New Remotes Inbound.....

[ILoveC4]

My biggest beef with the "soft" buttons are just that you need to look down to use them. We use the DVR command to call up the most commonly used video source - the Hopper (or previously, the X1 box). So not having it available as a logical one press to get that source, adds extra clicks. Not a huge deal, but I'm a fan of hard buttons over soft buttons.

[Neo1738]

Not sure why people keep saying they won’t buy because it has no backlight and not enough hard buttons to use without looking down in the same stroke. Either you plan to look down (hence need backlight) or not. If you are a n the backlight category than what do you think a light up screen is? I think it looks good and is more of a put up n the room company sees to make it fancier rather than replace all 260 remotes deal. I will probably pick one up for the den off the kitchen most ppl see rather than all rooms.

[tdougray]

Its great to see new products coming through that actually look fit to be in 2019 rather than the dated 260. The price point being double the existing is strange and a little disappointing but at least its a new stylish product. Have they nailed it 1st time possibly / probably not but if this is a sign of things to come then bring it on.

[msgreenf]

Its great to see new products coming through that actually look fit to be in 2019 rather than the dated 260. The price point being double the existing is strange and a little disappointing but at least its a new stylish product. Have they nailed it 1st time possibly / probably not but if this is a sign of things to come then bring it on.

How are you defining the price point as wrong?

[tdougray]

28 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

How are you defining the price point as wrong?

I didn't say wrong at all and its their choice to pitch it wherever they want. 

I was disappointed because I felt putting over $200 on a remote they inherited through the Neeo acquisition in February this year was too much.

But hey we Cant please everyone and I get that. At the end of the day we all have a choice and I am glad new things are coming. 

[RyanE]

The comfort option will be delivered in an automatic update in a month or so.

RyanE

[ntlord]

1 hour ago, RyanE said:

The comfort option will be delivered in an automatic update in a month or so.

RyanE

I should change my username to “C4 Oracle” I feel like my prediction post was eerily close the real thing. If only I could turn this into money....

[c4user1]

On 10/29/2019 at 1:31 PM, RyanE said:

Just FYI, there is not a migration path for the existing NEEO devices to work within Control4.

RyanE

Is this official, there is no way to use existing NEEO Remote hardware with C4 OS3?

A user on another forum claimed to have checked with their dealer and was told the hardware could be ported over. Reading between the lines it sounded like a firmware update to make it work.

[OceanDad]

FROM CE PRO today :

Neeo is back! Control4 acquired the remote-control and home-automation start-up earlier this year, with plans to bring the mostly-DIY product to the professional installation channel.

Now Control4, acquired by SnapAV earlier this year, has launched its first Neeo product, boasting Neeo’s original hardware but powered by Control4’s new OS 3 smart-home platform.

Neeo was always known for its industrial design, which had users gushing over the elegant packaging and stylish remote, more so than product performance, per se.

Control4, on the other hand, has never been too famous for industrial design but their stuff sure does work.

“When I joined the company, I think the Control4 product line was known for delivering a rich customer experience,” says Charlie Kindel, who joined Control4 last year from Amazon. “But I don’t think people would say our product design was something to lust after.”

“I don’t think people would say our product design was something to lust after. “

Charlie Kindel, Control4

Kordon Vaughn, Control4 senior director of product marketing, joined the company more than a decade before Kindel came along. He concurs with Kindel’s assessment.

 “We usually chose function over form,” he says in a joint CE Pro interview with Kindel.

Control4 products are far from unattractive, but these days consumers pay a premium for elegance and often tie it to a manufacturer’s overall appeal.

That newish reality is not lost on Control4.

Kindel recalls Motorola’s old Startac flip phone, which was highly practical and not necessarily bad looking back in the day. That was just fine for us users.

 “We were happy with that,” he says. “But customer needs have changed. They value that look and feel.”

He adds, “Our belief is: We’re going to be in this business for a long time, and our products are front and center in the customer’s home.”

While customers might not see the graphical UI all the time, and never see the back-end code responsible for the UI, they do see the hardware interface, which tends to personify the company as a whole.

“A lot of smart home devices sit hidden in a closet or behind a wall,” Kindel says, “But not interaction devices; they are front and center. How they look and feel is just as important as how they work.”

That being said, Neeo’s industrial-design acumen is seen in Control4 black boxes, as well. The CA-10 controller, for example, was in development at the time of the acquisition, and Neeo helped to “refine the design” with “little details” related to functionality and fit-and-finish, Kindel says.

Control4’s First Combo Touchscreen/Hard-Button Remote

Control4 is somewhat unique among the major home-automation companies in the pro channel. The company has never offered a remote control with both touchscreen and hard buttons.

Kindel says such a product was on the roadmap for Control4, but Neeo accelerated the plans. The timing was right, aligning with consumer trends, expectations in the industry, and technological progress in areas like battery life. These and other factors allowed Control4 to create a combo product that would be both sophisticated and affordable.

It’s not like the SR-260 remote (right) was ugly, but it sure makes Neeo look pretty darn good.

There’s another thing: Control4’s new OS 3 platform practically begs for a touchscreen remote. User personalization is a hallmark of the new platform, and like other Control4 devices, the remote allows customers to select “Favorites” for the home screen – maybe an icon for CNN, one for Pandora, another for whole-house temperature, and another for “Movie” mode.

“I’ve been using it at home and our family really likes it,” Vaughn says. “They picked it up so fast.”

There’s not much to pick up, really, with favorites on the home screen. Vaughn’s daughter can simply pick up the remote and press “her” button, which goes to Netflix “most watched.”

As for Kindel: “We like being able to ensure the porch door is locked before we start a movie. That door lock favorite is right there on the Neeo. Tapping it locks or unlocks the door and shows the state in real-time.”

Why Keep the Neeo Brand?

Why did Control4 keep the Neeo brand, and not just release the new product under its own name?

Kindel and Vaughn didn’t say this exactly, but … Neeo had a reputation for design. Possibly like no other brand in the remote-control category, Neeo earned a strong following because the product looks and feels so good.

Home-technology pros often raved about the Neeo remote, without ever knowing much about it. Perhaps they held it during a tradeshow or ogled at online images, and they were hooked.

That’s a hard legacy to ignore. The Neeo brand is practically synonymous with style. Keeping the brand gives Control4 instant cred for design – more so than assigning the product a generic model name like SR-270.

What Kindel does say about the branding is this: “The Neeo remote clearly sets a new bar for sophistication and refinement in an interaction device. … The Neeo remote and our naming of it makes it clear how serious we are about satisfying customers in this regard.”

And what I say is this: It would be hard to get dealers super-energized about a great new remote called SR-270 or some such thing, regardless of how stylish or useful it might be. But “Neeo” …  yeah, that works.

Potential Business Opportunities

Already, dealers are looking to upgrade customers to the new remote. It’s a simpler proposition than ever. As long as the customer has OS 3, they can swap out an existing remote with a new Neeo, no programming required. Neeo will automatically pick up the settings for that remote, and any favorites associated with that room. Done.

Control4 dealers like Georgia Home Theater are using the new Neeo remote to lure customer to its #C4Yourself event.

Georgia Home Theater blasted out an email today, inviting customers to bring a new or gently used coat to the company’s #C4Yourself event on Nov. 21. GHT will donate the coat, and reward customers with a 20% discount on a Neeo remote. Customers can walk out of the store with their shiny new thing and use it right away at home.

You could imagine how a trade-in program could be quite lucrative for Control4 dealers with virtually no labor required. Perhaps customers could order their Neeo upgrades online for a discount, and return their existing remotes in the same box with the included shipping label.

So is this what Control4 envisioned when it acquired Neeo this year? Not necessarily. They knew there was something there, that Neeo could get them some strong talent and good hardware right away, and that the existing product could be just the ticket for the forthcoming OS 3. But that’s about the extent of it. 

“We had been working with them,” Kindel says. “We could see how the product would be a great fit. As we started working, the vision really formed of an unbeatable customer experience – a refinement of their device, plus the sophistication of what would be OS 3.”

Yes, we will see more design-centric products from Control4 going forward. No, they wouldn’t spill the beans on either the product roadmap or how the Neeo brand will be used in the overall scheme of things within Control4 and SnapAV.

 

[RyanE]

47 minutes ago, c4user1 said:

Is this official, there is no way to use existing NEEO Remote hardware with C4 OS3?

A user on another forum claimed to have checked with their dealer and was told the hardware could be ported over. Reading between the lines it sounded like a firmware update to make it work.

There is no *official* upgrade path from the existing NEEO remotes to the Control4 OS.

There is no dealer or end user process to port the remotes over to Control4.

RyanE

[RyanE]

1 hour ago, ntlord said:

I should change my username to “C4 Oracle” I feel like my prediction post was eerily close the real thing. If only I could turn this into money....

Not sure that predicting that Control4 will add additional features in upcoming releases required anything close to oracle status...

The fact that Comfort was going to be released shortly was both announced to the dealer channel, and also is being shown on deliberately released screenshots and working in the video on control4.com...

Not sure your previous prediction of 'and then leave everyone who bought this version high and dry' was too accurate...

RyanE

[dinom]

Ryan, how quickly does the NEEO connect over WiFi once it goes to sleep?  Meaning, if the remote hasn’t been used for hours, will it connect and issue a hard button command relatively instantly?  Or does it take a few seconds to connect and recognize the button press?  

[ejn1]

11 hours ago, C4noob said:

Lol please no one is out to get you, you are not that important. I would worry about the gps enabled device you carry with a mic an Camera a bit more.

To each is own noob,  feel free to mic up your house anytime lol

[RyanE]

29 minutes ago, dinom said:

Ryan, how quickly does the NEEO connect over WiFi once it goes to sleep?  Meaning, if the remote hasn’t been used for hours, will it connect and issue a hard button command relatively instantly?  Or does it take a few seconds to connect and recognize the button press?  

My unscientific testing shows that if I press a hard button without picking the remote up (while it's laying asleep flat on my desk, for example), the command is received by Control4 and passed on in well under a second (more like under 1/4 second).

There should be no difference whether the remote has just gone to sleep or has been asleep for hours.  I don't have a remote here that has been asleep for hours to test, but I've never noticed a delay on using one the next day, for example.

If I pick the remote up, the accelerometer wakes the remote, and long before I press the button, wifi is up and the press is virtually instantaneous.

RyanE

[Gene]

Thanks for the explanation Ryan.  I think overall, releasing a remote and moving forward is what C4 needed and although we all might complain about what could be better or how to change things, atleast they purchased a company and brought to market something rather quickly and things will only get better!  That has been stagnant before OS3 so onward we move...  Also, maybe by keeping the SR-260, it just will mean in the future (not distant future but future) a replacement will be made for it which will be a larger leap!  We can always hope!!!!

 

[alanchow]

For those of you who are undecided the Neeo remote combines functionality of the SR-260 and the T3 touchscreen.  It does take a while to get used to but alot of functionality you would normally do on say a touchscreen you can now do on your remote.  For example here is what our Kodi Full & our Kaleidescape drivers look like on the Neeo.

 

 

[dinom]

Is volume level feedback shown on the display for devices like receivers with IP or serial  drivers?

[Saturday club member]

Just my prospective on the remote neeo conversation. I have the old sr260 remote which sits on the table while I switch between tv channel on sky, adjust my sound bar on my Polk sound bar (both tv and sound bar are not compatible with C4). Instead I use the the iPad app or voice command via Alex to control lights, audio, security, from the couch. Don't know about you but my misses sits watch the tv and plays cards simultaneously (don’t even go there) and can’t be done with another remote when it’s on the C4 app on the iPad.

Suppose it’s what your use to but I see the neeo gathering dust in a few years time along with all the other remotes I have accumulated. I could buy an addition 4K tv for a bedroom for the price of rather than a remote which is likely to be superseded in a few years. 

I haven’t heard a cost effective argument for another shiny remote as yet, unless you know different.

cheers Ed

[RyanE]

3 hours ago, dinom said:

Is volume level feedback shown on the display for devices like receivers with IP or serial  drivers?

Currently no.

RyanE

[Baubas Cat]

@RyanE are cameras visible on the remote? If not, will this be available in the future or is it not possible? 

[RyanE]

19 minutes ago, Saturday club member said:

I haven’t heard a cost effective argument for another shiny remote as yet, unless you know different.

Fortunately, no one is forcing you to buy it.

It will definitely fit some people's lifestyle better than others, and having more options IMHO is always better than fewer.

RyanE

[RyanE]

2 minutes ago, Baubas Cat said:

@RyanE are cameras visible on the remote? If not, will this be available in the future or is it not possible? 

Currently, no.

We don't typically discuss the roadmap for products, but I wouldn't expect it soon.

RyanE

[dinom]

11 minutes ago, RyanE said:

Currently no.

RyanE

Is it possible this could get added to a future upgrade?

[KWD]

Is there a pop-up keyboard for text entry?

 

[RyanE]

9 minutes ago, KWD said:

Is there a pop-up keyboard for text entry?

Currently, not outside of the keyboard available for the first-time user experience (to enter Wifi credentials).

RyanE