bcoman Posted September 1, 2010 Author Share Posted September 1, 2010 A lot of his equipment isn't compatible with 2.0.Dan,Is there a decoder ring that would help people avoid or choose the correct equipment in the after market? A frustration I have is trying to buy lighting solutions and run into the ZP issue.As far as my rant. I was trying to point out that the comment that an AMPLIFIER or similar "hard" connected device , that does not depend on ZP, should not be non-compatible with 1.7.4 systems. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henniae Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 Dan,Is there a decoder ring that would help people avoid or choose the correct equipment in the after market? A frustration I have is trying to buy lighting solutions and run into the ZP issue.Since C4 is a dealer sold, installed and supported system there is no comprehensive list of hardware compatibility available for non-dealers to reference. As far as my rant. I was trying to point out that the comment that an AMPLIFIER or similar "hard" connected device , that does not depend on ZP, should not be non-compatible with 1.7.4 systems. BrianIt is possible that the control protocol could have changed or a driver was changed.It could be that C4 does not want to build, test and support multiple different versions of software. Can you blame them. It takes resources to test compatibility of versions that are EOL. Many OS companies have withdrawn support for older software products so why should C4 be any different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsanf3 Posted September 2, 2010 Share Posted September 2, 2010 Warning: Rant to follow---It seems to me that if this Amp firmware was not designed to be backward compatible with a large installed 1.7.4 base. This is very poor customer support model. I work in designing chips for the internet and the one thing you are not allowed to do is break existing customer base. I would encourage Control4 do the testing and recoding to ensure backward compatibility to legacy devices. Especially devices that are cabled together with a LAN connection.BrianNo' date=' it's worst than that. A few weeks ago Control4 quit selling any hardware that is pre 2.0 on purpose to force everyone to update. When they did this, it was without warning, even dealers didn't know about this ahead of time. If I want to add a light switch, a remote or replace a controller, I have to upgrade to 2.0. Normally, I wouldn't care about updating to the latest software, but in this case - I do care. First of all, my whole house is ran off of a single HC300, if I update to 2.0, I would take a MAJOR performance hit. The new OS 2.0 UI is extremely slow, especially on single controller systems, hence the reason they came out with new HC300c with a more powerful processor. I've heard stories where 2.0 systems with a HC1000 are slower than older systems running on a single HC300. 2.0 - No Thanks. Second, If I update to 2.0, I might as well throw my 4 V2 remotes in the trash because they aren't upgradeable to zigbeepro. Control4 didn't put enough memory in them for the new firmware. Also, once again there's a performance hit when going to zigbeepro, for each hop the signal makes it is now decrypted/encrypted. Latency is now there when it wasn't before. Third, upgrade license for 2.0 cost $399 or I need to buy a new controller and run that as a master controller. In my case I'm better off spending the money on a new controller than wasting it on a "upgrade" license, with 2.0 I'm going to need it. I feel it's important to warn potential customers that Control4 has no problem with EOL-ing hardware at anytime so be prepared it might happen again.[/quote']7yrs with the same basic hardware isn't a bad run, try Win7 on 7yr old hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoman Posted September 2, 2010 Author Share Posted September 2, 2010 The analogy is not correct. This is the equivalent of buying a printer and it works fine. It dies and you buy the SAME printer with a new version or PRINTER firmware and it doesn't work. Then requires the user upgrade the computer, the monitor and the mouse.There are reasons to EOL a product line. How you do it will effect your customer's experience. Nuff said. Unless a C4 FAE is willing to explain the reason an Amplifier firmware upgrade would preclude the older systems from working we are going in circles. The GOOD thing to know is there is a factory firmware flash downgrade path, if your installer can get the factory to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xc420 Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Control4 4 Zone Amplifiers cannot be downgraded by USB restore or composer. They need to be sent back to Control4 or your local distributor for them to reflash the chip to lower firmwares if needed.Yeah that makes sense to allow distributors to rreflash equipment.Reflash the firmware through a JTAG port or some other means? It would be nice to get a hold of some of those older firmwares and software for reflashing' date=' specifically 1.7..4 for all the devices. I wonder if any switches can be reflashed and downgraded from zigbeepro?[/quote']duh - the firmware for all the 1.7.4 devices is not hard to find, it's already on the controller. I wonder how difficult it is to reflash a zigbeepro dimmer back to embernet or if it's even possible using the firmware from the controller. Has anyone done this? I don't have any zigbeepro dimmers but I would try it if I ever need to add some more dimmers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henniae Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 duh - the firmware for all the 1.7.4 devices is not hard to find, it's already on the controller. I wonder how difficult it is to reflash a zigbeepro dimmer back to embernet or if it's even possible using the firmware from the controller. Has anyone done this? I don't have any zigbeepro dimmers but I would try it if I ever need to add some more dimmers.C4 says it is not possible (i.e. supported) to flash a dimmer that has been upgraded to ZigBee Pro back to Embernet. That being said (and this is just the geek in me speaking) if you had the proper hardware and software from the manufacturer it seems feasible. I have to disclaim that I am not a hardware engineer so I could be full of it. If it was possible it might not be worth the effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xc420 Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 It's an atmega 128 and software for it is freely available. Atmel has a utility for reflashing it or you can use ponyprog. The Hardware needed is easy to make or you can buy it. The only problem is, it's a SMD - the pins are very tiny. I was hoping to see if there is a practical way to reflash this without the difficulty of soldering directly to the chip.I guess it's not possible unless you could re-program the ember 2420 too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecodeman Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 Or spend $130 and have a warranty and do something else with your time :-p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xc420 Posted September 25, 2010 Share Posted September 25, 2010 If I can buy embernet switches/dimmers new with a warranty then great. It's my understanding that you can't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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