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Why Sonos Maintains a Closed Architecture


tebery

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Sonos says “We want to guarantee the user experience,” Many companies have made statements like this.

Sounds like a line from the C4 play book in response to: "Why is Control4 a dealer only install product ?" :lol:

All joking aside though, it is valid.

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As a customer I feel like I have exactly the same insight into Control4 as I do Sonos. If I want extend and customize either, I have to reverse engineer the protocol between a controller and the system, then write some software to control it. Sonos' protocol is not too hard to reverse engineer... really!

Now, it might be that Sonos is not providing a nice SDK that enables someone to write less code to interact with their stuff, but neither is Control4. So what's the big deal?

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^ Don't start him up again ..... please .....

+1

Geez Guys...:rolleyes:

Just go and look and use the product in the flesh..

Well over 25' date='000 people (that's simply the base no of registered users on their forum) can't all be wrong.....

Oh and Philips seems to think so too.....[/quote']

I don't know where I would go look at the product, and frankly I don't want to (please don't take offense). My distributed audio with Control4 does everything I need it to do.

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+1

Geez Guys...:rolleyes:

Just go and look and use the product in the flesh..

Well over 25' date='000 people (that's simply the base no of registered users on their forum) can't all be wrong.....

Oh and Philips seems to think so too.....[/quote']

I don't know where I would go look at the product, and frankly I don't want to (please don't take offense). My distributed audio with Control4 does everything I need it to do.

Hey. No offense taken.:) ...but I'm startin' to feel like the "microphone guy" from One Treet Hill...all left out in the cold with no one to go out with....:D

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The difference is, Control4 works with partners to help them integrate into Control4's system. Sonos does not.

Now, you can argue that from an end users' point of view, its the same (no access to Control4 / Sonos' SDKs), but at least Control4 *has* SDKs.

RyanE

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That's news to me. What do the SDK's do, and how can we sign up to build apps with them?

I'm hoping the answer isn't "become a dealer", because "software developer" != "dealer".

Become a Control4 Partner, most likely.

"The rapidly growing Control4® Partner Ecosystem includes leading manufacturers such as Black & Decker, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony, as well as industry leaders in energy control, home security, smart lighting, and other smart home device categories. Would you like to join them? Visit www.control4.com/partners or contact us at partners@control4.com."

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Hi guys,

I just signed up for this forum today after visiting Control4's booth at CES and seeing some of their new stuff. I know very little about Control4, but have used several other control systems. I have a standalone HTML/AJAX page that controls a sonos player 2-way using XMLHTTPRequest commands (standard AJAX stuff). Would it be possible to drop this HTML into a web browser and display it on a control 4 touchpanel?

I can currently do this easily in Savant which embeds the locally stored webpage in a Webkit browser (file:///Users/vince/sonoscontroller.html), and have done similar pages with RTI + a mini webserver (since RTI can't host the pages locally).

Is it possible to do something similar with a control4 system? What browser is it?

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That's news to me. What do the SDK's do' date=' and how can we sign up to build apps with them?

I'm hoping the answer isn't "become a dealer", because "software developer" != "dealer".[/quote']

Become a Control4 Partner, most likely.

"The rapidly growing Control4® Partner Ecosystem includes leading manufacturers such as Black & Decker, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony, as well as industry leaders in energy control, home security, smart lighting, and other smart home device categories. Would you like to join them? Visit www.control4.com/partners or contact us at partners@control4.com."

How are individual programmers that want to create drivers and sell for $5 - $50 going to join the ranks with Panasonic, Pionner, Sony, Black & Decker, LG Electronics, etc... Programmers interested in doing this aren't "industry leaders in smart home device categories".

If they want this app store to flourish at all the need a developers program.

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From the software development side, what does someone have to do? Learn Linux? Or another specialized language? I'd really like to get into this stuff. I've done programming before ( Ok it was in the dark ages of punch cards and tape backups!)...but this 4store idea is the best thing Ive heard about in homeautomation in years. Anyone know a good course or online uni school you can do?

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I am pretty sure it is all done in Flash' date=' which is no easy thing to "pick up". From what I have seen programming in Flash is pretty intense to say the least, but I am no programmer.[/quote']

How about another 'Howdoi' on C4central. ( How do I become a 4store app developer) ?

Apparently you missed my post about three posts up asking how someone can become a 4store app developer?

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I am pretty sure it is all done in Flash' date=' which is no easy thing to "pick up". From what I have seen programming in Flash is pretty intense to say the least, but I am no programmer.[/quote']

How about another 'Howdoi' on C4central. ( How do I become a 4store app developer) ?

Apparently you missed my post about three posts up asking how someone can become a 4store app developer?

Sorry Dan. Darn iPhone. Now there's another idea... a C4central and C4forums iPhone app... OMG I love this stuff!

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Is it possible to do something similar with a control4 system? What browser is it?

It's possible to control your sonos player but you need to make a driver using control4's Driverworks SDK. There is no browser.

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That's news to me. What do the SDK's do' date=' and how can we sign up to build apps with them?

I'm hoping the answer isn't "become a dealer", because "software developer" != "dealer".[/quote']

Become a Control4 Partner, most likely.

"The rapidly growing Control4® Partner Ecosystem includes leading manufacturers such as Black & Decker, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony, as well as industry leaders in energy control, home security, smart lighting, and other smart home device categories. Would you like to join them? Visit www.control4.com/partners or contact us at partners@control4.com."

How are individual programmers that want to create drivers and sell for $5 - $50 going to join the ranks with Panasonic, Pionner, Sony, Black & Decker, LG Electronics, etc... Programmers interested in doing this aren't "industry leaders in smart home device categories".

If they want this app store to flourish at all the need a developers program.

Because until this happens:

There is currently no developers program, but that may change going forward, after the app SDKs are actually available.

RyanE

I don't know of any other way, other than becoming a dealer - and we're just speculating.

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