chesterwilson

Do you want to be rich selling to the poor or poor selling to the rich? SnapAV will need to bridge that divide if they want to grow.

Excellent read and not a big surprise, except for SnapAV bidding against themselves.

Try 6321, 5010, those are pretty common ones also.

You should upgrade to 2.10. It is compatible with more Control4 equipment, adds control for Mac's and has an improved (non Windows 10) interface.

I'm not convinced that 3.0 to 2.10 is a downgrade from everything I have seen and heard! 😜

YES PLEASE to SIRI integration, now that is worth a controller upgrade.

I stand by my comment that there is nothing revolutionary or evolutionary about sending RS232/IR/Relay signals. The Control4 system as a whole is both revolutionary and evolutionary, sending basic signals by a slave controller, not so much. I'm glad that Control4 does everything in its power to not deprecate hardware. However, for whatever reasons some of which you have outlined, the HC250 is now useless beyond 2.10, 7 years after it was sold as a behind the TV I/O and OSD device. So what next? Buy an EA1 so it's EOL'ed in 4 years, again and again or just a buy a third party device that is less expensive and will perform the basic set of functions that people use the HC250 for? As to your comment: "tells me that you have some in-depth knowledge about Control4 hardware and software that I’m not aware of." I have been a Control4 customer for nearly 8 years and have referred many other people to Control4. A quick perusal of my posting history would have given you an idea of how much dumber I am then a Control4 engineer.

Sending IR/RS232/Audio/Relay/Zigbee signals shouldn't require updated hardware. There is nothing revolutionary or evolutionary about that function and Control4 has already shown that OSD can be disabled. There are a lot of ways to make money but forcing your customers to replace equipment that adds nothing to the customer experience is disingenuous.

Very true, except a Ring Door Bell doesn't cost $1k and require you to cut into your brick, cedar, aluminum siding.

Which begs the question. Why buy Control4 Door stations, touchscreens, speaker points and even slave controllers when it is such a huge deal for Control4 to maintain? They brag about supporting 13,500 third party devices, aren't we better off buying those whenever possible?

They make money on the sale of hardware, not really the sale of software. It's crazy when people throw out comparisons of upgrading your iPhone every 2 years. I use my iPhone more then my Control4 system in its entirety, let alone a touchscreen, controller, etc. Chalk it up as a lesson learned and minimize your investment in Control4 products. Whenever possible buy third party products. No more touchscreens, speaker points and controllers behind TV's for me.

I'm with you, it's crazy that a device that provides IR and Serial functionality needs to be replaced. Literally zero reason for Control4 not to have supported I/O functions. It's a pretty simple function, you don't need multiple iterations of controllers to perform such a function.

You could go the Ebay route and purchase not too expensive EA1's and touchscreens. If you have a lot of speaker points you could go Sonos and not worry about your OS upgrade being tied to your sound system equipment. Control4 supports 13,500 third party products, you might be better off buying cheaper tablets with wall mounts, I/O extenders, doorbell cameras. I get questions on my system all the time because of my touch screens. It's kind of a showcase for the product, but they will be being replaced by sheet rock now. There is no way I'm spending $1k a screen every five years, this is not an iPhone. Bottom line, the less Control4 branded products you have the less you need to worry about swapping equipment every major OS release.

Ironic that it works with 13,500 third party devices but not its own HC250.

Since Speaker Points aren't supported in 3.0, what is the alternative? Triad One?