Remote acces C4

[kobevdp]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the Control4 world and I'm testing something. My question is more focussed on the network side.

I would like to have access to my control4 app with my mobile phone anywhere else. But I don't want to give 100 euros every year to 4sight. So I heard that you can also do this through a router with VPN, so I bought a tp-link er605.

I have configured everything for this, I also did my port forwarding. I can use the VPN server with my mobile phone when I'm on the network at home, but I can't get on mobile data outside of the home.
 

Is there something wrong with the port forwarding? Or is there something else wrong?

Thanks in advance!

[msgreenf]

Do not have to do port forwarding to the open internet. A VPN and port forwarding are two very different things

[kobevdp]

What is the best thing to do?

[msgreenf]

buy connect

[Matt Lowe]

Pay for 4sight or Buy connect are your best options to use its outside the home.

Doing a vpn or port forwarding is not easily doable due to the way the app connects to the controller.

pre os3.0 this was easier.

there is a 3rd party drivers out there that let you do emails and push notifications outside of need the subscription, but you need to pay for them.

 

[shimms]

A reliable VPN that just works from mobile devices can be tricky to get right as others have said. I used that at first since I was happy with the technology side to support it (WireGuard client on my phone in my instance), but it had zero support from the family.

As others also mentioned, you also can’t use notifications, intercom anywhere etc without either a 4sight or connect subscription, or Apple Music if that’s relevant for you.

As our usage of Control4 evolved, getting 4sight became the easiest and most beneficial way to do this and we’ve ditched the VPN for remote Control4 access.

If none of this matters to you, then a VPN will work, but given the initial comments about it working from inside the LAN but not remotely, and using port forwarding, I think it might be slightly too specialised for your current networking knowledge. Getting it wrong can have serious security implications to your network, especially given what control4 can see and control.

Also I’d highly recommend turning off port forwarding immediately - there is almost no need for it nowadays, and certainly not for using a VPN for remote C4 access. You could have some open-to-the-world security issues right now. 

[Popolou]

To echo others, if you want the least troublesome setup, get 4sight. It provides for far more than simply accessing your home from outside and you will rapidly come to appreciate the benefits.

If you insist on using a vpn, the only port forwarding required is to allow for the remote connection over the WAN to the VPN router - sounds like you haven't done this. Assuming it is OpenVPN, that's TCP 443 and UDP 1194. Then, assuming you can connect into your home network (ignoring the usual ISP IP hurdles) you need to make sure that the IP your router allocates VPN clients is a routable subnet on your network otherwise you will not be able to reach the director. Without knowing more about your setup, those would be the most likely causes preventing it from working.