Reasons for selling or purchasing Control4

[Samer Shami]

Because I am the curious type, I thought that I would open up topic to see what people's reasons for either selling Control4 - or purchasing Control4 if you are a client.

I would love to hear some of the positive points that convinced you of Control4's merits.

Thanks guys and gals.

[Kirill]

low voltage dimmers cost less than Lutron.

[TrikinCurt]

For us it is pretty easy, we don't sell AMX or Crestron and it gives us a control solution. The price/value of it is amazing. We sold $1200 RTI remotes (after programming and RF add-ons much more than that) and this does so much more that it is an easy sale for a home theater as wel.

The cost of the dimmers is definately a plus as well, we are a Lutron dealer as well and C4 pricing on that (and HVAC over AprilAire, etc) is great.

Now, give me lighting without a neutral wire and I am happy.

Curt

[Uncle Skippy]

I bought because of the value... what else can you buy for $600 that gives you control over dvd media, mp3 from your pc, lighting control and so much more?

[Meyerssb]

Probably for me it would be the ease of expandability. As my wife says, "affordability, expandability, and versatility - I just love not having to worry about my lights coming on at night, I love being able to leave and come home at night with lights on outside - I don't come home to a dark house anymore." And like reednatron says, where else can you get something so inexpense to control so many things...

Blake

[maxspivak]

Value, functionality, multiple systems under one roof.

I was all ready to order Lutron RadioRA, which would've been the lighting system "island". I planned to use a pronto or harmony for HT control, another island. And hadn't decided on distributed audio.

C4 gave me dimmers at a great cost compared to RadioRA, along with software programmability, interfacing w/other system, a media server where I can pick tracks from a remote, reasonably prices lcd keypads (when they ship!) and touchscreen, etc.

Prior to C4, I hadn't even thought of thermostat, security system integration, etc.

[AS2]

I read the article in Wired and right away wanted it for my apartment. On paper it looked too good to be true, but then I saw it work and I was amazed. The lighting control is great, and the home theater controls are very impressive. Having worked with Crestron in the past, it was a joy to see how easy it was to make systems work right quickly. Crestron jobs take months to complete and only really high end ones include lighting and HVAC. C4 is also much more affordable. And it's IP based, which is cool in itself.

[Samer Shami]

Thanks guys. Your feedback is much appreciated. I would love to hear what others have to say as well.

I'll keep things rolling by answering the question that I posed.

I too have been involved with Crestron. My introduction into the AV market/industry/game (call it what you will) was in distributing Crestron. It gave me a valuable opportunity to see the cream-of-the-crop installations and witness automation project budgets that were more than the cost of a typical house. I was exposed to the good and bad of Crestron - and there was like a billion goods compared to a few bads.

Then I was given a demo of Control4. I sat there thinking: f**k this is too easy. Where are the mirrors? I can't see any smoke. After playing with the equipment, I fell in love with the it. I am passionate about the product in a way that I never was with Crestron.

When I played with Creston, the thought had crossed my mind to purchase the equipment and install it into my house. Mind you, I could get it cheaper than any dealer could buy it. I quickly realised that I wouldn't really do anything with it. Sure I could automate everything in my house that open or closed, but that just didn't appeal to me. My lifestlye just didn't lend itself to Crestron. I could program everything myself, but I stopped short and asked my self: "What would I actually use it for?" I just couldn't come up with a good answer. I guess ultimately if you aren't passionate about a product it is hard to make others feel any different about the product that you sell.

So what's different with Control4? The technical side of me saw the programming simplicity. It had me all teary eyed from the get-go (that's in a good way of course!). It had major limitations compared to Crestron, but here was a product that I was willing to install into my home, and I would be happy to use even knowing full well its limitations!

After I thought about it for a while, I pondered as to why I was so infatuated with the product. As intangible as this sounds, the Control4 company philosophy just gels with me. They are trying to create a product targetted towards middle-income households (which is the economic bracket that I must label myself with). Here is a product that was made for me. Based on this, I could see that dealers would have a better chance of attracting clients like myself with Control4 than other automation products.

So am I on a crusade to preach to dealers the merits of Control4? In a way, yes. The dealers that I have talked to have expressed various opinions of the product. Although I do not wish to extend an already long post, suffice to say that I have seen reactions in-between the two extremes of falling in love with it as I did all the way to being blinded by the limitations. There have been only a few dealers who I genuinely thought would not have a use for the product since their client's socio-economic standing did not fall within the middle-income bracket that I talked of.

Ok. Enough about me. I'll love to hear more from others about this topic.

[ES_Dave]

We sold Crestron in our store for the last year and a half. It was so difficult to sell because of the price points. We finally realized that it just wasn't in our customers price range. We are a retail store that tends to cater to a level higher than the big box stores, but at the same time, we also don't get the very top end. It seems to me, the meat and potatoes of this industry for us lies in that middle ground. Control 4 just seems to fit there.

The other reasons?

We can sell control, lighting, and everything else that C4 does seperately, but why? If you can do all of this for as little as they do, why not?

And the wireless options are really what makes this system so good for us. There's way more customers for the retro-fit market than new contruction.