Seeking honest feedback on Control 4

[fitzgibbon]

Hello everyone. My name is James. I am the general Manager of a small Audio / Video, Integration company. We are currently AMX dealers, Vantage Controls, Colorado vNet etc. We are looking seeking a product that is not in the price range as AMX and Crestron. While there are plenty of companies and products that claim they are automation systems they are really not or are very limited.

I find that the jobs that we propose AMX on sometimes the client has a proposal for an Elan system. Comparing AMX or Crestron to Elan is like apples and oranges. Yes you can integrate other products into and elan system by adding this piece or that and do some automation. I view Elan as a pretty much a MRA system with some basic integration and not an automation system.

On to the Next product Colorado vNet. 7" Touchpanel is great looking, lighting is not really cheaper then say Lutron Homeworks or Vantage. There are some good things about the product but they are lacking some products that i need. Wireless touchpanel, remote control and a few other items. Also I hate that the amp is in the touchpanel.

After talking to my partner we have decided that Control 4 could be the product we are looking for. It covers MRA, Lighting, HVAC, Video, etc. I am looking for some honest feedback in regards to the product and support from Control 4.

1. What type of problems have you seen or heard of.

2. Is the equipment reliable and stable.

3. What size jobs are you installing? What is the biggest job you have completed.

4. How is the tech Support and response from Control 4.

5. What 3rd party products can be integrated into the system.

Any feedback good or bad would be very helpful. The product reliablity is one thing and of course with the reliablity a system is only as good as the design and the way it is programmed.

Thanks for the help.

[michelo76]

Good Morning James and welcome.

I can only talk of Control4 from an installer point of view, hopefully somebody else will chip in from the business side. I will try to answer your questions in the other that you asked them.

1- Control4 is a very reliable system, the biggest problem with the system does not come from control4 but rather the networking part of it. As long as you have somebody very knowledgeable about Networking you will be fine. Not to say that there is no problems with the equipments, but not more than any other companies. Also once you follow Control4 recommended equipments you will be fine.

2- In my experience the equipments have been pretty reliable and stable, like stated above you will occasionally run into issues but that is expected from any CE equipment.

3- I have been doing some big size jobs, I am currently doing one that has: 26 TV zones, 1 video wall (3 TVs), 32 zones of audio, 1 dedicated home theater, possibly more than 500 light devices. The price of the job is $100,000 cheaper than the previously quoted Crestron system. Labor cost is a factor because you can program a Control4 system faster than you would a Crestron or AMX system, greatly reducing the overal cost of a system.

4- Tech support is amazing and also you get access to The Control4 Dealer forums where you will get all your questions answered by other dealers and Control4 staffs. I have never seen companies get involved the way Control4 is in their forums. They even contribute on the other public forums as well. Control4 even has a design review process where you submit a project to them and they will make recommendations and address issues that you may have overlooked.

5- Pretty much any IR, Serial and some IP devices can be controlled. it is very easy to make drivers for those products. And with the upcoming software upgrade you will be able to make drivers pretty much for everything.

Hope that answered some of your questions.

Michelo.

[fitzgibbon]

MIchelo,

Thank you for the input. i would say the job you are doing is pretty large and actually bigger then I imagine control 4 being istalled in but if it performs in large installations that is great.

James

[K&J]

MIchelo,

Thank you for the input. i would say the job you are doing is pretty large and actually bigger then I imagine control 4 being istalled in but if it performs in large installations that is great.

James

There may be situations where C4 cannot be used, I have not run into it yet.

[michelo76]

MIchelo,

Thank you for the input. i would say the job you are doing is pretty large and actually bigger then I imagine control 4 being istalled in but if it performs in large installations that is great.

James

James,

I am still in the process of installing that system, I am racking the components right now. A couple of tests were performed and the results were amazing. With the advent of the new controllers, specially the HC-1000, Control4 can play with the big guys without any problems. Though this is by far the biggest job I have done with C4 I have no doubt that it would perform as expected and exceeds those expectations. Control4 is not for everyone, notably people who like stuffs customized down to the last details. But for the rest who like a Great system at a great price and do not care in having their pictures as background in a touchpanel, nothing beats C4. Cool thing to me is how you can have control4 as a MRA system or a simple remote consolidation and then the customer starts asking questions: "what is that light icon for? what is that comfort icon for?" before you know it they are having a major upgrade$$$. A company I used to work for, would give a free light dimmer whenever they sold a system, we usually installed it in their main TV room and have the light dimmed when they watch tv and do some other nice things, more that 3/4 of their customers usually end up doing their lighting system.

[fitzgibbon]

Michelo

Please let us know who it all works out in the end.

James

[K&J]

Nice Work Michelo76!!

[bjeff]

michelo76, what are you doing to get IR to the rooms to control the TV?

[michelo76]

The rooms are all wired with cresnet cable for control.... we are tapping into those cables to carry our IR datas. Plus we have plenty of cat5.

[GoGo Delicious]

The rooms are all wired with cresnet cable for control.... we are tapping into those cables to carry our IR datas. Plus we have plenty of cat5.

Was this house pre-wired with Cresnet or did you you also do the wiring?

[michelo76]

it is part of the package that the builder gives out as incentives,,,,,$19,000.00 worth of Pre-wire....

[csmpez]

That is one of the cleanest and most professional wiring jobs I've ever seen. Wish my Control4 wiring job (installer) did such a need/clean set up.

Two Thumbs UP!!!!

Scott

[neil12011]

hey man, are those 300's or hc 500's in that sweet rack?

[michelo76]

Those are HC-300s (18 total) + one 1 HC-1000. A total of 4 C4 Amps, 2 Audio Matrix Switches, 2 Sony Video Switches, 1 C4 Tuner, 6 Directv Hr-21, 1 B&K 507, 1 LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD Player, 1 Sony 777ES, 4 APC J15, 1 Everfocus DVR, 2 Netgear Network Switches With POE, are all mounted and distributed in 3 72" Racks. It is pretty cool. The only problem is the size of the equipment room, it is so small that we had to set the racks one in front of the other. but it is not a big deal... We have a Temp. sensor that fires up the AC if temperature reaches a dangerous level.....

Michelo

[Paul_Quadriom]

Beauty!!!! but,, ti-wraps? :/

[michelo76]

I know. Quick and Easy....

[csmpez]

Somebody has some MONEY!!!!

[neil12011]

Hey michelo,

If you don't mind, what was the parts bill on this project? This is one of the biggest I've seen, and was curious as to what the customer was dishing out for it. If not, that's cool too.

[michelo76]

Tv And SPeakers $40,000

Control4 Equipments $90,000

Misc. Parts $15,000

Labor $40,000

[eengmann]

Hi Michelo76 and others,

I'm currently looking at Control4 as a HA solution for a new build.

I would like to house all the AV equipment in a central location in the basement. The backbone of the system will be the HC-1000. I will be using a Neothings matrix switch for component video distribution to 7 TV's. I understand I will require 7 HC-300's if I want to have the GUI on each TV. One dealer I was speaking to recommended that the HC-300 for each TV be positioned in the same room as the TV. My preference would be to have all the HC-300's in the AV room in the basement. The dealer I was speaking to advised against that. His reasoning was that the Zigbee network would be more reliable if there were HC-300's spread throughout the house (~5000sqft).

In addition to the video switching, there will be distributed audio via the C4 Amp, ~35 C4 dimmers (split between 1st and 2nd floors), and 2 mini touchpanels on each floor.

What are your thoughts on housing all the HC-300's in one location. Does this affect the stability and reliability of the Zigbee network/Control4 system?

Thanks

EEngmann

[waynechi]

Hi Michelo76 and others,

I'm currently looking at Control4 as a HA solution for a new build.

I would like to house all the AV equipment in a central location in the basement. The backbone of the system will be the HC-1000. I will be using a Neothings matrix switch for component video distribution to 7 TV's. I understand I will require 7 HC-300's if I want to have the GUI on each TV. One dealer I was speaking to recommended that the HC-300 for each TV be positioned in the same room as the TV. My preference would be to have all the HC-300's in the AV room in the basement. The dealer I was speaking to advised against that. His reasoning was that the Zigbee network would be more reliable if there were HC-300's spread throughout the house (~5000sqft).

In addition to the video switching, there will be distributed audio via the C4 Amp, ~35 C4 dimmers (split between 1st and 2nd floors), and 2 mini touchpanels on each floor.

What are your thoughts on housing all the HC-300's in one location. Does this affect the stability and reliability of the Zigbee network/Control4 system?

Thanks

EEngmann

I would think having all of those dimmers spread around the house would be enough for the Zigbee mesh.

[henniae]

Hi Michelo76 and others' date='

I'm currently looking at Control4 as a HA solution for a new build.

I would like to house all the AV equipment in a central location in the basement. The backbone of the system will be the HC-1000. I will be using a Neothings matrix switch for component video distribution to 7 TV's. I understand I will require 7 HC-300's if I want to have the GUI on each TV. One dealer I was speaking to recommended that the HC-300 for each TV be positioned in the same room as the TV. My preference would be to have all the HC-300's in the AV room in the basement. The dealer I was speaking to advised against that. His reasoning was that the Zigbee network would be more reliable if there were HC-300's spread throughout the house (~5000sqft).

In addition to the video switching, there will be distributed audio via the C4 Amp, ~35 C4 dimmers (split between 1st and 2nd floors), and 2 mini touchpanels on each floor.

What are your thoughts on housing all the HC-300's in one location. Does this affect the stability and reliability of the Zigbee network/Control4 system?

Thanks

EEngmann[/quote']

I would think having all of those dimmers spread around the house would be enough for the Zigbee mesh.

There is a new feature in the works called Zigbee Access Point (ZAP) which is part of the ZigBee Pro Stack. Basically this turns each controller (HC-300 in your case) into a independent ZigBee antenna that can share and distribute the ZigBee load to multiple HC-300's. The closest HC-300 to a dimmer/switch/ ZigBee endpoint will receive the signal and transmit the request over your Ethernet network to the director. The advantage of this is that you have more paths for the ZigBee mesh network to a ZigBee server.

Think of it like a cell phone network. There are many cell towers that can receive a signal, the closest tower is the best choice. If the closest tower is down there is another cell tower that can receive the signal.

[michelo76]

Hi Michelo76 and others,

I'm currently looking at Control4 as a HA solution for a new build.

I would like to house all the AV equipment in a central location in the basement. The backbone of the system will be the HC-1000. I will be using a Neothings matrix switch for component video distribution to 7 TV's. I understand I will require 7 HC-300's if I want to have the GUI on each TV. One dealer I was speaking to recommended that the HC-300 for each TV be positioned in the same room as the TV. My preference would be to have all the HC-300's in the AV room in the basement. The dealer I was speaking to advised against that. His reasoning was that the Zigbee network would be more reliable if there were HC-300's spread throughout the house (~5000sqft).

In addition to the video switching, there will be distributed audio via the C4 Amp, ~35 C4 dimmers (split between 1st and 2nd floors), and 2 mini touchpanels on each floor.

What are your thoughts on housing all the HC-300's in one location. Does this affect the stability and reliability of the Zigbee network/Control4 system?

Thanks

EEngmann

Hey EEngmann,

I do not think it is a problem having the HC-300's Mounted ( That is how I Have all 18 in that job), I had problems identifying 4 of the T-stats at first but as soon as I added a few keypads and light switches, I had them identified no problem. However, your dealer is right in right in recommending going against that for a couple of reasons (and u should always listen to your dealer, so that when problem occurs he does not say I told you so).

1- They eat Inputs on your switch---May require a bigger or even additionnal A/V switches...(more money)

2-Same problem also when considering rack space. ( I had to use a separate rack to do the Hc-1000 and the Hc300s).

3-Depending on the amount of Zigbee devices you might need to move a few Hc-300. The limit is 255 devices per server (remote, Keypads,T-stats,etc). However Control4 recommends a total of 125 for best performance.

Michelo

[serkanyilmaz]

Hi michelo76,

I couldn't understand why you had to use 18 HTC-300 in the same cabinet but I have one issue that I thought you could be one of the experts that can help me ?

In mu project I have to to 50 HTC-300s and 4 HTC-500s under a single HTC-1000. Is it possible ?

The 2nd question is how can I isolate each apartment from the other where each apartment will have it's own controller, dimmers, thermostats, relays etc. but also working under the same HTC-1000 as slave. I need this topology to activate scenarios that will run together. If it helps answering your question I can send a basic drawing as well.

So many thanks.

[lippavisual]

If this is for an MDU or hotel type install, I don't believe what you're proposing would be the proper design. Meaning, each room should be setup as its own project. If you lump every room under the 1000, then the rooms will be able to access other rooms. Which, I would imagine, would be undesirable.

I have not tried your setup, but from experience, this would not work.