Music Button Programming

[Dueport]

Wondering if anyone can share, in general, how you've programmed a music/audio button on your keypads?  I'm programming our keypads and want to assign 1 button for music with up/down tracking that for volume.  I see this involving three issues: 1.) number of physical buttons you use; 2.) programmed behavior of those buttons; 3.) drivers used to implement.

First, re number of physical buttons: I appreciate that some people use 2 or more buttons for audio (ie a "music" button and another button for "playlists" etc) and am interested if that's the norm but I'm trying to keep other buttons available for other things like lamps or shades or "room off" so I'd like to limit music to 1 button (and no have a second for playlists).

Second, re programmed behavior of those buttons: how have you all done it?  Initially I thought I'd use presses to cycle variables corresponding to different audio (ie cycle various Sirius stations).  That worked alright but there are draw backs: for instance, if audio is already playing in another room sometimes you just want to press the music key and have it play the same audio from another room. I'm wondering if having a default play if another room isn't playing music may be a good way to do that and abandon the cycling different audio thing - leaving music selection up to touchscreens or the app.....

Third, re drivers you use: do people stick with the base keypad driver or do you also use the enhanced keypad driver or the keypad audio control driver?

[msgreenf]

I believe you use Amazon music? If so very limited

[eggzlot]

For audio:

single tap of the button cycles the auto preset room control driver to pick 1 of 5 pre sets.  If a stream is already playing, a single press will skip to the next of the 5 presets.  

double tap mutes the stream

triple tap turns it off

I use the up/down arrows for audio volume control

When there are lights on the same keypad my dealer bound the load to that button so I can press/hold to ramp the lights up/down freeing up the arrows just for audio control

 

for a few rooms that are highly used I have some additional logic - if the room is off and music button is single pressed pick its own preset, if room is off and double press is selected, join to Room X.  I only did this for rooms that are close to each other where may move back and forth like kitchen/dining room and bedroom/bathroom/walk in closet in the master suite.  Otherwise if I want to join to an already playing stream I'll use my phone or c4 touchscreen.

[South Africa C4 user]

The Domosapiens keypad audio control driver is well worth the investment.  It takes the Room Control driver to another level.

[Chico]

4 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

The Domosapiens keypad audio control driver is well worth the investment.  It takes the Room Control driver to another level.

How is it better? What does it do that is actually useful?

[Dueport]

18 hours ago, msgreenf said:

I believe you use Amazon music? If so very limited

Very true - can squeeze a bit more through it using the Sonos integration rather than the native one - not perfect though.  Recently added Sirius though and that is far superior integration and their stations are much better than the amazon channels (which are just playlists it seems).

 

18 hours ago, eggzlot said:

For audio:

single tap of the button cycles the auto preset room control driver to pick 1 of 5 pre sets.  If a stream is already playing, a single press will skip to the next of the 5 presets.  

double tap mutes the stream

triple tap turns it off

I use the up/down arrows for audio volume control

When there are lights on the same keypad my dealer bound the load to that button so I can press/hold to ramp the lights up/down freeing up the arrows just for audio control

 

for a few rooms that are highly used I have some additional logic - if the room is off and music button is single pressed pick its own preset, if room is off and double press is selected, join to Room X.  I only did this for rooms that are close to each other where may move back and forth like kitchen/dining room and bedroom/bathroom/walk in closet in the master suite.  Otherwise if I want to join to an already playing stream I'll use my phone or c4 touchscreen.

Thank you - appreciate these ideas and will have to play around with some of these and see how the family takes to them

 

15 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

The Domosapiens keypad audio control driver is well worth the investment.  It takes the Room Control driver to another level.

Does look interesting - especially how it can join other room audio that's playing and the muting features.....what aspects do you find most useful?

[msgreenf]

so you can do great stuff with Sirius and the preset cycler on buttons and with Sonos favorites too

[South Africa C4 user]

On 5/11/2021 at 12:03 PM, Dueport said:

Very true - can squeeze a bit more through it using the Sonos integration rather than the native one - not perfect though.  Recently added Sirius though and that is far superior integration and their stations are much better than the amazon channels (which are just playlists it seems).

 

Thank you - appreciate these ideas and will have to play around with some of these and see how the family takes to them

 

Does look interesting - especially how it can join other room audio that's playing and the muting features.....what aspects do you find most useful?

Honestly, I use most of the functionality and like it all.  I had lots of complicated programming around music and how buttons behaved, what rooms were joined under what conditions, which playlist was chosen etc.  Adding this driver got rid of 90% of the programming and added some nice little extras in to the bargain.

[antneed]

Is this a driver once installed, can be used through Composer HE?

[msgreenf]

3 minutes ago, antneed said:

Is this a driver once installed, can be used through Composer HE?

correct