New Halo and Halo Touch Remotes

[wnpublic]

8 hours ago, chopedogg88 said:

choose your weapon...lol

Agreed - the C4 is the bottom one.  Except it's 5x the cost of the top one.

 

[Gary Leeds UK]

8 hours ago, wnpublic said:

Agreed - the C4 is the bottom one.  Except it's 5x the cost of the top one.

 

That's Harsh - I like the Video someone posted on page 12 were both the C4 Rep and Dealer slag of the NEEO Remote - Calling it a stop Gap. 

Will wait and see what if any issue they are with these two remotes, however the price point is a bit High and the Core 3 Price point is brilliant high - May just stop were we are now on 3.3 and wait for a few years to see what happens - Hope Snap do OK I'm a Share Holder now - Hope that works out too !!! 

[JSTRONG]

That’s control4 guru Jacob “go to the room “ whiple. 

[ChzBurger]

22 hours ago, Control4Savant said:

Every response is about the Harmony software specifically which would have nothing to do with this remote.

IMO right on. Logitech Harmony hub software basically sucked to get set up and any new owner would want to re-engineer the code/process. But the hardware was great. The Harmony Companion still reigns as the best laid out hard button remote. And the remote with hub worked great for home control if a) there was an official integration - integration was cloud based, and b) there wasn't distributed AV involved. For whatever reason the market hasn't backfilled for them. C4 is about as close as it gets and can be done somewhat economically with eBay and used EA1/SR-260 combos. I'd say that the SR-260 would be my #2 hardware design.

After a day with the Halo it will be interesting to see how the software evolves. Right now there are still holes even compared to SR-260. I miss the circular layout of the playback controls. The Apple TV integration works well. I'm waiting for Xfinity now. IMO voice is the reason to upgrade from SR-260.

[Cyknight]

8 minutes ago, ChzBurger said:

IMO voice is the reason to upgrade from SR-260

It will certainly be the biggest reason overall, which in and of itself will hang on how well it will work, and what devices will be supported

[Amr]

6 minutes ago, Cyknight said:

It will certainly be the biggest reason overall, which in and of itself will hang on how well it will work, and what devices will be supported

I believe Josh and Alexa are next, probably in the coming few months …

[Cyknight]

Just now, Amr said:

I believe Josh and Alexa are next, probably in the coming few months …

But the bigger question is what actual devices will they be able to control.

Honestly to me the Halo as a 'google home/alexa' alternative endpoint isn't all that interesting. That overall voice service as well integration is rather limited.

Where voice would/will shine is the ability to voice control/select very specific things like 'Show me the latest episode of [xyz]' or 'Start [insert movie title]' or 'Go to channel [123]'

Xfinity would be the next 'device' that comes out AFAIK, but will we have Roku voice support? Shield/AndroidTV? What about all the other set top boxes across the world? Will Xfinity only work on Comcast, needing specific driver development for other providers that use the same hardware?

[RyanE]

1 hour ago, Cyknight said:

Xfinity would be the next 'device' that comes out AFAIK, but will we have Roku voice support? Shield/AndroidTV? What about all the other set top boxes across the world? Will Xfinity only work on Comcast, needing specific driver development for other providers that use the same hardware?

Roku does not offer a voice API at this point in time, hoping they'll add / support one in the future.

As far as Xfinity, it's initially only the Comcast Xfinity X1 platform (on IP-capable set-top boxes), but we also hope they'll open it up to additional providers using the compatible hardware and existing voice remotes.  Assuming voice support gets rolled out to other Xfinity platforms, it likely would use the same API (although of course, since it's not there now, you never know).

Any other devices that provide a voice API, we can write a driver for (and would love to).  The architecture is not AppleTV or Xfinity based, it's designed to be straightforward to write additional 'device-based voice' support at the same level of difficulty as current IP drivers (which, of course, a voice API would already require).

RyanE

[JSTRONG]

5 minutes ago, RyanE said:

Roku does not offer a voice API at this point in time, hoping they'll add / support one in the future.

As far as Xfinity, it's initially only the Comcast Xfinity X1 platform (on IP-capable set-top boxes), but we also hope they'll open it up to additional providers using the compatible hardware and existing voice remotes.  Assuming voice support gets rolled out to other Xfinity platforms, it likely would use the same API (although of course, since it's not there now, you never know).

Any other devices that provide a voice API, we can write a driver for (and would love to).  The architecture is not AppleTV or Xfinity based, it's designed to be straightforward to write additional 'device-based voice' support at the same level of difficulty as current IP drivers (which, of course, a voice API would already require).

RyanE

Hi Ryan

If Roku does not have the API, how does Josh work with Roku? 

[RyanE]

Just now, JSTRONG said:

If Roku does not have the API, how does Josh work with Roku? 

Roku does not provide a *public* API.  I don't know what API JoshAI uses, but it's not currently available to Control4.

RyanE

[Cyknight]

23 minutes ago, RyanE said:

Any other devices that provide a voice API

Which is too often a big part of the problem: that other device/party needs to be willing to play ball.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly hope many if not all of them will.

[RyanE]

1 minute ago, Cyknight said:

Which is too often a big part of the problem: that other device/party needs to be willing to play ball.

Stupid forum software won't let me like your post.

RyanE

[Neo1738]

Agree with most of what was said. Voice is not as useful for me for AV unless I can say "Turn on Master Neflix to xyz" and it just goes there. Or "Turn on ESPN on master tv".

[Amr]

37 minutes ago, Neo1738 said:

Agree with most of what was said. Voice is not as useful for me for AV unless I can say "Turn on Master Neflix to xyz" and it just goes there. Or "Turn on ESPN on master tv".

But this is available now? Am I missing something?

[cnicholson]

55 minutes ago, Neo1738 said:

Agree with most of what was said. Voice is not as useful for me for AV unless I can say "Turn on Master Neflix to xyz" and it just goes there. Or "Turn on ESPN on master tv".

If Apple TV is your main media hub, then with factory Siri remote or, now, Halo, you can basically do all that.  Sometimes with a hybrid of voice and clicks.  In other words, you use voice to enter the search text and then use clicks to choose from search results.  Pretty efficient.  If you are precise enough, you can, with one voice command, start specific media.  So you can say "find tv shows starring Pedro Pascal" and you pick from the list.  Or if you say "Play latest episode of the Mandolorian," it will do so with no clicks.  Ditto for music.

So Halo + Apple TVs and we are already where you want to be.  This assume you already have a session going in the room with Apple TV as the source.

If you only have one possible voice control target configured (say Apple TV), then is also seems possible to just grab the Halo from a "Room Off" state, press voice button and say "Play latest episode of Ted Lasso," and it would buffer that audio, start up the Apple TV session, delay for an appropriate amount of time, then feed the voice file to the Apple TV and away you go.

 

[RyanE]

13 minutes ago, cnicholson said:

... also seems possible to just grab the Halo from a "Room Off" state, press voice button and say "Play latest episode of Ted Lasso," and it would buffer that audio, start up the Apple TV session, delay for an appropriate amount of time, then feed the voice file to the Apple TV and away you go.

Just FYI, of course, this doesn't currently work.

If there's no voice target currently selected for the room, the remote will pop up a dialog asking if you want to turn on the AppleTV or something else that supports voice.  No voice is captured or buffered.

RyanE

[chopedogg88]

Ryan - Does voice work with Xfinity already?  If so can you ask it to change to a channel name or number, or perform a search?

[RyanE]

16 minutes ago, chopedogg88 said:

Ryan - Does voice work with Xfinity already?  If so can you ask it to change to a channel name or number, or perform a search?

It should be available shortly.  The firmware to support voice has not been pushed out yet, it's still in release testing.

It works exactly like the Xfinity voice remote, so yes, you can ask for channels by number or name, you can perform movie / actor / whatever searches.

RyanE

[jebt2921]

It should be available shortly.  The firmware to support voice has not been pushed out yet, it's still in release testing.
It works exactly like the Xfinity voice remote, so yes, you can ask for channels by number or name, you can perform movie / actor / whatever searches.
RyanE

Question while on this topic: will it work with Cox as well? I currently have the Xfinity driver (I think as it has that icon) to control my Cox boxes. From what I think I understand Cox uses the same stuff as Xfinity and our Cox remotes do have voice control.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RyanE]

1 minute ago, jebt2921 said:

Question while on this topic: will it work with Cox as well? I currently have the Xfinity driver (I think as it has that icon) to control my Cox boxes. From what I think I understand Cox uses the same stuff as Xfinity and our Cox remotes do have voice control.

If you are currently controlling your set-top box with the Control4 IP driver (not an IR driver, which could very well have the Xfinity icon), it's likely that it *should* work.

The only ones I would guarantee it on are Comcast Xfinity X1 installations with the IP Control enabled and currently able to use the Control4 IP driver.

The Xfinity X1 ecosystem is large and complicated.  There are no guarantees... 

RyanE

[jebt2921]

Well….IR driver. Womp Womp.


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[chopedogg88]

31 minutes ago, RyanE said:

It should be available shortly.  The firmware to support voice has not been pushed out yet, it's still in release testing.

It works exactly like the Xfinity voice remote, so yes, you can ask for channels by number or name, you can perform movie / actor / whatever searches.

RyanE

Awesome, thanks Ryan!

[cnicholson]

1 hour ago, RyanE said:

Just FYI, of course, this doesn't currently work.

If there's no voice target currently selected for the room, the remote will pop up a dialog asking if you want to turn on the AppleTV or something else that supports voice.  No voice is captured or buffered.

RyanE

I'm daring to dream....

[WisC4]

Anyone have any idea if "find my remote" programming from SR260s can be used on the Halo?  I've got several keypad buttons setup for this on the 260s.  Also, I'm having trouble with the AppleTV voice control.  After switching over from IR to IP driver control, in the C4 mobile app in AppleTV Control i get the following message when i toggle to enable control: Unable to complete Apple TV integration.  All software versions up to date.  Does the room selection in Apple Home impact this?  I hadn't tied together Apple Home to C4 until Halo arrived.

 

Other thoughts: I would like to see the center button in the directional buttons act as the C4 button to bring up the on screen menu.  Are there any other customization options for room wallpapers or screensavers like on T4s?

[cnicholson]

23 minutes ago, WisC4 said:

Also, I'm having trouble with the AppleTV voice control.  After switching over from IR to IP driver control, in the C4 mobile app in AppleTV Control i get the following message when i toggle to enable control: Unable to complete Apple TV integration.  All software versions up to date.  Does the room selection in Apple Home impact this?  I hadn't tied together Apple Home to C4 until Halo arrived.

You need to be signed in to your Apple ID account on Apple TV and have Homekit enabled on Apple TV.  Set it to never sleep.   You need to assign Apple TV to a Homekit room.  It need not be in the same C4 Room, but obviously easier to keep track that way.   And then toggle Apple TV control off/on in iOS app and it will guide you through adding the Homekit Bridge via Home App.

If still not working, do the Factory Reset driver action in Apple Bridge C4 driver, then enable Apple TV control in C4 iOS app again.