Parallel Universe

[Larry]

I learned from this forum that you can force ZigBee to use a different channel (25?) to prevent any conflict with WiFi.

But I too prefer hard-wired.  My previous post was guilty of fuzzy-thinking on my part ... what I meant to stress was "end-user easy install", and that can encompass a simple plug-in to an RJ45 jack for wired ethernet instead of joining your home WiFi.  Well not for Echo, since there is no hard-wired option. But for other stuff.

My main point was that a combination of (1) a good remote dealer, and (2) "just-plug-it-in-and-get-it-on-your-network" (whether wireless or wired) devices, an activity made trivial by device manufacturers that think this process through and implement in correctly, plus (3) a local electrician to install load-type devices, and you don't need a local hands-on, on-site, truck-roll dealer at all.  

Example: your new smart LG TV arrives from Amazon.  You unbox, plug it into the AC, connect the HDMI cable from your source, and the CAT-5/6 cable from your RJ45 wall jack (or follow the prompts on the TV to have it join your WiFi network).  Now sit back, send you remote dealer an email, pop open a nice cold long neck, and you're done.  The dealer knows how to get (purchase) and install the C4 driver for LG smart TVs, you told him in your email what you want it named, and then the C4 magic happens.  All your  C4 remotes, tablets, and smart phone apps now control the TV perfectly.  The dealer knows your channel favorites, and has built that in to various scene scripts for you.  He has modified your "I'm really at home" simulations for your vacation mode, etc.  No need for a local dealer IMHO.  You come home a day later, hit the top button on the keypad inside your entry door, the garage lights go out, the path to your family room is nicely lit, and the TV is tuned to your favorite news channel.

I am going to go this way and eliminate the local dealer.  We'll see what happens.

And I hope to live enough years so that, in the scenario just described, my home robot has also been commanded by C4 to bring another one of those long-necks, nice and cold from the fridge, and put it on the table by the sofa-for-viewing-TV.  I need the drink to watch the news, believe me.

[msgreenf]

1 minute ago, Larry said:

I learned from this forum that you can force ZigBee to use a different channel (25?) to prevent any conflict with WiFi.

But I too prefer hard-wired.  My previous post was guilty of fuzzy-thinking on my part ... what I meant to stress was "end-user easy install", and that can encompass a simple plug-in to an RJ45 jack for wired ethernet instead of joining your home WiFi.  Well not for Echo, since there is no hard-wired option. But for other stuff.

My main point was that a combination of (1) a good remote dealer, and (2) "just-plug-it-in-and-get-it-on-your-network" (whether wireless or wired) devices, an activity made trivial by device manufacturers that think this process through and implement in correctly, plus (3) a local electrician to install load-type devices, and you don't need a local hands-on, on-site, truck-roll dealer at all.  

Example: your new smart LG TV arrives from Amazon.  You unbox, plug it into the AC, connect the HDMI cable from your source, and the CAT-5/6 cable from your RJ45 wall jack (or follow the prompts on the TV to have it join your WiFi network).  Now sit back, send you remote dealer an email, pop open a nice cold long neck, and you're done.  The dealer knows how to get (purchase) and install the C4 driver for LG smart TVs, you told him in your email what you want it named, and then the C4 magic happens.  All your  C4 remotes, tablets, and smart phone apps now control the TV perfectly.  The dealer knows your channel favorites, and has built that in to various scene scripts for you.  He has modified your "I'm really at home" simulations for your vacation mode, etc.  No need for a local dealer IMHO.  You come home a day later, hit the top button on the keypad inside your entry door, the garage lights go out, the path to your family room is nicely lit, and the TV is tuned to your favorite news channel.

I am going to go this way and eliminate the local dealer.  We'll see what happens.

And I hope to live enough years so that, in the scenario just described, my home robot has also been commanded by C4 to bring another one of those long-necks, nice and cold from the fridge, and put it on the table by the sofa-for-viewing-TV.  I need the drink to watch the news, believe me.

Most customers that are building a home don't want this.  They want someone to come in and hang a tv for them.  They don't want to do it.  They don't want to be on the phone tapping buttons and doing stuff.  They just want it to work.

 

Now there are definetly a subset of people that want to hang their own TV's and tap buttons and tinker.  but that is NOT the majority of the market.

[eggzlot]

I'll speak about a parallel universe - ideally SDDP is baked into 10,000's of products.  And they can take it a step further so when an SDDP device is added to your home network you can use the C4 app to quickly bind it into a project.  Kind of like setting up an Echo using the Amazon Alexa app.  I know the drivers are automatically ID'd with SDDP but you still need a dealer to configure.  With SDDP/Works With Control4 labeling maybe certain products could just work out of the box.  Could be a small sampling of "non critical" items like Tvs, Media Players, etc.  Not sure dealers make a ton of money installing drivers for a new TV for a customer, so maybe they wouldnt mind.  And again this would not be every device, but maybe certain easier devices as I mentioned above.

[msgreenf]

8 minutes ago, eggzlot said:

I'll speak about a parallel universe - ideally SDDP is baked into 10,000's of products.  And they can take it a step further so when an SDDP device is added to your home network you can use the C4 app to quickly bind it into a project.  Kind of like setting up an Echo using the Amazon Alexa app.  I know the drivers are automatically ID'd with SDDP but you still need a dealer to configure.  With SDDP/Works With Control4 labeling maybe certain products could just work out of the box.  Could be a small sampling of "non critical" items like Tvs, Media Players, etc.  Not sure dealers make a ton of money installing drivers for a new TV for a customer, so maybe they wouldnt mind.  And again this would not be every device, but maybe certain easier devices as I mentioned above.

dealers don't make money installing drivers IMHO - they make money designing whole solutions for customers

[eggzlot]

20 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

dealers don't make money installing drivers IMHO - they make money designing whole solutions for customers

exactly.  And I think that is why some people have an issue getting a dealer out to swap a TV driver when a new TV is purchased - hence their frustrations.  Not saying every device off the shelf can be easily added, but would be nice to have a subset of "C4 Certified" devices that with SDDP and an app you could add yourself to your project.   This may strike a balance of not opening Composer Pro to the masses, needing 24x7 tech support for the masses, but allowing people to make some simple add/changes to common devices in their project.  You want a TV not listed, call a dealer.  Want a TV that is listed, do it yourself.

It is pie in the sky, but would be nice.

[RR61522]

Unfortunately I feel like you are over generalizing the local dealers. I will absolutely agree there are plenty of bad ones out there, we have a couple locally we go behind all the time to fix things. Most of the remote dealers that are praised so highly are local dealers as well. 

I would be willing to bet that less than 1% of Control4 customers have any interest in DIY at all, and want a dealer who can maintain their systems for them. In fact, we have 1 customer who wants/has HE, and that’s only so he can change the sound his doorbell plays throughout his house. We have never had a customer complain about we couldn’t get to them fast enough. We are not in a super high end market either, so a large majority of our customers are middle/upper middle class, not the super rich. 

[eggzlot]

58 minutes ago, RR61522 said:

Unfortunately I feel like you are over generalizing the local dealers. I will absolutely agree there are plenty of bad ones out there, we have a couple locally we go behind all the time to fix things. Most of the remote dealers that are praised so highly are local dealers as well. 

I would be willing to bet that less than 1% of Control4 customers have any interest in DIY at all, and want a dealer who can maintain their systems for them. In fact, we have 1 customer who wants/has HE, and that’s only so he can change the sound his doorbell plays throughout his house. We have never had a customer complain about we couldn’t get to them fast enough. We are not in a super high end market either, so a large majority of our customers are middle/upper middle class, not the super rich. 

I like my dealer.  I've likely referred over a dozen people to him.  I like the dealer model which is why I went C4 over a pure DIY option this way when something doesnt work the wife cannot blame me!  And I am busy, travel for work and work long hours, so its good that when I need support I can pay someone to do it.  It is also nice I have composer HE so I can tinker when I have the time and technical chops to do so.  I've purchased c4 stock as well.  Put me in the "satisfied customer" category.

I am not complaining, merely making a suggestion that it would be nice to swap out a TV with a select "certified by c4" list of TVs (Tv, streaming media stick, more simple things).  I am not even saying add a new TV or media stick to a new room that did not exist prior.  But I have a TV in my bedroom, it breaks, I want to replace it or upgrade the Roku to the latest Roku 4k.  Would be nice to buy a "certified by c4" tv that I know I can plop in and it will just work.  If I do an extension and add a room and want to add a TV, I understanding bindings may be more complex and you may need Composer Pro and more tinkering.

Again the thread was called "Parallel Universe" so my idea was along those lines, that's all.  If I were a dealer I'd try to do all of those small drivers - goodwill = referral business, plus going to their house or engaging remotely with a customer to add a driver gives you a touch point to sell new hardware or other services.  

[South Africa C4 user]

6 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Most customers that are building a home don't want this.  They want someone to come in and hang a tv for them.  They don't want to do it.  They don't want to be on the phone tapping buttons and doing stuff.  They just want it to work.

 

Now there are definetly a subset of people that want to hang their own TV's and tap buttons and tinker.  but that is NOT the majority of the market.

Quite right, I don’t want to ever hang a TV again or add hardware myself. Thus I don’t need Connections from Pro (Happy to have my dealer deal with all that stuff). However, I do want to program and tweak things so HE is great.  I also want to rename things (thanks to Mitch’s driver, I can). I may want some other features from System Design (not quite sure what I am missing there, but suspect I get most of what I want from HE monitoring). The only thing I don’t have that I’d like is the ability to add drivers myself (but my dealer is fairly good at remoting in and doing this when I want to play).

[South Africa C4 user]

3 hours ago, RR61522 said:

Unfortunately I feel like you are over generalizing the local dealers. I will absolutely agree there are plenty of bad ones out there, we have a couple locally we go behind all the time to fix things. Most of the remote dealers that are praised so highly are local dealers as well. 

I would be willing to bet that less than 1% of Control4 customers have any interest in DIY at all, and want a dealer who can maintain their systems for them. In fact, we have 1 customer who wants/has HE, and that’s only so he can change the sound his doorbell plays throughout his house. We have never had a customer complain about we couldn’t get to them fast enough. We are not in a super high end market either, so a large majority of our customers are middle/upper middle class, not the super rich. 

I  must say, I read this sort of post and wonder what the classification of “super rich” is! All of us with C4 must be pretty well off...  but I hope I am never classified as “super rich” 

[South Africa C4 user]

2 hours ago, eggzlot said:

I like my dealer.  I've likely referred over a dozen people to him.  I like the dealer model which is why I went C4 over a pure DIY option this way when something doesnt work the wife cannot blame me!  And I am busy, travel for work and work long hours, so its good that when I need support I can pay someone to do it.  It is also nice I have composer HE so I can tinker when I have the time and technical chops to do so.  I've purchased c4 stock as well.  Put me in the "satisfied customer" category.

I am not complaining, merely making a suggestion that it would be nice to swap out a TV with a select "certified by c4" list of TVs (Tv, streaming media stick, more simple things).  I am not even saying add a new TV or media stick to a new room that did not exist prior.  But I have a TV in my bedroom, it breaks, I want to replace it or upgrade the Roku to the latest Roku 4k.  Would be nice to buy a "certified by c4" tv that I know I can plop in and it will just work.  If I do an extension and add a room and want to add a TV, I understanding bindings may be more complex and you may need Composer Pro and more tinkering.

Again the thread was called "Parallel Universe" so my idea was along those lines, that's all.  If I were a dealer I'd try to do all of those small drivers - goodwill = referral business, plus going to their house or engaging remotely with a customer to add a driver gives you a touch point to sell new hardware or other services.  

Hear hear! My dealer does a fair amount of these little things for free and he is always getting extra (billable) work from me as a consequence!

[rea]

7 hours ago, Larry said:

And I hope to live enough years so that, in the scenario just described, my home robot has also been commanded by C4 to bring another one of those long-necks, nice and cold from the fridge, and put it on the table by the sofa-for-viewing-TV.  I need the drink to watch the news, believe me.

 Consider me customer #2 for this future C4 integrated, beer-delivering home robot!

[Cyknight]

On 3/31/2018 at 2:04 AM, wappinghigh said:

Sometimes I come on here and I wonder if I am in a "parallel universe..."

I don't wonder about that for even a second - you are.

[Larry]

So what most of you are saying is: "it all comes down to the quality and integrity of the dealer".  I should therefore look for other local dealers I could switch to, ones that will come out for little jobs, install TV drivers, etc.  Maybe ones that charge an annual fee to cover this type of work.  I would need one in NJ and one in FL.  Ones that keep the appointments they make, ones that pay for the latest training for their techs, etc.  (All the things my NJ original installing dealer does NOT do.)

Or a single remote dealer, who would work with my local electrician as needed, and a local AV installer who is not a C4 dealer (plenty of those, anything you buy from Amazon has the option of engaging  one). And be prepared for a little (just a little) DIY.

So two very different options.  Time to toss a coin?  There is a hybrid approach, no? ... use my local FL installer (who is just being engaged now by the builder) to maintain the FL system, and also to be the remote support dealer for NJ.  I get a "look" at how the FL dealer performs when I take possession of the FL condo (little carriage house, just like NJ, same builder, but naturally using a different C4  dealer, local of course) in 2019.