brucecampbell

Yes, look at https://voicemonkey.io/
That service takes in an api request and triggers an Alexa routine (to play a sound, start music, say something etc)
I built a quick driver to send the api commands I wanted and it works well. 

No you can’t, I have an instant announcement playing through my zones speakers with a 🔔 press, there are several ways really to get this done without a screen or speakers:
-Axxess Zigbee Plug in Door chime; only caveat is incredibly expensive and yes I consider $185 expensive, https://www.axxind.com/smarthome/plug-in-chime/
- An Aussy company made a C4 WiFi doorbell costs Around $113 with shipping https://www.ebay.com/itm/203881538966?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=HjCAv6rcRAS&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=YQQgk-FWSuu&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
- Use Amazon WiFi chime, pretty cheap around $25~$40 but u need to write ur own driver for it to work and use undocumented API’s.
 

I like that.
Thinking I may make it a state variable.
Early - 1hr before sunrise
Morning - 7 to 10 (getting ready)
Day - 10 to 4pm
Afternoon 4pm to Sunset-30
Night - Sunset-30 to 10pm
Late - 10pm to 1am
Owl - 1am to 1hr before Sunrise

I've found it much more useful to use a variable and have that variable set by the scheduler.
I use two; Is_Dark and Is_Late (both boolean)
Is_Dark is true roughly between sunset and sunrise.
Is_Late is true between 10pm and sunrise.
Daily Schedule:

I then trigger a macro to do a bunch of stuff when each of these events is run, but basically they set the variables to true and false based on time of day.
 
I then use the variable in my event programming:

 
It means I don't have to keep adding time conditions all over the place when programming.
and my day/night moves with the seasons.
The reason for the second 'late night' option is so hallway and bathroom lights come on much dimmer later at night vs the early part of the night.
 
 

Any dmx interface is compatible with any dmx decoder .... that's why there's a dmx protocol to begin with 🤣
 
The free driver is, well, free - and is OK if all you want is basic on/off control (dimming isn't too smooth mind you), but the Domeaudio (as sold via Blackwire) driver and compatible interface is FAR superior for 'scene' control.

Yep - I followed the instructions on my iPhone and still could not figure it out.
now I know, it's simple
just getting to the 'full screen' of the song that is playing was the issue, I usually just have it display at the bottom of the app (Mainly due to not even knowing it expanded further....
 

Thanks Rob21.
That was much harder than it needed to be..... I could not see the forest of the trees.
I had never made the 'now playing' full screen in the C4 app, I always had song, volume and prev/pause/next buttons showing on the bottom third of the screen.
A simple touch of the cover art and I now see the screen you have posted.
Magic.
 
 

This picture should help. Tap the button I circled. 

Yep we tested on a few amcrest units as well.

Our Dahua driver will allow you to send push notifications with snapshots whenever you want.  Just do it in programming.

You should be able to.  
I push and / or email snapshots to myself under different circumstances (e.g. gate stuck open for more than a minute, 2 movements sensed within my driveway within a minute if none of the following are open: gate, garage, front door.  This is turned off for the hours that the gardener is working etc.)

Big facts. Sometimes it's instant. Sometimes huge delay, "that device isn't responding", and boom - the light then turns on. Haha

My response times are still very slow on the native C4 Alexa integration.  I suspect it depends in part where you live.  Would really love to see this fixed as a “…not responding” message following a long wait and followed by the action actually being taken is frustrating!

I also recommend Reolink - very inexpensive and have very good zoom lens.   I also have used the amcrest ones.  Yeah, they are repackaged, but if you need a good zoom, they have a $300 PTZ with a huge zoom. 
For an NVR, I'm using a Synology box with 80TB.  26 cameras and running amazingly well.   Lousy C4 integration, but I kind of gave up on that working with any camera reliably. 
 

there is no range with Blue Iris.  It is software that runs 24x7 on your PC.  There are many threads on other forums that show the specs needed, but a ~$300 refurbished Dell PC is usually more than sufficient for a set up with 4-6 cameras.  Since it is ONVIF Compatible you can literally use 1,000's of IP cameras.
If you want cheap Wifi look at Foscam or Amcrest.  Most even have built in SD storage.  Even with wifi you still need to give them power so at that point if you can get ethernet its better to do PoE for the more reliable network connection

Agree with @TundraSonic to pick a NVR platform first.  
I am very happy with Blue Iris.  Though it integrates with C4 it is not required.  Blue Iris can do all the push / email notifications you want.  A cheap Refurb Dell PC will do the trick and now you have access to 1,000’s of cameras that you can mix and match.  
There are free and paid drivers for BI integration into C4.  Though most say the only integration is seeing a camera in Control4 that is incorrect.  With the paid driver I can do other things - the one big thing I do is have various cameras recording during various states.  For instance I have 2 indoor cameras that only record when the alarm is going off.  How does Blue Iris know that?  Blue Iris has 7 “sessions” or something and in each session you can pick which cameras are recording 24/7, which are recording snap shots, which aren’t recording, etc.  So let’s say “Session 5” is my alarm state, so when my DSC alarm is triggered, C4 tells BI to move to “session 5” and now my indoor cameras (and others) are recording.  When I am not in session 5 (alarm off, armed to stay or away) my indoor cameras are not recording.

You need to start w/ a DVR and then look at integration between the DVR and C4. We tried numerous (Dahua, Blue Iris, Unifi, and Synology). For us Security Spy was the overwhelming winner for both capability and reliability. 
The Security Spy C4 driver gives you some nice capabilities to see the cameras on C4 touchscreens like having the front door cam come up when the doorbell rings.  

It doesn't sound like your application would benefit from a Control4 integration in any way. The most popular reasons for integrating cameras are for easy viewing from C4 tablets, integration with intercom features, and potentially programming system events off motion or boundary crossing etc. 
It sounds like you need a pure security system that meets your surveillance needs first and foremost. 
So choose a camera system that does what you need first and then worry about integration if it adds convenience for you.
(I'm personally using UniFi Protect and love it, but hardly ever view the cameras in Control4)

The C4 camera integration is not great.  You can see camera feeds on your touchscreen and in the app, but the higher resolutions are not well supported..  You will not be reviewing motion events, etc. there - you will be using the camera system's native app.
A lot of dealers will steer you to Luma because it has OVRC integrated, but it is junk.  Unifi Protect is good, and there is a good third party driver in C4 for it that will give you motion events, etc. that you can program off of.  But that is a POE system, most of the good camera systems are.

i had to tweak a few settings - but I'm good now!

Can you just use the push notification? - they include the date and time in the message.
You would add the code to the 'when system reboots' - I do this but with a delay of a few minutes to make sure everything is back on line first
Sorry - I don't have composer in front of me to give exact terminology

Click on your project name in the programming actions tab.  That's where you'd put this programming, "when project loads".

Same. Although mine with a FireTV Cube. It was sending remote commands and turning off my TV after I was watching for about 10 min. Took me like 4 hours to finally realize someone programmed the smart remote features of FireTV after I ripped everything else apart one by one.
Was a stressful day and then one of those ahh ha moments.  
 

I had a similar problem which turned out to be chromecast triggering the TV to come on in the middle of the night when the wifi channel was turned off.
From memory, it was as simple as turning of CEC/device control over TV.
 

It is just a different voice interaction model.  Designed to be more intuitive, at least to me anyway     And you don't need the 4sight license if you don't use it otherwise.
 
"Alexa, set Watch to Cable" (just like the Watch button, substitute Cable for your C4 video source names) "Alexa, set Listen to Pandora" (just like the Listen button, substitute Pandora for your C4 audio source names) full examples in the docs at https://splash-tiles.com/help/alexa_c4.php