How add/remove audio zone with SR260 or custom button click

[rea]

All, just had my Control4 system installed last week and looking for some (hopefully) easy programming projects to get a better grasp at how to use Composer Home Edition. On our main floor, we have 2 independent audio zones (Great Room and Kitchen). The Great Room has the TV and we really like adding the Kitchen speakers when the TV is on to carry TV sound back to the kitchen while we cook. Of course, we currently do this by just adding a zone through the navigator. 

Is there a good way to program one of the color/dot buttons on the SR260 to achieve this? Ideally, I would also like to program another button or toggle that button to turn the kitchen zone off as we don't need it on when we are all on the couch and having the kitchen zone on prevents the "Room Off" function from turning off the Dish box. 

 

Thanks!

[abovedeck]

So I've never tried creating a custom button on the remote, but I do know that if you click "listen" and then go to Zones, it allowes you to add the current room to the others.

 

I've created custom buttons on wall keypads that automatically join the room to another rooms current session, but this is done through digital media and I do not believe that your TV falls in to that category.  I may be wrong about that but am pretty sure this applies to audio being streamed through C4 native apps.

EDIT: 

 

I mean, you could always program one of the remote dots like this:

 

Select the favorite 1 on the left tree

 

when favorite button 1 is pushed

          if the source in great room is television (you find this under the ifs)

               set the source in kitchen to television

               Stop

         if selected source in kitchen is televison

               set source to none (or turn room off) (i forget what the options are here actually)

 

That would let you toggle the same button to turn the kitchen on and off without turning the satellite box off.

Something like that should work... Does that make sense?

[rea]

2 hours ago, abovedeck said:

So I've never tried creating a custom button on the remote, but I do know that if you click "listen" and then go to Zones, it allowes you to add the current room to the others.

 

I've created custom buttons on wall keypads that automatically join the room to another rooms current session, but this is done through digital media and I do not believe that your TV falls in to that category.  I may be wrong about that but am pretty sure this applies to audio being streamed through C4 native apps.

EDIT: 

 

I mean, you could always program one of the remote dots like this:

 

Select the favorite 1 on the left tree

 

when favorite button 1 is pushed

          if the source in great room is television (you find this under the ifs)

               set the source in kitchen to television

               Stop

         if selected source in kitchen is televison

               set source to none (or turn room off) (i forget what the options are here actually)

 

That would let you toggle the same button to turn the kitchen on and off without turning the satellite box off.

Something like that should work... Does that make sense?

First, thanks for the suggestion on using the "Listen" button. I actually hadn't tried that yet and can do what I want through there (and many other options). 

That said, we add this particular zone so often that it would be nice to add it to one of these buttons on the remote so it can be done in one click (this is Control4 after all, right?  )

Now, looking at your programming suggestion, I have been able to figure out how to access the remote (through the Room selection) and choose the button I want to program there. I was able to look through the action list and when selecting the kitchen, I saw the option of "turn audio zone on." This seems like an option but would probably require programming another button to turn it off. 

I do like what you're talking about where it would be a toggle, I just don't quite know how to do the "ifs" part you're talking about. Could you dumb that down even more for the newbie here? 

 

[Thatguy230]

Under conditionals on the right side you'll be able to get a question mark as an if. Then you drop the then command on top of the question mark so it's inset. 

? If room is tv

   -> set source in kitchen to tv

 

 

[abovedeck]

14 hours ago, rea said:

First, thanks for the suggestion on using the "Listen" button. I actually hadn't tried that yet and can do what I want through there (and many other options). 

That said, we add this particular zone so often that it would be nice to add it to one of these buttons on the remote so it can be done in one click (this is Control4 after all, right?  )

Now, looking at your programming suggestion, I have been able to figure out how to access the remote (through the Room selection) and choose the button I want to program there. I was able to look through the action list and when selecting the kitchen, I saw the option of "turn audio zone on." This seems like an option but would probably require programming another button to turn it off. 

I do like what you're talking about where it would be a toggle, I just don't quite know how to do the "ifs" part you're talking about. Could you dumb that down even more for the newbie here? 

 

 

Yeah, so there is a tab called "conditionals." It's on the right.  That allows you to set "ifs"

 

You can set multiple conditionals for one favorite button since the variable will always be changing.  you just have to make sure to put in a "stop" which you will find under PROGRAMMING CONTROL on the right actions tree all the way at the bottom.

 

To program off of these "if conditions," drag the new condition to the script window. once the if is there you can then set your actions to be based off of those conditionals.  So drag your action to the script window and place it OVER the conditional.  This will result in the action being indented under the conditional and this action will only execute when the condition has been met.

 

FYI-- Not sure how your set up is, but simply turning kitchen audio zone on might not be enough. You'd probably still have to then SET THE SOURCE.  Again, this is going to be based on your setup.

[martymohr]

Here's how I've got mine set up (same scenario - great room / kitchen), except I control it with Alexa instead of a button.

Create two macros:

#1 - Kitchen TV on:

• Select the Xfinity 1 as the video source in Great Room
• Select the Xfinity 1 as the audio source in Kitchen

(FYI - if the TV is already on in the Great Room the first item doesn't do anything. But programming it this way allows you to turn on both devices with a single button press.)

#2 - Kitchen TV off:

• Turn off kitchen

Then select which buttons you want to use, and call the appropriate macro when that button is pressed.

I can provide screen shots if you need that.

 

[rea]

Thank you all. That helps a ton! Abovedeck and Thatguy, I think I figured out how to pull the "Ifs" in now and it does seem that my dealer placed a "Dish Satellite" audio zone in the kitchen that automatically ties it to the Great Room so I have that to use as my default source. That should address your last question/comment, above deck. 

 

Marty, that sounds like another great way to do it (and I also have an Alexa in each space, haha). Would love to see your screen shots. 

 

Thanks again to all. 

 

[martymohr]

Two screen shots attached:

Execute - is simply the embed point created by the Alexa driver

Macro - the turn kitchen TV on macro

It really is that simply.

You want to place as much code as possible into macros (never at the embed point). That way you can call the same action from multiple embed points. For instance: you can have Alexa turn on the kitchen TV, but you can also have the green button on the remote turn on the kitchen TV. At each embed point simply call the macro.

[rea]

On 5/29/2017 at 5:43 PM, martymohr said:

Two screen shots attached:

Execute - is simply the embed point created by the Alexa driver

Macro - the turn kitchen TV on macro

It really is that simply.

You want to place as much code as possible into macros (never at the embed point). That way you can call the same action from multiple embed points. For instance: you can have Alexa turn on the kitchen TV, but you can also have the green button on the remote turn on the kitchen TV. At each embed point simply call the macro.

Thanks so much, Marty...that's perfect!

[rea]

Just wanted to update and say thanks again to all for all the help. I finally had some time this weekend to sit down and try these suggestions and got each way to work! Marty, I look forward to trying out some of the Macros with Voice Scenes soon.

Thatguy and abovedeck, quick question on the programming for your method. I ended up getting this to work and really like having it tied to one button (Custom 2) as a toggle. Makes things really easy. It did seem that the code wouldn't work until I reversed the order, i.e., I had to input like:

if selected source in kitchen is dish satellite {my name for the TV audio in my setup}

               Turn kitchen off

               Stop

 if the video source in great room is dish satellite

               set the audio source in kitchen to dish satellite

               Stop

 

Is there a reason that the "off" instructions had to come before the "on" instructions for it to work? I tried many different methods the other way (having the "on" code first) and it would turn it on, but wouldn't do the toggle. Reversed it and it worked perfectly but it doesn't really make any sense to me with the way the conditionals are inputted.