New Halo and Halo Touch Remotes

[msgreenf]

It under settings and network. 1.0.3 is current. 

[jlperez2014]

7 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

It under settings and network. 1.0.3 is current. 

Thanks. Yes, seeing 1.0.3.000921

[RyanE]

On 2/3/2023 at 4:42 PM, zaphod said:

I thought that the world would end if Control4 allowed users to add hardware!  /s

The Neeo was also end-user addable.

Remotes are about the simplest thing to add to an existing system, and doesn't really require anything more than setting up a phone, vs. swapping out a TV or adding a receiver or multi-room Audio or Video.

RyanE

[RyanE]

Deleted duplicate post

[RyanE]

13 hours ago, Control4Savant said:

Can Snap just acquire and revive Harmony… that would solve lots of things. 

This is factually incorrect.

The Harmony remote's hardware and software would not be terribly useful for Control4.

Harmony's remote hardware capabilities are terribly dated, and their software would not be even as easy to turn into a Control4 remote as the Neeo was.

That would be a downgrade over the Halo remotes.

RyanE

[k3nnis]

Halo non touch - thinking if I should get this or a runout neeo

[dinom]

14 hours ago, jlperez2014 said:

Got mine from Dawn! Thanks again. So far my impressions.

Halo remote is ok. Overall, I feel the halo non-touch is a bit tall in hand and unbalanced. Just feels oddly long and thin. Wish they did away with the number pad. Not a big deal, but if nitpicking on the design, the balance is off. The quality is ok. The buttons feels great, the screen looks fantastic but the body feels a bit cheap. Wondering if the silver would feel better. I have the black. Coming from Logitech Elite for reference. 

Also experiencing some issues early on. Missing some of the devices I have on my app for whatever reason. Battery life is not so good in my opinion. From fully charged and leaving in my theater room untouched, less than 24 hrs with no use, battery is showing roughly 30% left. My harmony elite lasted a few days without use. This doesn’t look like it will make it 24 hrs. Also, started experiencing network errors and unable to control devices after the third day using. It is responsive when working but the network error renders the controller unusable until you preform a hard reset. 

These network errors, these are with your WiFi?  Did you ever have network issues with a NEEO?

[DawnGordon]

16 hours ago, jlperez2014 said:

Got mine from Dawn! Thanks again. So far my impressions.

Halo remote is ok. Overall, I feel the halo non-touch is a bit tall in hand and unbalanced. Just feels oddly long and thin. Wish they did away with the number pad. Not a big deal, but if nitpicking on the design, the balance is off. The quality is ok. The buttons feels great, the screen looks fantastic but the body feels a bit cheap. Wondering if the silver would feel better. I have the black. Coming from Logitech Elite for reference. 

Also experiencing some issues early on. Missing some of the devices I have on my app for whatever reason. Battery life is not so good in my opinion. From fully charged and leaving in my theater room untouched, less than 24 hrs with no use, battery is showing roughly 30% left. My harmony elite lasted a few days without use. This doesn’t look like it will make it 24 hrs. Also, started experiencing network errors and unable to control devices after the third day using. It is responsive when working but the network error renders the controller unusable until you preform a hard reset. 

..

[DawnGordon]

16 hours ago, jlperez2014 said:

Got mine from Dawn! Thanks again. So far my impressions.

Halo remote is ok. Overall, I feel the halo non-touch is a bit tall in hand and unbalanced. Just feels oddly long and thin. Wish they did away with the number pad. Not a big deal, but if nitpicking on the design, the balance is off. The quality is ok. The buttons feels great, the screen looks fantastic but the body feels a bit cheap. Wondering if the silver would feel better. I have the black. Coming from Logitech Elite for reference. 

Also experiencing some issues early on. Missing some of the devices I have on my app for whatever reason. Battery life is not so good in my opinion. From fully charged and leaving in my theater room untouched, less than 24 hrs with no use, battery is showing roughly 30% left. My harmony elite lasted a few days without use. This doesn’t look like it will make it 24 hrs. Also, started experiencing network errors and unable to control devices after the third day using. It is responsive when working but the network error renders the controller unusable until you preform a hard reset. 

Hi JP,

Only the Halo Touch will be available in Black or Silver. The standard Halo is only available in black.

[DawnGordon]

2 hours ago, dinom said:

These network errors, these are with your WiFi?  Did you ever have network issues with a NEEO?

He said he was coming from a Harmony, not a Neeo. 

I'm thinking that both the battery issues and the connection issues are due to JP's access point. JP, what access point do you have, and where is it in relation to your AV setup?

[jlperez2014]

14 hours ago, dinom said:

These network errors, these are with your WiFi?  Did you ever have network issues with a NEEO?

It’s only happened once so far and nothing wrong with the network. I am 20 ft from the main router and no signal loss on other wireless devices. I assume it just got caught up with commands and dropped.  It was a quick reboot to get connection back and hasn’t happened the last 3 uses since. Will keep monitoring.

The battery life indeed last less than 24 hrs. It drains pretty quick. 

Good to know about the color Dawn. 

 

 

 

[jlperez2014]

12 hours ago, DawnGordon said:

He said he was coming from a Harmony, not a Neeo. 

I'm thinking that both the battery issues and the connection issues are due to JP's access point. JP, what access point do you have, and where is it in relation to your AV setup?

Have Orbi with WiFi 6. Roughly 20ft away. Battery drain seems to be pretty consistent. With little use it loses its juice  rather quick. Was that an issue with the NEEO?

[Amr]

1 hour ago, jlperez2014 said:

Have Orbi with WiFi 6. Roughly 20ft away. Battery drain seems to be pretty consistent. With little use it loses its juice  rather quick. Was that an issue with the NEEO?

No, Neeo lasts for 3 days with moderate use …

[msgreenf]

There is a setting in the driver for sleep time - this will improve battery life.  It should have defaulted to 1.5 hrs but I have mine lowered to 30 min which improves battery life (30 is lowest)

[Elvis]

Has anyone actually been hands-on with the Halo Touch yet that can/will share their experience? (or did I miss it in the 11 pages of this thread?)

Updated shipping date for the Touch?

[JSTRONG]

Touch won’t be out until April-June 

[Elvis]

On 2/3/2023 at 5:36 PM, JSTRONG said:

Dish media 

This right here is going to win my wife over. Can't wait to get it.

Thanks for sharing. 

[dinom]

Was that not possible on the NEEO?  

[Control4Savant]

On 2/5/2023 at 12:07 AM, RyanE said:

This is factually incorrect.

The Harmony remote's hardware and software would not be terribly useful for Control4.

Harmony's remote hardware capabilities are terribly dated, and their software would not be even as easy to turn into a Control4 remote as the Neeo was.

That would be a downgrade over the Halo remotes.

RyanE

I didn’t state any facts so I dont know what is incorrect. 

The Harmony line was a MASSIVE success, if you think that a resurgence of the product would not be well received or considered terribly dated I have a bridge to sell you… 

The Halo is a remote about a half a decade late to its competitors, and still has limited functions in comparison. 

[Elvis]

11 minutes ago, dinom said:

Was that not possible on the NEEO?  

Yes, I think so. We sold the system with the house not long after we got the NEEO.

[Topspin14m]

I didn’t state any facts so I dont know what is incorrect. 
The Harmony line was a MASSIVE success, if you think that a resurgence of the product would not be well received or considered terribly dated I have a bridge to sell you… 
The Halo is a remote about a half a decade late to its competitors, and still has limited functions in comparison. 

This is pretty off topic but I owned basically every version of the highest end Harmony remote and I would not compare them with what C4/Savant/Crestron or even URC are offering. The appeal of Harmony was that you could set it up and program it all yourself without a dealer. So it sold well because it was the best consumer grade universal remote. That was all well and good but the technology was pretty crappy. It had no feedback from the device it was linked to so the macros would often get out of sync. Meaning, if the IR blaster unit missed a device then you would have a Tv on but no Blu-ray player. If you then hit the power button again it would turn on the Blu-ray and the Tv would turn off. Add in a receiver that needed to switch inputs and it could get messy. For me that was annoying but quickly fixable. I got Harmonys for my in-laws and parents (who are not tech savvy) and set it all up, but they would still get super confused and frustrated every time it got out of sync.

I suspect that we on this forum are largely not C4’s target client base, which at its core includes people who are not tech savvy and don’t want to tinker. They just want everything to work. Harmony was kind of a disaster for those people.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[msgreenf]

IMHO Harmony was great tech for the early 2000's but not for 2020's

[cnicholson]

Question for those who are lucky enough to have their Halo's.  For those using with Apple TV, I am assuming that the "Voice button" on Halo just passes audio to the specific Apple TV being displayed in the room and behaves *exactly* the same as the factory Siri remote that ships with Apple TV, correct?  I can't imagine how it would be implemented otherwise, but just wanted to confirm.

In particular, I am assuming that Siri voice input unrelated to searching and navigation work the same as native remote.  For example, Homekit home automation commands like "Turn on all the light in here," (assuming you have actual Homekit devices).  If this is true, then, together with the DTI Homebridge/Siri drivers (which basically publishes yours C4 devices as virtual Homekit devices), we should be able to get voice control of C4 devices with location context *without* having to have a HomePod mini in the room (although that would still be useful for hands-free voice commands).  I guess this further assumes that the Apple TV is permanently assigned to a specific C4 room and not on a matrix (although, in theory, C4 could tell Apple TV to switch its Homekit "room" on the fly-- but that will probably never happen).

I have a slight concern that Apple/C4 might "tag" the C4 voice input and put a ring fence around what sort of commands it allows (possibly narrower than what is allowed with native Siri remote).  

It would be extra cool if there is a way to configure Halo to route voice input to a specified Apple TV (for example, the one in the room that the Halo is connected to) in a default state when the Apple TV is NOT part of a current session.  So if the TV is off, I can still grab the Halo, wake it up, then hit the voice button and say "Open the shades" and magic will happen.  Perhaps a niche use case right now, but not too crazy if C4's ambitions are to move toward more generalized voice control.

I hope that all makes sense.

 

[GregCAMS]

There will be a livestream of the Halo remote conducted via Art of Smart (UK integrator) tomorrow at 10 a.m. PST on YouTube for those interested

[Elvis]

6 minutes ago, cnicholson said:

In particular, I am assuming that Siri voice input unrelated to searching and navigation work the same as native remote.  For example, Homekit home automation commands like "Turn on all the light in here," (assuming you have actual Homekit devices).

I hope so, too... but right now if I don't have the remote in my hand, "hey Siri" works perfectly for us and HomeKit devices.

If I have the Halo in my hand, definitely want it to work just like the Apple TV Siri Remote as far as voice commands work.