If One Room is On, set Current Room to same Audio?

[BrettB0727]

Anyone have any recommendation on implementing the following?:

If One Room is On, set Current Room to same Audio

So for example:

1) In Bedroom, press a button

2) Check and see if Living Room is On

If On:

3) Select same audio source as Living Room

If Off:

3) Select default audio source

That way if I start off listening to something in the Living Room and then walk into Bedroom, it takes one button to continue listening.

[Cyknight]

Not really any recommendations needed.

Your post pretty much states the programming

When button "A" is pressed

*IF Room "Room X" Power is ON (under the room)

->Add Rooms "Room Y" to Room "X" session (under digital media - you may need to look for this as it gets added to whatever room the first controller got put into and not everyone moves this to a convenient location)

*IF Room "Room X" Power is OFF

->Select "whatever"

Or:

When button "A" is pressed

*IF Room "Room X" Power is ON (under the room)

->Add Rooms "Room Y" to Room "X" session (under digital media - you may need to look for this as it gets added to whatever room the first controller got put into and not everyone moves this to a convenient location)

->Stop

*Select "whatever the default is"

Arrow denotes embedding under IF statement, * denotes start of line.

[BrettB0727]

->Add Rooms "Room Y" to Room "X" session (under digital media - you may need to look for this as it gets added to whatever room the first controller got put into and not everyone moves this to a convenient location)

That is what I was looking for, I search around and couldn't find the functionality. I'll have to check that out when I get home!

[KyleS]

It'd be cool to combine that with a motion sensor. Make the button work as an on/off toggle so you can leave the button in the on state and music will automatically turn on when you enter the room and off when you leave. Toggle the button to off to turn off music and stop motion from activating it.

when motion is detected

if button is on

->turn on music

when motion ends

turn off music

when button is turned on

if motion is detected

->turn on music

when button is turned off

turn off music

------------

You could also add another toggle button to turn music on regardless of motion state.

when motion is detected

if buttonMOTION is on

->turn on music

when motion ends

if buttonMST is off

->turn off music

when buttonMST is turned on

turn on music

when buttonMST is turned off

N/A

when buttonMOTION is turned on

if motion is detected

->turn on music

when buttonMOTION is turned off

if buttonMST is off

->turn off music

[CFUG]

^OK, very strange. I know you are trying to "tweet" an idea but there is no way that start/stop music is going to fly. At least, add a timer that keeps it going for say 5 min...

[KyleS]

Why won't this work? By 'add a timer' do you mean set occupancy hold time on motion sensor to 5 min so it won't report end of motion until there has been no motion for 5 minutes?

[CFUG]

It will- perhaps too well. I like your idea but that's between you and me. Our "guests" might have other opinions.

[CFUG]

BTW, even as far back as a few years ago, this idea was posted to have a "tracking" environment which included lights and, as you have discovered, A/V. I really like this thought of yours...

[CFUG]

I have a case of CA motions that I don't know what to do with. I haven't had good luck with the sensor coverage of these but I might try your idea anyway.

[KyleS]

You mean guests to the forum or guests to the home?

I'm unfamiliar with music control, just chimed in because the earlier posts made it sound easy. If there's a potential problem with what I suggest, please elaborate.

[KyleS]

You say you want more sensor coverage? You mean coverage area aka field of view? What angle would be sufficient?

Or do you mean range? You want them to sense you from further away? How far?

[CFUG]

^No, more is not better. I'm interested in the coverage angle and the reproducability within that arc. CA motions do not deliver in all cases. You want to flood a room, no problem- go for it.

In closing, Control4 will cover a wide variety of consumer requests. Just ask ILoveC4.

[Cyknight]

It's not a bad idea, but as mentioned the tough part is to keeep it smooth.

We've done this for a commercial situation (showroom) where lights, music and TV's would turn on and follow you around (not to demo C4 but for a "lifestyle" demo for a architectual company).

Took a long time (as expected) to get it right, but it CAN be made to work.

We did use CA motions, and using their cascade ability and both debounce timers and "system" timers it should be possible to make it work.

What makes this difficult Kyle is that the way you stated, it would stop the music EVERY time it stops sensing motion.

Doing this you would be looking more along the lines of triggering a variable that in turn starts a timer -say 5 minutes- and starts music.

Using a debounce timer trigger the variable to turn off on no motion. Then when timer expires and variable is off (false) turn music off.

Even this doesn't quite go far enough.

Better than a boolean variable is a number where motion adds +10, when variable changes and value is higher than 0 start music. Also start a 2 minute timer (repeating).

Use a debounce timer on motions to prevent the number from adding up too fast

Every time timer expires substract 3

If variable changes and timer is equal or less than 0, stop timer, turn off music.

Using cascading motions option becomes essential here to prevent the variable value from becoming too high.

You'll have to tweak all this to fit your situation.

Now to briefly go back to the client I mentioned. Imagine that they have 5 different "scenes they want to play out with this one, plus an override (6-button) AND timing is essential and has to be based in part on how long their schpiel goes on for (different for all 5) plus putting in a "hold" option when required that freezes the whole thing to pick up where it left (CA miniremote) AND reset for several of the "rooms" that made up the "walk" (CA mini again) that would reset only the room they would be in and keeps in sync all that follows...

Oh and they wanted the ability to have 3 groups go in one after the other, possibly using different "scenes" one after the other (45 minute presentations start to finish with people actually walking through sections).

Oh it was fun ... Well actually it was, both parties knew we were asking a LOT and were prepared to go the distance.

Fortunately you'll probably aren't going quite that far

[KyleS]

Thanks for the info, some neat ideas. It does sound like fun. I'll come back to this and might make a brainstorming thread when I get a chance.

[Nehsmit]

So this idea sounds amazing. Could even just set up the motion sensors to turn on the audio even if nothing else is on.

What motion sensors does anyone recommend?

Thanks,

[JerryR]

Has anyone tried adding video media from one room to the next? i.e. If you're in the living room watching TV and want to go into the bedroom or kitchen and want to add your video from one room into the next. I've got it setup like a few people on this thread thought for audio, but how would you write that programming for video?

[Cyknight]

Basically this is even easier - provided the same sources are available in both rooms. When doing say a specific movie, all you need to program is to have room B set to the same media-player as room A.

[JerryR]

Ya, what I found on video was that it takes just a touch more programming, but once I knew what I was doing it was easy.

I set it as such:

In Room Y, push button A. If Sat 1 is on in Room X, turn Sat 1 on in Room Y. If Sat 2 is on in Room X, turn on Sat 2 in Room Y. If Apple TV is on in Room X, turn on Apple TV in Room Y.

The programming is just three "IF" conditionals with the command to do that particular function if that particular video input is active in the other room. Took a bit to figure out, but now I have it all over the house and it's great to be able to walk into a room and just double tap the up button on a light switch or 2 button and have the TV come on to whatever I was watching in the other rooms.

The only hiccup I came across is that you have to prioritize which room you want to come on in another. So for example, if TVs are on in the Kitchen and Living Room and you go to the Master Bedroom, you have to pick ahead of time which room you want to come on and be also active in the bedroom. I know you could add a way to say double tap for add kitchen and triple tap for living room, but that seems like a scenario that won't happen often enough to warrant the extra programming.