Snap VS JoshAI

[Control4Savant]

Snap and JoshAI just entered into litigation over remote IPs…. should be interesting. 

[pkkaiser]

I guess John.ai won't be using the microphone on the Halo remotes anytime soon...

[RAV]

Summary of the suit:

1. We paid 10 million for Neeo, and integrated their people. Designed a new version.

2. Their primary people left us and started a competitor using our tech, in violation of an exit agreement.

3. Copying our design to the point of quoted comments it’s the same thing.

4. We told them to stop integration to our platform and use of trademarks, they stopped the promotion but Snap was forced to break the integration.

5. Josh AI and Control4 had agreements to work together to integrate the two platforms, including software. (including no working behind and around our backs)

6. Knowing all that AVA and Josh AI got together

7. Releasing the Josh Remote

8. Both remotes are copies of our patents, tech, design, and confidential property

9. Bad blood, Josh AI had an agreement to have dealers buy from Snap, Josh circumvented. Made other agreements with a buying group, refused to accept product back, and finally bought back at 50% off.

10. We asked nicely, now were suing.

[msgreenf]

Go Snap

[therockhr]

Since c4 and snap are on the outs I don’t think I will get flamed for saying I think Josh.ai is a real weird product. Always felt like they paid trade websites and publications to say how great the product is. It’s voice control. Alexa can do the same thing. Maybe Josh has a few extra features but nothing worth the cost. 
 

voice control is not a standalone product. It’s a feature of a product. It makes sense that they are trying to become a control system. 

[RAV]

7 minutes ago, therockhr said:

It makes sense that they are trying to become a control system. 

Josh is a control system, have always been, and state that clearly.
They were founded to remove the processor, and reliance on dealer programming.
But they only function with a small sandbox of products, and rely on others to expand and bridge the chasm left by.... they have no processor nor reliance on dealer programming.

Having a TV remote was a way to close the gap a little.

[BY96]

 

43 minutes ago, RAV said:

7. Releasing the Josh Remote

So it is the NEEO shape without any physical buttons? You would think they would have at least learned from Control4's move to the Halo Touch that people want physical control buttons. I had not realized how much I missed them until I swapped a Halo Touch for the NEEO. 

https://www.josh.ai/remote/

[therockhr]

2 minutes ago, BY96 said:

 

So it is the NEEO shape without any physical buttons? You would think they would have at least learned from Control4's move to the Halo Touch that people want physical control buttons. I had not realized how much I missed them until I swapped a Halo Touch for the NEEO. 

https://www.josh.ai/remote/

having a dedicated handheld remote without buttons that needs to be used without taking your eyes off the device you are trying to control is absolutely silly. dedicated tablets that arent meant to be held in your hand for long are fine but a remote that is being used to browse a big screen needs to have physical buttons.

[wnpublic]

52 minutes ago, RAV said:

Summary of the suit:

1. We paid 10 million for Neeo, and integrated their people. Designed a new version.

2. Their primary people left us and started a competitor using our tech, in violation of an exit agreement.

3. Copying our design to the point of quoted comments it’s the same thing.

4. We told them to stop integration to our platform and use of trademarks, they stopped the promotion but Snap was forced to break the integration.

5. Josh AI and Control4 had agreements to work together to integrate the two platforms, including software. (including no working behind and around our backs)

6. Knowing all that AVA and Josh AI got together

7. Releasing the Josh Remote

8. Both remotes are copies of our patents, tech, design, and confidential property

9. Bad blood, Josh AI had an agreement to have dealers buy from Snap, Josh circumvented. Made other agreements with a buying group, refused to accept product back, and finally bought back at 50% off.

10. We asked nicely, now were suing.

thanks for the summary.  Should be an interesting one.  The noncompete is probably not a great claim, they are really tough to enforce, but if actual IP found its way into the product, that's a problem.

[Cooper]

I think Control4 could come out with their own voice assistant. They could put it on the Halos.

[zaphod]

2 hours ago, therockhr said:

having a dedicated handheld remote without buttons that needs to be used without taking your eyes off the device you are trying to control is absolutely silly. dedicated tablets that arent meant to be held in your hand for long are fine but a remote that is being used to browse a big screen needs to have physical buttons.

This is exactly why I still prefer the older SR remotes to the Neeo.  I need to be able to use the transport controls without looking for when I watch sports as I ride the FF and SkipFwd buttons constantly when watching sports, which is 90% of my TV watching.

[shawkyns]

Outs or not, I just hope that Josh will be supported by control4 or Snap going forward.  I had this put into my house a year or so ago, and find it really opens the system for use.  My wife was not a huge fan of control4, found it confusing at times.. she loves just being able to tell josh to 'play music in the backyard', or to turn off all the lights in 5 minutes and not have to go to a touchscreen and mess with the hierarchical controls to adjust the 7 thermostats we have in the house.  using alexa or even siri, which we did for a time, is just not the same.

[Dueport]

Very concerned about this turn of events - we just added Josh this year to our system and will not be happy if the integration with C4 eventually breaks as a result of this litigation and tension between the companies. At the very least, I don't see additional development happening now which is not cool because, honestly, Josh has been a bit of a let down and needs a lot more development on its own (let alone with strengthening the C4 integration).

It is possible the issues we have with Josh are from improper configuration by my local dealer who may not be familiar enough with the system despite being a Josh dealer (we were their first Josh system). But I have to say there are basic frustrating issues with Josh - the best example being response to the wake word: whether we're using a Nano in the wall or a Micro sitting on a counter, Josh often doesn't wake to the wake word and you have to shout at the device several times and go right next to it. We have the sensitivity settings turned up and all of that, it just isn't even remotely as responsive to the wake word as other devices like Siri on the iPhone (and that's otherwise a low bar). There are many other examples of Josh not being fully baked (often a request for a specific song or artist from Tidal results in very wrong results being played; unable to play SiriusXM stations consistently; unable to tell you the weather for more than today (not a bug but an example of basic things not being a part of the feature set); very poor handling of streaming services (Netflix is the only one it can actually search in our system); very poor handling of distributed audio/video (gets confused all the time trying to open apps on Roku for example); etc). We've also found that it isn't nearly as intuitive as Alexa despite that being one of the primary selling points: example - "Josh announce XYZ" works but "Josh in the kids room announce XYZ" throws an error; another example - "Josh play the station Symphony Hall from SiriusXM" plays that station in the room but if you say "Josh play the station Symphony Hall from SiriusXM in the [name of a different room]" it throws an error. The way Josh is marketed they make it sound like this is an advanced AI system that is able to parse through these sorts of basic variations of requests but in practice we're finding it very frustrating more often than not. I wish Josh would focus on fixing these issues and living up to the marketing rather than trying to be the next big control system. They have some really fantastic ideas (the Nano is a beautiful product; JoshGPT is a great new feature; and their concept of AI replacing much of the need for programming is a great goal) but I'm becoming increasingly concerned that the execution isn't there and may never be if they keep running to new things like remote controls. This new litigation between C4 and Josh doesn't give me any more confidence in the situation.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Dueport

[WhyPhy]

4 hours ago, Dueport said:

Very concerned about this turn of events - we just added Josh this year to our system and will not be happy if the integration with C4 eventually breaks as a result of this litigation and tension between the companies. At the very least, I don't see additional development happening now which is not cool because, honestly, Josh has been a bit of a let down and needs a lot more development on its own (let alone with strengthening the C4 integration).

It is possible the issues we have with Josh are from improper configuration by my local dealer who may not be familiar enough with the system despite being a Josh dealer (we were their first Josh system). But I have to say there are basic frustrating issues with Josh - the best example being response to the wake word: whether we're using a Nano in the wall or a Micro sitting on a counter, Josh often doesn't wake to the wake word and you have to shout at the device several times and go right next to it. We have the sensitivity settings turned up and all of that, it just isn't even remotely as responsive to the wake word as other devices like Siri on the iPhone (and that's otherwise a low bar). There are many other examples of Josh not being fully baked (often a request for a specific song or artist from Tidal results in very wrong results being played; unable to play SiriusXM stations consistently; unable to tell you the weather for more than today (not a bug but an example of basic things not being a part of the feature set); very poor handling of streaming services (Netflix is the only one it can actually search in our system); very poor handling of distributed audio/video (gets confused all the time trying to open apps on Roku for example); etc). We've also found that it isn't nearly as intuitive as Alexa despite that being one of the primary selling points: example - "Josh announce XYZ" works but "Josh in the kids room announce XYZ" throws an error; another example - "Josh play the station Symphony Hall from SiriusXM" plays that station in the room but if you say "Josh play the station Symphony Hall from SiriusXM in the [name of a different room]" it throws an error. The way Josh is marketed they make it sound like this is an advanced AI system that is able to parse through these sorts of basic variations of requests but in practice we're finding it very frustrating more often than not. I wish Josh would focus on fixing these issues and living up to the marketing rather than trying to be the next big control system. They have some really fantastic ideas (the Nano is a beautiful product; JoshGPT is a great new feature; and their concept of AI replacing much of the need for programming is a great goal) but I'm becoming increasingly concerned that the execution isn't there and may never be if they keep running to new things like remote controls. This new litigation between C4 and Josh doesn't give me any more confidence in the situation.

This is great real-world feedback.

I cannot stand the AVA remote and the lack of button and integrations. Based on the way if functions, I don't think it's much of a competitor to C4 Neeo/Halo remotes. It's a silver rectangular block with a touchscreen, but so are many other remotes from many other companies. I wonder if this is less about the AVA remote and more about Snap being concerned about Josh.ai becoming a legitimate competitor to Control4.

Does the Josh.ai / Control4 integration no longer work? If it does not, that's bad news for customers.

 

[Dueport]

37 minutes ago, WhyPhy said:

This is great real-world feedback.

I cannot stand the AVA remote and the lack of button and integrations. Based on the way if functions, I don't think it's much of a competitor to C4 Neeo/Halo remotes. It's a silver rectangular block with a touchscreen, but so are many other remotes from many other companies. I wonder if this is less about the AVA remote and more about Snap being concerned about Josh.ai becoming a legitimate competitor to Control4.

Does the Josh.ai / Control4 integration no longer work? If it does not, that's bad news for customers.

 

Glad to help - the Josh/C4 integration still works just as it always has. My concern is that, with this legal battle and icing of the relationship between the two companies, the integration between Josh and C4 may not continue to be developed/upgraded and thus wither on the vine as C4 OS continues to evolve. Or, possibly, if things got really bad between the two companies, the integration may be pulled entirely. To be clear though these are just my unfounded concerns given this situation - the integration currently works (with all the shortcomings of Josh I described previously).

[RAV]

It’s in neither companies interests to break anything.

The foundation of these are my proxy’s and device ids hasn’t changed for sometime. So stability should remain.

The main concern is Control4 dealers will not push new projects out of fear, and how that long term affects Josh future.

[Cyknight]

15 minutes ago, RAV said:

The main concern is Control4 dealers will not push new projects out of fear

Fear is a bit much, but yes Josh won't be integrated in new setups much if at all at this point.

 

Note that just because there's litigation that doesn't mean there isn't or won't be cooperation. There may not even be any real 'bad blood' at all between the two. This is COMPANY relations we're talking about, not personal relations.

 

[RAV]

Fear of it breaking, of finger pointing for support, of clients suing if it all goes bad. 

The profit no longer out weighs the liability.

Josh has to be sold. It’s all about the dealer belief in the product. Sell a few more shades or lighting, better return.

[cnicholson]

Sometimes, with disputes like this, the end result of the big company buying the little company.  I wouldn't rule this out.  

I think the C4 voice button on Halo would allow them to quickly integrate with any "smart speaker" system pretty easily, as the source of the voice audio stream input.  The hard part is the control backchannel.  In other words, Halo already can control the target device the same as if using the devices native voice remote.   To complete the loop, the target device needs a way to pass events back to C4.   I.e., in the Apple Ecosystem, a Homekit<-->C4 bridge.  You can do that today with third party drivers, but something officially supported would be awesome.

[Cyknight]

21 minutes ago, RAV said:

Fear of it breaking, of finger pointing for support, of clients suing if it all goes bad. 

The profit no longer out weighs the liability.

Josh has to be sold. It’s all about the dealer belief in the product. Sell a few more shades or lighting, better return.

Again, i don't disagree with the points as such, but I think 'fear' is too strong at this point. More like 'concern'

[JSTRONG]

11 hours ago, Dueport said:

 unable to tell you the weather for more than today (not a bug but an example of basic things not being a part of the feature set);

I just tested this. Hey josh what is the weather for tomorow. What is the weather for thursday, friday, etc.. it gave me the forecast for each day. 

[Dueport]

3 hours ago, JSTRONG said:

I just tested this. Hey josh what is the weather for tomorow. What is the weather for thursday, friday, etc.. it gave me the forecast for each day. 

Well I stand corrected - I just tried this again and you're right if you do ask Josh what is the weather "tomorrow" or a specific day of the week he does respond correctly so that is good. However, the origin of my original comment is still an issue: if you ask Josh "what is the weather this weekend" or "how does the weather look this weekend" he responds "I'm sorry I can't help with that yet." Curious if you get the same result asking the same phrases to your system? If so, I think this is an illustration that the system is not as intuitive and intelligent as it is marketed - hopefully it can get there eventually.

[cdcllc]

On 8/14/2023 at 3:53 PM, BY96 said:

So it is the NEEO shape without any physical buttons?

Huh - a remote with no physical buttons.  I wonder what the difference is between that and an iPhone?  I have a new regular Halo and really like it. I’ve been thinking about buying a touch, but I’m not sure if there is enough room between the regular halo and the iPhone app to make enough difference.

[JSTRONG]

The touch is cooler than the halo. I like the feedback it shows. I also prefer a remote with buttons. Although that pronto remote was the best 

[Cooper]

Control4 just removed advertising for Josh AI on their website under Voice Control.

https://www.control4.com/solutions/voice-control