Cyknight

THIS is where dedicated touchscreens shine actually. They are always there on the wall. No grabbing phones, starting apps etc. You'll find it REALLY isn't hard to use mind you - anyone from my (well used to be) techno-phobic wife to my 3 year old can do it.

^Hello Mrs Jay-Hawke It sounds like you want to have hands-on CONTROL of the thermostats, in which case NEST would NOT be what you are looking for.

It really depends on what you WANT. -Do you want to have manual control (regularly) over your thermostat -Are you intending to hang OTHER programming off of HVAC state or temperature. Nest's ability to 'sense' if you're home at off times is limited depending on location - and this can easily enough be done much better using C4 and your door and motion sensors. And while the 'learning' portion is neat - realistically you can simply program any t-stat to a schedule, it's not as if it will change often. Nice with the nest is the estimated energy reports you can get. Also note that there are alternative thermostats that can combine some of the options, and give you others, such as Ecobee and Honeywell Lyric that integrate very well (3rd party paid drivers). Perso9nally, I took out my Nest and went with C4. Integration is just better and I did and do not require any other 'specials' preferring C4's battery life (and general battery operation ability) and exterior sensor options over the others. There is no 'default' wrong choice here - but it will all depend on what you're looking to get out of it.

-1 Yes, though if the Nest is in away mode, you first have to get it out of there (which is by the way the one command the NEST WILL accept in away mode) -2 Hm. Well yes it does, but to be honest I'm unsure if you can program off of it. -3 No -4 No

Vantage is fine for lighting only. Better than Control4, not really IMHO though they obviously have a longer track record in Panels. Not worse though. Depending on wiring you could just do vantage panels, then use the keypad locations to put in C4's wireless keypads creating both zigbe and better integration into C4 if that is what you want. You'll end up more expensive though - you're doing things twice Outside of lighting/hvac/relay control Vantage pales besides c4 - it seems to treat A/V as peripheral products that they don't truly care to deal with.

If there are to be apps - assume it will NOT be anything like google play. It's running on an android OS but that in NO WAY means it running what you're seeing on your phone.

I don't disagree and suspect we'll see some of that. Apps....I'm the least certain of - though I'm also not CERTAIN it won't come.

We'll see them someday...maybe...or not

There is no need to use the RTSP protocol, FORGET IT EXISTS in regards to Control4 - you need to setup the camera for mjpeg and/or h264 streaming.

RTSP is a protocol for establishing videostreaming sessions - not an actual 'stream' of video or a video codex. Thus there would never be a 'driver' for RTSP stream - but as mentioned above there ARE generic drivers that can capture many streams.

The 'playing' is done by a controller. The music for direct use shows up under 'my music' on an interface. To do what you want you'd have to create a room, have that amp driver be the room endpoint (it's possible to do this without by the way as a controller can be an endpoint if desired, still needs that setting done though!) Then yes you can program that, you'd go room->play stored media->song/disk/playlist however you'd want to do it.

Yes and Yes. For the first - the system needs to be 'aware' that there is a location to send something to. For the second, the system needs to be 'aware' there's a place to send something from.

The big issue that they potentially heavily bog down controllers. Timers are much safer options than WHILE statements. Plus Timers can be 'manually' stopped if required with a custom button, schedule et al. Examples of issues: WHILE light is ON ...and then that light senses an overload and goes into protection. You'll have NO way of remotely cutting the loop. WHILE TV current input is... someone manually changes the input... Careful use can be fine, but there are perfectly good alternatives available for almost ANY situation - using timers, start/stop commands vs pulse and so-on. Even something like WHILE security is in alarm state toggle light delay 1 second Why bother? Just do WHEN security goes to alarm state Start 1 second timer When 1 second timer expires When security alarm state cleared Stop timer Yes that's more lines, HOWEVER that WHILE statement is VERY likely to have created a back-log in the system and will likely continue to toggle the light for several seconds, in somne cases several minutes or even longer. Even on your motion, the WHILE statement is sending constant light on traffic across the ZigBee mesh - both from the motion potentiatlly, but for sure the light. Using timers there only sends occasional traffic - basically only once when you turn the light on, and once when you turn it off. I won't say it's WRONG to use WHILE statements, but it should be used with caution if at all. The alternatives, while a few extra lines of code, are often simply better.

Because (I'm assuming based on the registration question!) its the MAIN controller you're talking about - without that identified, there's no system to log into. If this isn't the main controller - my apologies - then yes it can certainly be done. Though in that case there'd be no need to register either.

Apart from anything else - identification of the main controller unfortunately Has to be done on-site. VPN offers some ability there if available. Find Neil in the user list and send him a Pm, he may have the setup for it - I'm quite literally stuck on a jobsite for the foreseeable future

Yes, the controller needs to be identified before it can be registered, yes Pro is required for ID, yes you can do registration from HE.

Figured I'd post this: https://www.houselogix.com/shop/blue-iris-nvr I'm assuming it's the same Audio Obsessions

Should be fine, though I dislike running the exact amount of conductors I need. Plus you might end up considering wanting to get RGBW (needing 5 conductors) - RGB set to white tends to, well not be really white.

Any microphone that you can in some way output line-level 'could' be plugged into a matrix or amp, and programming on a button done to switch desired zones to that input.

While a great driver, this still isn't a live voice broadcast.

Nope.

The Enttec I can confirm (or DMXking eDMX with the same driver ) you can.

Or, if you only want on/off on the white, use a relay for the white to begin with - free drivers are available to have it show as a light.