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I took the advice of the bloggers and went to my dealer....


dugery

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I have posted before and am in the middle of wiring. At the advice of many bloggers. I spoke to a local dealer yesterday brought in my plan and showed him where I wanted everything. I told him I was wiring everything and would like to buy the components from him. He told me they have to wire everything. I said I would pay him to program and get all of the equipment. he continuelly said that they have to do all of the work in order to be able to program. I said I would do all of the drops with 3 cat6 1 rg6 and speaker wire to each tv. they would all be labeled with a brother ptouch and have all of the ends on. I have an IT guy that works for me. does this sound right?o i have to have control4 license installers in order to have this product, also I just wanted to know what was needed for thermostat, 4" touch pad and fireplace if they need to be low voltage cat6 or hard wire. He also said I need to buy all control4 items, amp, audio video matrix switch, audio swtich etc. I have read in these posts people use other swithes. he also said that control4 runs on a computer network and relies on a computer. I thought it worked on zigbee.

I left upset and am trying a third dealer. Maybe its because the economy is slowing and they need a sale. They are a huge dealer in Brookfield, WI.

thanks for any help. Are dealers allowed to sell the controllers to others besides local people? If so I think I would like to order from someone on this site because they seem to know what they are tlking about.

Thanks for the time and any advice is appreciated. I will upload a plan of what i want to do later.

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I have posted before and am in the middle of wiring. At the advice of many bloggers. I spoke to a local dealer yesterday brought in my plan and showed him where I wanted everything. I told him I was wiring everything and would like to buy the components from him. He told me they have to wire everything. I said I would pay him to program and get all of the equipment. he continuelly said that they have to do all of the work in order to be able to program. I said I would do all of the drops with 3 cat6 1 rg6 and speaker wire to each tv. they would all be labeled with a brother ptouch and have all of the ends on. I have an IT guy that works for me. does this sound right?o i have to have control4 license installers in order to have this product, also I just wanted to know what was needed for thermostat, 4" touch pad and fireplace if they need to be low voltage cat6 or hard wire. He also said I need to buy all control4 items, amp, audio video matrix switch, audio swtich etc. I have read in these posts people use other swithes. he also said that control4 runs on a computer network and relies on a computer. I thought it worked on zigbee.

I left upset and am trying a third dealer. Maybe its because the economy is slowing and they need a sale. They are a huge dealer in Brookfield, WI.

thanks for any help. Are dealers allowed to sell the controllers to others besides local people? If so I think I would like to order from someone on this site because they seem to know what they are tlking about.

Thanks for the time and any advice is appreciated. I will upload a plan of what i want to do later.

Wow..

I'll attempt to break this down for you and hopefully do this without offending some other dealers.

If you know what you are doing with the wiring, you can wire. What about hiring them to tell you where and what wires to go to the location you are looking to put components?

What I'd say to you is this. If I cannot Verify the wiring is Acceptable and how it was run you could have issues.

I have done this in the past and learned with the first. Homeowner wanted to pre-wire and and thought they knew how it should be wired and only wanted us to install and program. OK!! :rolleyes:

Installation time came and wiring was Not correct to locations as needed. We had to run (fish) inside walls to correct situation and homeowner had to replace some drywall. :(

Have had 2 others since and they simply employed us to Point to locations, verify wiring was good to work with desired equipment and how wiring was run. 3 Very Important Items..

Control 4 does need a computer to program but not to run off of. Control 4 runs within your Home Network,

But Does Not need a computer next to it or be connected to one to operate once programmed.

It is it's own system.

Switches, T-Stat, Remotes and other items are Zigbee.

Touch Panels can be run off your wireless network, or wired. (wired is the preferred method)

Audio Distribution equipment should be Control 4 for best results.

A/V Matrix Switch can be different, However, We have Certain Drivers built to work well with Control 4 and certain dealers may have their preference on their switches.

Purchasing equipment outside your area is allowed.

It is a good idea to have a dealer within your area for servicing your account.

We are a 2-3 hour drive (depending on traffic) from you and charges for service calls can run a little expensive.

If the system is setup properly hopefully there wouldn't be much of that but who has a crystal ball?

That being said, we have wired and sold equipment as far as Boston, MA.

This customer is now working with a closer dealer for upgrades and servicing.

We still have their local account however.. :)

We have systems out there that I haven't had to touch for 2 years.

Please feel free to contact us.

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Dealers are allowed to sell only to customers that they personally service the systems.

That is, you can purchase 'out of area', as long as the dealer you purchase from actually services the equipment.

K&J appears to be right on the money with his advice. If I were a dealer I'd stay far away from a client who is 'doing their own wiring' without some kind of verification up-front (before the drywall) that it's wired up to spec.

RyanE

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thanks for the information. I planned on having the dealer look at it before drywall to make sure all is right. I am contacting another dealer in the area. Unfortunately I only have about 5 dealers near and I have had contact with 2 of them. Another dealer installed crestron into a friends home and he was completely unsatisfied with the install so I am staying away from them.

My plan is to find a dealer to work with that I buy from and he programs as well as I would hire him to inspect the wiring.

I already have two tuners and would like to use them if possible. the a/v matrix I was looking at was a 8x8 component switch. Again I am going to contact WILKE Electric on Monday they are a dealer and I was talking with someone who had a good experience with them.

Thanks again.

One more thing. If I had shades that were connected to control4 would I use a contact switch or is there a special item to buy that c4 makes to do this.

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