New Installation

[wnpublic]

4 minutes ago, tacos said:

But..but but..... his cable splicing skills coupled with his ability to place the speakers are second to none!

I will say only that - it's true of my profession too

[msgreenf]

49 minutes ago, tacos said:

another one : c4 thermostat vs ecobee thermostats?

Ecobee

[BXTR]

22 minutes ago, wnpublic said:

I can tell you've not hired a personal chef, because that is nothing like having home automation and infrastructure installed and configured/maintained.  I don't mean to be insulting, it is true of my profession too - but home automation dealers are largely fungible for 90% of customer needs.  Any one of dozens in a given metro area could do it.  So costs are a primary consideration and it is suitable for an RFP process.  Personal chef, not so much.

I would tend to disagree, “any” dealer can do anything you want but that doesn’t mean they’ll do it properly, reliably or have great service after the fact. 
 

What will wire management in the rack look like, what’s the quality of the install, what did the rough in look like, what redundancy did it include, do you get along with the personalities of the company and there’s about 1000 other questions that should’ve been asked at the design stage, this is far from quoting on a bill of goods

So -it is- like hiring a personal chef and far less like ordering a burger at a restaurant 

Only after hours of consultation and system changes during the design stage can the true requirements be determined 

Case in point and only one of hundreds of choices that need to be made in a substantial system- a salesman might say “the intrinsic ATV driver is fabulous, you’ll love it” whereas, based on experience, I would never for a second consider it for a client

Long story short, getting opinions on specific items online is one thing, reviewing system design is entirely another

[JSTRONG]

He asked a thousand questions throughout the revisions!

 

 

[tacos]

40 minutes ago, BXTR said:

I would tend to disagree, “any” dealer can do anything you want but that doesn’t mean they’ll do it properly, reliably or have great service after the fact. 
 

What will wire management in the rack look like, what’s the quality of the install, what did the rough in look like, what redundancy did it include, do you get along with the personalities of the company and there’s about 1000 other questions that should’ve been asked at the design stage, this is far from quoting on a bill of goods

So -it is- like hiring a personal chef and far less like ordering a burger at a restaurant 

Only after hours of consultation and system changes during the design stage can the true requirements be determined 

Case in point and only one of hundreds of choices that need to be made in a substantial system- a salesman might say “the intrinsic ATV driver is fabulous, you’ll love it” whereas, based on experience, I would never for a second consider it for a client

Long story short, getting opinions on specific items online is one thing, reviewing system design is entirely another

Like the prior poster said - 90% fungible . 

[tacos]

32 minutes ago, JSTRONG said:

He asked a thousand questions throughout the revisions!

 

 

Who is "he"?

[JSTRONG]

20 minutes ago, tacos said:

Who is "he"?

You did Tacos. Then you posted our quote online and the same questions you asked us. If you don't trust us then by all means, there are lots of remote dealers here and I can  suggest a few for you. If you need references, we can send you hundreds and I am positive you wont find even one unhappy customer.

[Andrew luecke]

1 hour ago, BXTR said:

I would tend to disagree, “any” dealer can do anything you want but that doesn’t mean they’ll do it properly, reliably or have great service after the fact. 
 

What will wire management in the rack look like, what’s the quality of the install, what did the rough in look like, what redundancy did it include, do you get along with the personalities of the company and there’s about 1000 other questions that should’ve been asked at the design stage, this is far from quoting on a bill of goods

So -it is- like hiring a personal chef and far less like ordering a burger at a restaurant 

Only after hours of consultation and system changes during the design stage can the true requirements be determined 

Case in point and only one of hundreds of choices that need to be made in a substantial system- a salesman might say “the intrinsic ATV driver is fabulous, you’ll love it” whereas, based on experience, I would never for a second consider it for a client

Long story short, getting opinions on specific items online is one thing, reviewing system design is entirely another

I used to do a lot of subcontracting as an installer before my current job.

I went to so many jobs which had network loops caused by Sonos and other issues like not setting pcm where required. Extremely common, but often the customer would simply blame the internet, or the cheap device they bought.

Even better were the high end premium homes where the owner didn't put enough network cables or put them in spots which made sense to a network engineer, but not for AV purposes. Or, they ran CAT5e because they didn't know about the bandwidth requirements for AV.

It's definitely worth ensuring you have someone with experience, and at least during build stage, sit down with them and plan ahead and plan an entire system.

There's lots of good installers, but there are also bad ones. I agree with you. It's easy to say online that a AP is commonly used for instance. But, the type of house, location and people using it greatly affects what should be used.

[Cyknight]

1 hour ago, tacos said:

But..but but..... his cable splicing skills coupled with his ability to place the speakers are second to none!

And if you think that is what home automation is, you need to fast forward 2 decades

[wnpublic]

13 minutes ago, Andrew luecke said:

I used to do a lot of subcontracting as an installer before my current job.

I went to so many jobs which had network loops caused by Sonos and other issues like not setting pcm where required. Extremely common, but often the customer would simply blame the internet, or the cheap device they bought.

Even better were the high end premium homes where the owner didn't put enough network cables or put them in spots which made sense to a network engineer, but not for AV purposes. Or, they ran CAT5e because they didn't know about the bandwidth requirements for AV.

It's definitely worth ensuring you have someone with experience, and at least during build stage, sit down with them and plan ahead and plan an entire system.

There's lots of good installers, but there are also bad ones. I agree with you. It's easy to say online that a AP is commonly used for instance. But, the type of house, location and people using it greatly affects what should be used.

These are missing the point. The lower end of my profession is incompetent too. The point is that there are dozens of other firms that are competent; competency isn’t “special” and commands no premium.  So fungible 90% of the time. Same in this field. 

[tacos]

33 minutes ago, JSTRONG said:

You did Tacos. Then you posted our quote online and the same questions you asked us. If you don't trust us then by all means, there are lots of remote dealers here and I can  suggest a few for you. If you need references, we can send you hundreds and I am positive you wont find even one unhappy customer.

Let me clarify a few things :

The quote was posted prior to asking you anything. And whether/when I posted the quote, has no bearing on anything. Last I checked, I didn’t sign a NDA.

 I am looking back the email exchanges now.  I asked you/your staff less 10 questions, but I am glad you equate 10 with 1000. Btw, it was like pulling teeth getting responses initially to basic questions like “why no touchscreens?”

And trust?  trust = competence + character.  See where you are on this equation yourself

Plus didn’t you reach out yesterday asking if I want to move forward?

 

[JSTRONG]

7 minutes ago, tacos said:

Let me clarify a few things :

 

The quote was posted prior to asking you anything. And whether/when I posted the quote, has no bearing on anything. Last I checked, I didn’t sign a NDA.

 

 I am looking back the email exchanges now.  I asked you/your staff less 10 questions, but I am glad you equate 10 with 1000. Btw, it was like pulling teeth getting responses initially to basic questions like “why no touchscreens?”

 

And trust?  trust = competence + character.  See where you are on this equation yourself

 

Plus didn’t you reach out yesterday asking if I want to move forward?

 

 

You were texting Tom all hours for days, even after 10PM and he has pages and pages of text messages. then you started texting me asking about alarm systems then you posted the same questions on the forum. then you responded that you will wait for new controllers before moving forward. Like I said, lots of great remote programmers that can help you here.

 

[tacos]

18 minutes ago, JSTRONG said:

You were texting Tom all hours for days, even after 10PM and he has pages and pages of text messages. then you started texting me asking about alarm systems then you posted the same questions on the forum. then you responded that you will wait for new controllers before moving forward. Like I said, lots of great remote programmers that can help you here.

 

You are now LYING.

I texted your guy 2/25, 2/28 and 3/3 for a total of 5-6 messages.  Initial message was sent as he emailed the quote to the wrong email address and subsequent were sent to confirm my email were coming through as he disappeared. 

Please post these alleged PAGES of text messages. You have my permission.

Suffice to say, please don't text/email me again.  Your character is really shining in these posts.

 

edit - only reason I texted you was because your guy disappeared.

edit 2 -  just found the ignore function on the forum - priceless. this will be my last comment about this dealer interaction.

[JSTRONG]

Tacos please feel free to continue asking your thousand question online and never actually doing anything. Oh and get 5 more dealers to give you quotes so you can post them online here. 

[ejn1]

Really NDA?  Doing the right thing is often times a lot different from doing the legal thing!

[eggzlot]

Now only if tacos could take some lessons, pay 200-300/year and get compose pro 

 

 

 

sorry wrong thread 

[BXTR]

2 hours ago, tacos said:

Like the prior poster said - 90% fungible . 

Sure.

Tell that to all the owners of all the systems we took over in the past 5 years 

You wouldn’t happen to be in the field of engineering would you?

[therockhr]

1 hour ago, eggzlot said:

Now only if tacos could take some lessons, pay 200-300/year and get compose pro 

 

 

 

sorry wrong thread 

Keep it up and they might send you a T-shirt. 

[tacos]

16 minutes ago, therockhr said:

Keep it up and they might send you a T-shirt. 

Will it say “tacos” on the tee?

[eggzlot]

33 minutes ago, therockhr said:

Keep it up and they might send you a T-shirt. 

I wear a large

Though I’d prefer an “Automation Geek on Board” bumper sticker  

 

[Andrew luecke]

4 hours ago, wnpublic said:

These are missing the point. The lower end of my profession is incompetent too. The point is that there are dozens of other firms that are competent; competency isn’t “special” and commands no premium.  So fungible 90% of the time. Same in this field. 

As an ex-installer, there are certainly customers who can handle it.. But, the difference is immediately clear (especially for older premium properties) about whether an AV installer was involved, because I've assisted with properties which were over 20 years old and were still fine for most of the advanced AV stuff these days.

Whereas, on the other hand, the most expensive property I assisted with (which only started building 5 years ago or less), was clearly spec'ed by a network engineer, engineer or electrician. Plenty of CAT5E everywhere to multiple racks, no fibre, no possibility of using 5gbps to link the racks (only 2.5gbps max or LAG), and no fibre anywhere. We were lucky they hadn't started building the cinema until we were involved (because based on the specs, they would have used CAT5E and high speed HDMI, so no 8K in the future). It won't be possible to do WIFI 7 properly at parts of the property either. 

Also, most installers have probably come across installations where the cables for the projector get installed in a spot, without consideration for throw distance, or anything else. There are Lots of examples. For a home which is using Control4 with no AV distribution, you can generally get away with it....  Until they install Sonos, and get Network loops, and inevitably, they come here, and we have to explain STP (but they're using unmanaged switches, etc). 

This is an opinion of course. But, we could argue that in any occupation, 90% of it is fungible (flying planes is easy, programming is easy, designing logos easy, even drawing blood is easy because you simply need to find the vein). Engaging an AV installer early (online or whatever) will greatly reduce the risk

[IBZICON]

On 3/19/2022 at 3:04 PM, JSTRONG said:

You were texting Tom all hours for days, even after 10PM and he has pages and pages of text messages. then you started texting me asking about alarm systems then you posted the same questions on the forum. then you responded that you will wait for new controllers before moving forward. Like I said, lots of great remote programmers that can help you here.

 

 

On 3/19/2022 at 3:11 PM, tacos said:

You are now LYING.

I texted your guy 2/25, 2/28 and 3/3 for a total of 5-6 messages.  Initial message was sent as he emailed the quote to the wrong email address and subsequent were sent to confirm my email were coming through as he disappeared. 

Please post these alleged PAGES of text messages. You have my permission.

Suffice to say, please don't text/email me again.  Your character is really shining in these posts.

 

edit - only reason I texted you was because your guy disappeared.

edit 2 -  just found the ignore function on the forum - priceless. this will be my last comment about this dealer interaction.

 

On 3/19/2022 at 2:52 PM, tacos said:

Let me clarify a few things :

 

The quote was posted prior to asking you anything. And whether/when I posted the quote, has no bearing on anything. Last I checked, I didn’t sign a NDA.

 

 I am looking back the email exchanges now.  I asked you/your staff less 10 questions, but I am glad you equate 10 with 1000. Btw, it was like pulling teeth getting responses initially to basic questions like “why no touchscreens?”

 

And trust?  trust = competence + character.  See where you are on this equation yourself

 

Plus didn’t you reach out yesterday asking if I want to move forward?

 

 

Such a small world we live in, as I found this thread via a Google search for an other C4 topic.

@tacoswhat was the end result of your C4 system install?  Which dealer did you end up choosing?

[IBZICON]

On 3/8/2022 at 12:30 AM, RyanE said:

If by 'bid for robustness', what are they bidding for?  Control4 dealers can't sell hardware out of their area, at risk of losing their dealership.

Some still do it, but most aren't going to think bidding on some "rando on a public forum" job is a very good strategy.

RyanE

This is interesting that Control4 dealers can't sell hardware outside of their area, but there are internet dealers who have websites that require an account to sign in prior to prices being displayed.  

If MRSP was displayed on the control4 website, this would be better transparency, as I understand a C4 dealer can't advertise below MAP which is MRSP.  Nothing is preventing C4 dealers for a local area to collude and price above MRSP, which means a customer is stuck if they can't purchase from a out of area dealership.   I don't expect you to answer as your a C4 employee, but the legal liability of this business model, as I don't believe there are other industries that have hidden prices and restrictions on whom regarding the location of the customer that a independent business can sell to.   Maybe this will change with the ADI sale.