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Should I upgrade my HC800 main controller


discipulus1

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Hello everyone,

 

I have a system with around ~110 zigbee devices, 5* 7" touch screens, some blinds, iAqualink pool controller, gate, garage, 4 thermostats, 4 TVs with one HC800 per TV.  The scheduling is pretty minimal as is the load on the system so I do not have a dedicated controller...  All of the HC800 are used on a TV as their OSD and the controller running composer is also in the rack with the amps so it does Audio streaming.  

To recap, the main HC800 runs composer, OSD for a TV, streams audio to the C4 and non C4 amps in the rack, Zigbee server, ZAP and the other 3 HC800 also act as a ZAP.

My question here is...  

1.  Should I purchase a dedicated controller just to run Composer, Zigbee server, ZAP and and stream Audio and use the current HC800 only for each room and TV?

2.  How much improvement in performance would I see 

3. Which controller would you recommend as the main controller if I need one at all?  (which services to run on which controllers)

4. Any pointers on changes I should make would be greatly appreciated.  

Sorry for all the questions guys and thanks in advance.  

Cheers,

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Your system sounds way over spec'd as it is... You dont need an HC800 for each TV... An HC250 would be more than enough!

Personally, I would run Zigbee on another controller and not on your director.

My system has all yours has (albeit Pentair not Aqualink for the pool and spa) plus more lights (about 150 circuits), more thermostats (14), 14 or 15 speaker zones, over 40 security zones,  8 motion sensors that are direct to C4, 7 irrigation zones, 10 cameras, a door station, 6 Touchscreens, 3 TVs, 1 projector, 2 Apple TVs, 3 Dunes, 2 satellite decodes, 6 heat pumps, lots of scheduling, third party drivers, apps and macros etc. I had two HC800s and 3 HC250s. I upgraded one of my HC800s to an EA5 and cannot really claim to have noticed a difference.  I love it but that is because I like to have the latest and greatest, but in terms of day to day performance I see no real difference. You get better audio, a different OSD (which I don't use as my director does not double as an OSD) and faster / more stable connection to composer but that is about it.

Dont get me wrong, I love my EA5. You don't need it... But if you want it... Go for it!

The major benefit I got from my upgrade is it freed up an HC800 which my dealer moved to the far side of my house and set up a second Zigbee server. I was overloading the Zigbee network (I think) and having two separate meshes has significantly improved my Zigbee response times (especially in some areas) but that was not an EA5 impact!

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That was my thought at as well.  My main complaint right now is how long the audio feeds takes to turn on.  I have 6 outdoor audio zones and another 11 indoor audio zones (C4 matrix switch, two C4 16 channel amps and 4 commercial amps for the outdoor area for parties) and when running multiple audio feeds...  its just sluggish.  It sounds like the EA5 might just be wroth it just for streaming and running composer.  Minus the cameras (I never got around to integrating mine) and your zoned HVAC, our systems sounds pretty similar.  My security system is in theory being added into C4 at the end of the month... I can't wait to have access to all of those extra triggers as right now I've been limited to my C4 motion sensors.  I love playing around with diff macros etc but none seem to load the system up at all.  So, back on topic, how much did you see the audio improve?  

1 hour ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Your system sounds way over spec'd as it is... You dont need an HC800 for each TV... An HC250 would be more than enough!

Personally, I would run Zigbee on another controller and not on your director.

My system has all yours has (albeit Pentair not Aqualink for the pool and spa) plus more lights (about 150 circuits), more thermostats (14), 14 or 15 speaker zones, over 40 security zones,  8 motion sensors that are direct to C4, 7 irrigation zones, 10 cameras, a door station, 6 Touchscreens, 3 TVs, 1 projector, 2 Apple TVs, 3 Dunes, 2 satellite decodes, 6 heat pumps, lots of scheduling, third party drivers, apps and macros etc. I had two HC800s and 3 HC250s. I upgraded one of my HC800s to an EA5 and cannot really claim to have noticed a difference.  I love it but that is because I like to have the latest and greatest, but in terms of day to day performance I see no real difference. You get better audio, a different OSD (which I don't use as my director does not double as an OSD) and faster / more stable connection to composer but that is about it.

Dont get me wrong, I love my EA5. You don't need it... But if you want it... Go for it!

The major benefit I got from my upgrade is it freed up an HC800 which my dealer moved to the far side of my house and set up a second Zigbee server. I was overloading the Zigbee network (I think) and having two separate meshes has significantly improved my Zigbee response times (especially in some areas) but that was not an EA5 impact!

 

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20 hours ago, discipulus1 said:

That was my thought at as well.  My main complaint right now is how long the audio feeds takes to turn on.  I have 6 outdoor audio zones and another 11 indoor audio zones (C4 matrix switch, two C4 16 channel amps and 4 commercial amps for the outdoor area for parties) and when running multiple audio feeds...  its just sluggish.  It sounds like the EA5 might just be wroth it just for streaming and running composer.  Minus the cameras (I never got around to integrating mine) and your zoned HVAC, our systems sounds pretty similar.  My security system is in theory being added into C4 at the end of the month... I can't wait to have access to all of those extra triggers as right now I've been limited to my C4 motion sensors.  I love playing around with diff macros etc but none seem to load the system up at all.  So, back on topic, how much did you see the audio improve?  

 

Playing with C4 is great fun... If you get your security system well integrated, it certainly adds a dimension. I would also recommend integrating an Amazon Echo...

In terms of audio, I didn't notice a major change in response times upgrading to the EA5... I feel like quality is better but that may be my imagination. You can also play more different sources concurrently but that should not be a problem anyway given your current setup. I have music buttons all over the house that play random music from various playlists (differ based on room and whether the button is single clicked or double clicked of triple clicked) via a NAS and they take about 5 seconds from button push to hearing sound... After that, buttons to change volume / track are pretty much instant.

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/10/2016 at 5:17 PM, discipulus1 said:

That was my thought at as well.  My main complaint right now is how long the audio feeds takes to turn on.  I have 6 outdoor audio zones and another 11 indoor audio zones (C4 matrix switch, two C4 16 channel amps and 4 commercial amps for the outdoor area for parties) and when running multiple audio feeds...  its just sluggish.  It sounds like the EA5 might just be wroth it just for streaming and running composer.  Minus the cameras (I never got around to integrating mine) and your zoned HVAC, our systems sounds pretty similar.  My security system is in theory being added into C4 at the end of the month... I can't wait to have access to all of those extra triggers as right now I've been limited to my C4 motion sensors.  I love playing around with diff macros etc but none seem to load the system up at all.  So, back on topic, how much did you see the audio improve?  

 

 

What do you mean by sluggish?  Time from selecting music until you first hear it?  You may want to look into having your amp's trigger wired.

One thing an EA-5 will get you is High Resolution Audio.

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