has the Wyerstorm HDbaseT Balun. I will bring this up to my dealer but I'm sure his response will not be favorable. So I will bring it up again to whoever I use next. Thanks

13 hours ago, RAV said:

FYI - wattbox ALL have the ability to use the wattbox dns service, it's built in. NO router VPN required or OVRC.

Before OVRC was released, dealers set them up to be accessed through wattboxdns. If you have a login with admin rights, you can set this up yourself.

Input your dns url, login with user and pass from anywhere.

( OVRC Home does require the OVRC pro monitoring box, and has a recurring fee. )

I'm not sure I totally understand but isn't dns service for internet web pages? Would I be able to remotely log into the Wattbox directly with my iPhone using dnjs???

[Adidaswood]

A dynamic DNS service would be a way for you to assign a friendly name to the web url for your access from the internet, instead of remembering your public IP and setting up port forwarding for the watt box web pages.  

It really depends on your method for access though. I don't want to complicate it too much, but if you use VPN you would already be on your own network and likely wouldn't need that service if you remember the IP.  Also with VPN, since you would already be on your own network you likely wouldn't want to resolve the external IP by using the DDNS service URL.  Once on VPN it would be easiest to setup the IPs as favorites in your phone's browser.  Again you would only be using this if your control4 was down.  I have not used DDNS services, so there may be methods for resolving internal IPs with friendly names, but I'd have to look closer to know for sure.

Sorry to over complicate, but this is starting to head into some murky waters for the non IT folks.  

My suggestion is to keep it simple.

1. Get a remote dealer to help you take over your OVRC and/or sort our your watt box drivers and relay labels with the right names.
2. Have that remote dealer help you set up your watt box for the reboot scenarios we described in this thread.  Controller and Router at least
3. Set up buttons in your project to control the relays you set up in step 1.
4. Get 4sight if you don't have it.

This will get you 90% there.

Then you can think about VPN for access to the watt box.  I don't want to overstep here, but it sounds like you could use some help with getting VPN setup.  Not sure where I would point you on that one.  Depends on your network gear, some are easier than others and some would need to be "hacked".  Also you would likely want someone local to do it, just incase they were in need of restoring the router due to a mistake in configuraton.  I would bet a google search would turn up some results in home networking help.  Is there another local dealer you can interview?

[RAV]

Yes you'll need to open a port to the wattbox to use it's dns and access offsite. Opening a port is certainly more attainable for most folks than setting up a VPN, but VPN does offer more features and abilities and security. But there's no costs involved, no changing of hardware, and you'll accomplish your goal of being offsite and use a browser to access your wattbox.

DNS services resolve a URL into an IP address. You use one everyday, typically hosted by your ISP to find public web pages. If you want to access your stuff, and you don't pay for a static home IP address, or have a VPN then you setup a DNS service, where your device keeps a webserver updated as to your revolving IP address. Then when you want to access your device, the browser link checks the webserver you're using to get your home's IP address. Most popular are dyndns, but other companies (Wattbox, your camera DVR company perhaps, Control4) also run a DNS hosting service for their equipment.

[Adidaswood]

2 hours ago, RAV said:

Yes you'll need to open a port to the wattbox to use it's dns and access offsite. Opening a port is certainly more attainable for most folks than setting up a VPN, but VPN does offer more features and abilities and security. But there's no costs involved, no changing of hardware, and you'll accomplish your goal of being offsite and use a browser to access your wattbox.

DNS services resolve a URL into an IP address. You use one everyday, typically hosted by your ISP to find public web pages. If you want to access your stuff, and you don't pay for a static home IP address, or have a VPN then you setup a DNS service, where your device keeps a webserver updated as to your revolving IP address. Then when you want to access your device, the browser link checks the webserver you're using to get your home's IP address. Most popular are dyndns, but other companies (Wattbox, your camera DVR company perhaps, Control4) also run a DNS hosting service for their equipment.

you're not wrong RAV, just wanted to state that DDNS wouldn't do it alone.  It certainly has its benefits.

But port forwarding is a no go at my house.  Its basically a static hole into your network.  To each there own.  I also agree setting up a VPN isn't the easiest if you aren't tech savvy.  It also depends on your equipment as to how far you would have to go to get it to work.  Mine has open vpn built in.  some you have to load a new firmware.  can be easy can be harder.  Not sure how the OP is set up network equipment wise.

[FLA]

9 hours ago, Adidaswood said:

A dynamic DNS service would be a way for you to assign a friendly name to the web url for your access from the internet, instead of remembering your public IP and setting up port forwarding for the watt box web pages.  

It really depends on your method for access though. I don't want to complicate it too much, but if you use VPN you would already be on your own network and likely wouldn't need that service if you remember the IP.  Also with VPN, since you would already be on your own network you likely wouldn't want to resolve the external IP by using the DDNS service URL.  Once on VPN it would be easiest to setup the IPs as favorites in your phone's browser.  Again you would only be using this if your control4 was down.  I have not used DDNS services, so there may be methods for resolving internal IPs with friendly names, but I'd have to look closer to know for sure.

Sorry to over complicate, but this is starting to head into some murky waters for the non IT folks.  

My suggestion is to keep it simple.

1. Get a remote dealer to help you take over your OVRC and/or sort our your watt box drivers and relay labels with the right names.
2. Have that remote dealer help you set up your watt box for the reboot scenarios we described in this thread.  Controller and Router at least
3. Set up buttons in your project to control the relays you set up in step 1.
4. Get 4sight if you don't have it.

This will get you 90% there.

Then you can think about VPN for access to the watt box.  I don't want to overstep here, but it sounds like you could use some help with getting VPN setup.  Not sure where I would point you on that one.  Depends on your network gear, some are easier than others and some would need to be "hacked".  Also you would likely want someone local to do it, just incase they were in need of restoring the router due to a mistake in configuraton.  I would bet a google search would turn up some results in home networking help.  Is there another local dealer you can interview?

Thank you so much for your time and expertise. I without a doubt will get a remote dealer to work with once everything is put to bed with my current dealer which should be in the very near future. Yes there are other dealers that I can interview locally but my first choice will be a remote dealer to work with and to keep my system up to date. I already have and use 4sight and love it. My camera's and security system (which has not been fully operational since my system was installed. BTW that is one of the things the dealer will be completing) is on 4sight along with my Ecobee's.

8 hours ago, RAV said:

Yes you'll need to open a port to the wattbox to use it's dns and access offsite. Opening a port is certainly more attainable for most folks than setting up a VPN, but VPN does offer more features and abilities and security. But there's no costs involved, no changing of hardware, and you'll accomplish your goal of being offsite and use a browser to access your wattbox.

DNS services resolve a URL into an IP address. You use one everyday, typically hosted by your ISP to find public web pages. If you want to access your stuff, and you don't pay for a static home IP address, or have a VPN then you setup a DNS service, where your device keeps a webserver updated as to your revolving IP address. Then when you want to access your device, the browser link checks the webserver you're using to get your home's IP address. Most popular are dyndns, but other companies (Wattbox, your camera DVR company perhaps, Control4) also run a DNS hosting service for their equipment.

This stuff is so far above my head at this point but thanks for your suggestions. I will hopefully sort it out with a dealer either remotely of in person.