Zigbee Pro / 2007 compatible end devices

[GrIn]

Hi all

This is my first post - thanks to all for a really interesting forum, and what appears to be a helpful community.

I'll dive right in: I'm interested in building a home automation system around a Control4 HC-300 Home Controller, but using generic Zigbee 2007 end devices. I've spent a couple of months "lurking" on the c4forums, and have been surprised to find that no one seems to discuss combining the excellent Control4 controllers with cheaper Zigbee kit?

Please take a look here: http://www.net4homes.com/dimmers-lighting-and-appliance-control/

Wall switchers are $30, dimmers are $40, sensors are $50. The Zigbee to IR adapter is $70. The "gateway" product is $200, but the functionality is pretty basic - I do have a copy of the user manual and it's written in reasonable english, as is the user interface.

Some questions:

1. Will this work? The net4homes stuff is Zigbee2007 profile and my understanding is that it is Zigbee Pro compatible... will it work with Control4 in a "mix and match" environment?

2. I'm not an installer. I am an engineer though, and believe I could muddle my way through the technical stuff. Would I be able to find an installer willing to help me pull together a solution like this?

3. This seems like such an obvious alternative - in my experience, when something that seems obvious doesn't happen, there's an obvious reason why (which I'm yet to stumble upon!)

4. Would Control4 have a problem with this?

Any help / guidance / advice much appreciated.

Cheers

GrIn

[dmassart]

Cheaper yes, but is worth the extra head aches that you will get? Compatibility issues are the worse kind to solve. I checked out the link that you supplied, the amount of information was lacking. Is there a control 4 interface module and software? Sorry about being so negative, I am in information technology and have lived through too many compatibility issues, none being a good thing unless the two companies support each other.

[GrIn]

I guess that's one of my questions - to what extent does Control4 conform to the the generic Zigbee2007/Zigbee Pro specification, and if the conformance is high, does that mean that other manufacturers' kit that conforms will be readily compatible? By this I mean that if the net4home stuff conforms to the Zigbee2007 Home Automation specification (and so does the Control4 Controllers and kit) surely integrating this stuff wouldn't require any special interface module and/or software - you'd simply add each new net4home "end device" in the same way as you'd add the Control4 end devices to the 802.15.4 network?

The difference in cost is high enough for this to be something I'm keen to explore - $40 for a net4home dimmer versus $140 for a Control4 unit -i.e. for every 2 Control4 dimmers I get 7 net4homes units... which would mean I could probably afford to do my entire home.

Cheers

GrIn

[ILoveC4]

You can't "add" a device without a driver, so you'd need to write two-way zigbee drivers for ask those devices. Control4 sure isn't going to supply drivers for you...not for those products.

[thecodeman]

If they were partner products like card access, the door locks, smart meters, etc. it would be much easier but at this time I would expect 0% compatibility.

[RyanE]

I would not expect them to be compatible, mainly because at the current time, Control4 requires that devices implement the 'Large Network Specification', which specifies some stack parameters that Control4 requires, mainly because Control4 ZigBee networks are larger than many installations.

I don't see anywhere on there that says that they're HA (Home Automation) profile devices, either, and Control4 will only talk to HA devices.

RyanE

[GrIn]

I'm a little disappointed - from all of your comments it seems this is very much a closed, proprietary system. In my experience a company can come to dominate a market in hardware (Intel), in software (Microsoft), or in creating "ecosystems" (Apple)... I can't think of any examples of one player dominated all three spaces... Apple comes the closest but largely outsources hardware manufacturing (and allows a vast amount of "compatible" products to exist within it's ecosystem). For me, this looks like a dead-end strategy (and I know that comment is going to go down like a lead balloon in this community!) - if ZigBee is going to end up a dominant wireless standard like WiFi and Bluetooth, I'd rather invest my hard-earned cash in "open" technologies, where I have some faith that I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket. What happens when/if Control4 goes belly up, and we're all left with bucket loads of proprietary kit?

Please take my comments in the spirit they're intended - I'm new to the world of Control4 and Zigbee, but have lots of painful experience investing in exciting technologies that ended up being deadends!

Cheers,

GrIn

[ILoveC4]

Control4 interfaces with TONS of third party products, including a bunch of zigbee ones.

Just because they don't work with products from this one company has you upset? Plus, if they did go out of business (which I certainly don't think they will), it isn't like your system would quit working...

[mercedes]

It is closed from a driver point of view, but even 2.x helps with that. The statements about Zigbee that Ryan was making are industry standard not Control4 driven. Control4 determined how they would utilize Zigbee and they can connect to those devices to are compatible with their approach. They did not create Zigbee to limit us as users. Certification of devices on a network is also not new to the tech industry. A poorly designed/implemented device can bring instability to an entire system. Someone adds a bad Zigbee device to a C4 network and the network becomes unstable. C4 gets the bad press not the manufactures of the device.

[RyanE]

Control4 is by far one of the more open systems as far as HA goes.

It's not open-source, but the SDKs to create drivers and apps are freely available, and Control4 *loves* having partners, even those like Lutron, Vantage, LightTouch, etc., who in one way or another somewhat compete against Control4's lighting solution, or other solutions.

Control4 can't make everything, and has a very compelling solution for partners.

I'm sorry that in this one particular instance, the lighting modules probably won't work seamlessly with Control4. It's just that if devices don't support the 'Large Network Support' type functionality, they won't work well in a Control4 network, which is typically a large ZigBee network. The things that partners need to implement to be compatible are not patented, are not secrets, and are provided for anyone who wants to make their particular ZigBee devices work on a Control4 network.

RyanE

[alanchow]

We have integrated Dynalite, Clipsal CBUS, HPM icontrol into the control4 home automation system and as RyanE says they are competing products against the Control4 lighting system.

As other people have said Zigbee is not a propriatary communications protocol. In fact to give you an idea of how open Control4 is Control4 is in the process of partnering up with Utility companies around the world to integrate Zigbee based power meters.