Blast from past: Nuvo Grand Concerto and Insteon switches via Control4

[cnicholson]

I have extensive Control4 system in my new main house and am enjoying it.  I also have a vacation home where I did the Home Automation work DIY using Insteon switches, Indigo control software (a Mac product) and custom interfaces to Nuvo Grand Concerto whole-house audio system (including meta data and controls using Nuvo in-wall keypads/displays). I did it with a bunch of AppleScripts and HTML interfaces for controls.   I know, right?  Super old.   I am considering trying to put in a Core 3 if I can preserve this old hardware (and redo the automations in Composer).  I see that there are Insteon and Nuvo drivers for C4.   Any "old timers" ever encounter these drivers and have experience using them?

I realize that this would be a million miles from best practices, but I sort of don't want to rip and replace 40 wall switches and 6 in-wall controllers for fairly limited benefit right now.  The main point is to have a common interface for main house and vacation house (for benefit of family and guests) and to allow me to rip/replace other gear (TVs, HDMI Matrix and AVR) using C4 drivers instead of having to revisit my 15 year old code that won't even run on modern Mac (due to legacy serial interfaces and software in the mix).

Any thoughts?  Shot in the dark, I realize.

[Amr]

2 minutes ago, cnicholson said:

I have extensive Control4 system in my new main house and am enjoying it.  I also have a vacation home where I did the Home Automation work DIY using Insteon switches, Indigo control software (a Mac product) and custom interfaces to Nuvo Grand Concerto whole-house audio system (including meta data and controls using Nuvo in-wall keypads/displays). I did it with a bunch of AppleScripts and HTML interfaces for controls.   I know, right?  Super old.   I am considering trying to put in a Core 3 if I can preserve this old hardware (and redo the automations in Composer).  I see that there are Insteon and Nuvo drivers for C4.   Any "old timers" ever encounter these drivers and have experience using them?

I realize that this would be a million miles from best practices, but I sort of don't want to rip and replace 40 wall switches and 6 in-wall controllers for fairly limited benefit right now.  The main paint is to have a common interface for main house and vacation house (for benefit of family and guests) and to allow me to rip/replace other gear (TVs, HDMI Matrix and AVR) using C4 drivers instead of having to revisit my 15 year old code that won't even run on modern Mac (due to legacy serial interfaces and software in the mix).

Any thoughts?  Shot in the dark, I realize.

All I can say is go for it! I had made the same investment on my Beach house (Mediterranean) in addition to  2nd beach house (Redsea) we have two beaches in my country! All are C4, I don’t regret for a sec, all great user experience is extended to those homes and it’s very comfortable across.

I can say, plan it, take it piece by piece until growing this beach house to be like your home one, or a smaller subset of it depending on what u need to do.

[Cyknight]

Nuvo integration for the amps was always perfectly fine, though it's been years since I've done one. Making keypads work and keeping track in C4 I remember was a painful setup but following the steps per driver docs was just slow and cumbersome not difficult.

 

Insteon... well dunno if @jackstone is actively monitoring the forums at the moment, but he'd be your best bet to know for sure. In my experience Insteon was just ... not good in and of itself. It always felt like a good idea poorly executed. Hard to explain why: I honestly can't really explain it beyond that it never felt like it was a completed product - as if it was always prototype gear? Anyway that's not the point here.

a) it worked OK as long as the Insteon setup was done well. That's no knock at all on the driver, as it was done well, but it's just not a great match...again see above, insteon just never felt 'right' even standalone to me - for details on the right insteon setup so you can check what you did vs what was needed see http://www.domaudeo.com/c4drivers.html

b) ever since Insteon went under (and resurfaced) I've honestly no clue if it's possible to link Insteon and C4 anymore - this is where Domeaudio may need to chime in.

[cnicholson]

@Cyknight, thanks.  Really appreciate the info.   Fundamentally, I know it is dumb to attempt this in 2023, but I still might go for it.