Finite Labs - Home Connect for Apple Home

[Amr]

Hello All,

I had the chance to beta test a new driver for Apple Home Kit Integeration with C4, the driver is very powerful and have 2 mothods of connection via a Homebridge or HOOBS 4 server. The driver have the follwing features:

• Easy setup with fully automated Homebridge/HOOBS 4 configuration and monitoring (Zero Touch)
• Single driver configuration that supports all project's devices in one place
• Project auto-sync when adding, removing, or renaming devices
• Supports a lot of devices in C4 and avail them fully in Apple Home
• Fast and reliable two-way feedback between C4 and Apple Home
• Local communication, i.e no cloud services

Devices Supported:

• Room Watch & Listen activities, including remote and volume control
• Light Switches, Dimmers, and Outlets including legacy C4 Dimmers/Switches with Color Wheel
• Advanced Lighting Scenes
• Programmable Virtual Switches and Buttons
• Relays
• Blinds
• Locks
• Garage Doors
• Doorbells
• Security Systems
• Thermostats
• Fan Speed Controllers
• Contact Sensors
• Motion Sensors
• Occupancy Sensors
• Smoke Sensors
• Carbon Monoxide Sensors
• Leakage/Water Sensors

https://drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/utility/home-connect-for-apple-home/

[JackD]

I'm getting pretty close to having my C4 system installed now. I'm very much an Apple ecosystem person and am interested in your perspective on the Finite Labs vs DTI HomeKit/Siri integration through Homebridge.  In particular I'm looking to expose Lutron RA3 keypad to the Apple Home app and also utilize RA3 virtual keypad to trigger Lutron scenes from Apple Home.  Also Hayward PL automation lighting control and DSC alarm contracts.  Wondering which if either will be easier for my dealer to install and manage.  I plan to do all programing routines myself with Composer HE.  Thoughts?

[Amr]

9 hours ago, JackD said:

I'm getting pretty close to having my C4 system installed now. I'm very much an Apple ecosystem person and am interested in your perspective on the Finite Labs vs DTI HomeKit/Siri integration through Homebridge.  In particular I'm looking to expose Lutron RA3 keypad to the Apple Home app and also utilize RA3 virtual keypad to trigger Lutron scenes from Apple Home.  Also Hayward PL automation lighting control and DSC alarm contracts.  Wondering which if either will be easier for my dealer to install and manage.  I plan to do all programing routines myself with Composer HE.  Thoughts?

I will try to share my views for FL vs DTI’s driver:

- HomeConnect is much cleaner and easier to handle

- Your dealer will love it! it’s a single driver vs DTI many sub-drivers to install and it does everything for him/you!

- It connects to your HB setup and installs the Plug-In, add enough bridges (limitation of Apple HK of 150 devices per bridge) and give you the whole thing in much less time

- Easier to add/remove end devices, etc

- Supports more sensors and device types than DTI’s

- Watch and Listen activities with volume control, DTI’s support Watch only with no volume control

- Supports Apple Native Dynamic Lighting, DTI does not

- Supports virtual switches and buttons

In a nutshell It will give you full control of entire C4 devices into Home App, so if you have Lutron integrated into C4 it will give you this ability if not then u need to find a plug in for Lutron into HB, it will control it from Home App only and you will not control it from C4, same goes for Hayward and DSC.

[cnicholson]

On 4/13/2023 at 6:04 PM, Amr said:

I will try to share my views for FL vs DTI’s driver:

@Amr Thanks so much for this.   Does the FL driver have the concept of child drivers per C4 room such that saying "Hey Siri, open the shades in here" will open the shades only in that room (assuming you have a HomePod mini in each room so that Homekit knows which room you're in)? 

Also, you mention virtual switches and buttons.  Does FL support these in C4 --> Homekit direction.  In other words, have C4 programmatically "press" a switch triggering arbitrary Homekit action (if you program it on the Homekit side)?  I use this with DTI to do some kludgy bi-directional stuff.

Thanks.

[Amr]

2 hours ago, cnicholson said:

@Amr Thanks so much for this.   Does the FL driver have the concept of child drivers per C4 room such that saying "Hey Siri, open the shades in here" will open the shades only in that room (assuming you have a HomePod mini in each room so that Homekit knows which room you're in)? 

Also, you mention virtual switches and buttons.  Does FL support these in C4 --> Homekit direction.  In other words, have C4 programmatically "press" a switch triggering arbitrary Homekit action (if you program it on the Homekit side)?  I use this with DTI to do some kludgy bi-directional stuff.

Thanks.

cnicholson, answers to ur questions:

- FL doesn’t work with child drivers; I consider this better for simplicity of setup, not sure even with the other driver I can use this for firing commands without adding room name first, but I think this can be done from home app itself, I didn’t need it but Derek might jump in and help with this

- Yes

[Derek]

Quote

Does the FL driver have the concept of child drivers per C4 room such that saying "Hey Siri, open the shades in here" will open the shades only in that room (assuming you have a HomePod mini in each room so that Homekit knows which room you're in)? 

This definitely works regardless of child drivers or child bridges. As long as you have your rooms setup correctly in Apple Home and a HomePod in each room it will work perfectly (I use this exact feature fwiw).

Quote

 

Also, you mention virtual switches and buttons.  Does FL support these in C4 --> Homekit direction.  In other words, have C4 programmatically "press" a switch triggering arbitrary Homekit action (if you program it on the Homekit side)?  I use this with DTI to do some kludgy bi-directional stuff.

 

Yes this is exactly how the virtual buttons work. You can create virtual switches that show up in Apple Home and are programmable in Control4.

I have attached the docs too which may help clarify the feature set.

Home Connect Documentation.pdf

[ekohn00]

Any idea how does this compare to the Varietas Driver?

I've been running Varietas since 2018 and not sure i've seen anything else that provides much more or worth looking at a change.

 

[Amr]

24 minutes ago, ekohn00 said:

Any idea how does this compare to the Varietas Driver?

I've been running Varietas since 2018 and not sure i've seen anything else that provides much more or worth looking at a change.

 

Take a look @  the supported devices above, what are u missing from it? I have varietas as well, but the Jason; while is easy; still a code to write and maintain and supports less number of devices.  I also use to have issues wth Blinds, not sure its fixed now or not.

[Ram Siva]

This is excellent. In the next few weeks, I will share some unique setups we have done with this driver. 

We explored the varietas driver in the past but as the previous posts stated above, much more limited vs this new finite labs driver.

Ram

Symmetron 

 

[Amr]

8 hours ago, Ram Siva said:

This is excellent. In the next few weeks, I will share some unique setups we have done with this driver. 

We explored the varietas driver in the past but as the previous posts stated above, much more limited vs this new finite labs driver.

Ram

Symmetron 

 

That will be cool, I had a lot of stuff with the driver as well and some involved some programing in Home App itself, one of the greatest uses cases ever is Geofencing, I do a lot with this alone