Control4 vs. Vantage

[AllanE]

I am a homebuilder in Houston who builds higher end homes, 3 million$ and above, and I've been using a company who installs Vantage Systems in most of my new homes. I recently ran across Control4 and was impressed with many things, price not being the least. I was curious if anyone could give an opinion of the two systems.

Allan

[RyanE]

I'm not a Vantage expert, but I'd say the main difference is that Vantage is more lighting-oriented, although they have some HA functionality, their strongest point is in lighting.

Control4's strongest point is in Home Automation. The lighting products work fine, and are getting better all the time, but I would argue that it's not Control4's main focus.

RyanE

[brian m]

vantage - centralized lighting, expensive, robust design, much harder to program and make changes, customer doesnt really have easy access to set their own scenes. not great to none web access. limited touch panels (though a moot point really as most control systems can interface to vantage or homeworks).

much like lutron homeworks (i think lutron a better system).

operate off a wired buss. will not operate if central processor is down - though a proper install will include manual control of some key zones when main cpu is down.

the lutron homeworks system can be either all centralized or decentralized or any combination thereof ..

control4 - decentralized lighting for the most part, though we install c4 as centralized also (all dimmers one location) , doesnt have quite the appeal of a vantage or home works system when centralized though. half the price of a comparable lutron or vantage system. very very easy to program including off site.

customer can set up thier own lighting scenes also. better web remote access.

control4 dimmers are really quite tough.

operate on a zigbee mesh for communication - will still function if central processor is down.

[superikey]

Brian M

When you say you install all dimmers and switches in one location, can you be more specific?

How many switches have you put max in one location?

Also how do you make them neat? any special panels to house the switches?

[lowvo]

I would recommend a LITE TOUCH system..I have put many in, they are easy to program, by far much better looking than C4 for that expensive of a house and you can intergrate it with C4 if you please or anything else. Life Time warranty on all lite touch products. I have put in many of both systems and C4 is great on moderate houses but when you get into upper end houses with 3 million or above LITE TOUCH blows them away.

[superikey]

Lowvo

Have you ever installed a lite touch but used all control4 keypads to control it?

[lowvo]

Yes, Control4 now has drivers for litetouch..Litetouch has a serial port that you can configure anyway you want. Most of the Engineers at LITETOUCH are previous engineers at control4. When I attended training there most of them have control4 and litetouch installed. Litetouch has no problem controling control4.