turls

10 hours ago, DLite said:

Do you use the announcements feature with the C4 Sonos driver? If so, you'll get better announcement functionality with the Port -- you no longer are forced to put your announcements in the favorite list for them to be pushed to your Sonos device.  Not exactly a headline feature, but it's worth something, if you're almost on the fence about it anyway.

I don't currently, but I was looking at doing more with announcements, so good to know.

I don't have a new enough controller to have control on my TVs anymore, but I'm pretty sure that has been a common complaint and supposedly it it going to get added at some point.  It was discussed when OS3 came out here, not sure what search terms would find it.

Master Bath and bathrooms in general.  Closets also.

13 hours ago, EverAction said:

You can't upgrade, S2 doesn't support ZP90. So if that's your only device, you're sticking with S1.

I'm asking is there a reason feature wise to upgrade to the ZP90 successor--the "Port" so I can take advantage of current and future S2 enhancements.  Considering my use case I mean.  Surely there is some great new feature that justifies the purchase of a Port in S2 right?

The next question is in a C4 environment where I am just using the ZP90 as a source for whole-house audio matrix is there any reason I need to upgrade, since the ZP90 isn't going to be getting upgrades going forward?  They're offering 30% off an upgrade and with Sonos not allowing discounts I think that is the best I will see.

18 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

My guess is that the SR260 will be around for quite some time to come - it works, so why dump it.  However, I also don’t see an SR270 in the future (I’ll probably be proven wrong and they will launch it tomorrow ). I expect to see a second generation Neeo with backlit buttons, maybe one or two button changes, and a lot more horsepower.

You asked for speculation!

It seems to be me that SR250s have been more reliable long-term than SR260s from anecdotal evidence of the screen issues.  Too bad they can't address that problem with a hardware revision.

1 hour ago, control4set said:

do i have to use control 4 amps? What about a mponolith amp?

There are generally integration options for almost any brand of equipment, unless they are blocking integration by hiding the API or some such nonsense.

Update: I found something I either missed in 2018, or the Sprinkler Timer Experience driver was updated.   You can program off of on / off in the Sprinkler Timer Experience driver (this driver treats each zone as a control relay) for each zone.  I previously only saw "selected" or by time left.  They are at the bottom (see screenshot) so I guess I could have missed it, it wouldn't be the first time I've been stupid about programming.

To try to workaround the controller de-association I am running into on the Blackwire driver, I've moved all my on-off programming (for my leak detection override) to the individual Sprinkler zones.  I guess I will probably still lose the bindings when the controller de-associates and everything will break again, but I'll give it a shot as something different to try. 

I did leave the "all off" programming in the Blackwire driver as kind of a secondary precaution to my Flologic leak detection being left in an override state indefinitely.

And I searched all old posts with "Rachio" and "Blackwire" and can't find anybody else mentioning the recurring controller de-association issue...sigh

Wow...lost the population of the controller information just 4 days after I forced it to re-populate...so another night of partial irrigation (even though Rachio thinks it completed) and waking up to no water because of a false positive on a water leak.  Ticket opened.

Is this happening to anybody else?  I'll have to search old posts, but the only time I remember it mentioned was in @jfh post above mentioning moving to new controller and forcing a re-population.  I'm not doing hardware swaps, although I have had to reboot the controller some as I've been doing a lot of programming lately.  Something has to be triggering it losing the controller info.

18 hours ago, jfh said:

To answer my own questions for others - the setting migration in the Rachio ap during setup of the new controller was almost instantaneous.  Once that was done, I deleted the gen 1 controller.  In C4 just delete/add the last digit of the API key in the properties tab to update the controller info.  All programming info remained intact.

I have to do that on a regular basis (at least once a year even without any major system hardware changes), it's annoying but hopefully I have enough notes now I will remember to do it before it shuts off my water because it thinks my sprinkler system running is a leak.  Maybe by next year I will remember before it bites me...

13 minutes ago, zaphod said:

I believe that the Empire Tech may be rebranded Dahua cameras.  Here is a review from 2018 on that camera  https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/review-dahua-ipc-hdbw4231f-e2-m-dual-starlight-cam.28860/

It wouldn't surprise me if they are being sold under the Empire Tech brand due to the negative publicity that Dahua has received in recent years.  Both Dahua and Hikvision have been blacklisted by the US.

These cameras have been known to have back doors:

And they have been implicated of human rights abuses regarding surveillance of Uighurs in China.

Good link on the review.  That helps.  I knew about that forum but I haven't completely dug into it yet.

I realize there are concerns with the Chinese cameras.  I'm going to be using them with Blue Iris so hopefully I can minimize any risk.  And I already have a couple Amcrest (rebranded Dahua) and the driver for those, so I will probably rule those out before adding yet another brand to the mix (I already have ancient Panasonics internally and they aren't getting replaced right away).

I was kind of sold on the Empire Tech stuff that gets mentioned here a lot, but I see reports of poor support.  Anybody with recent experiences?

Also, anybody have any experience with the Starvis / Starlight models that have two cameras built into one housing?  Seems like it would be perfect for the corners.

Like this:

https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M-Starlight-Network-English/dp/B07JZBFTDF

I see some limitations listed that could be deal killers.

Thanks for all the responses!  Glad to see some of the great contributors here interested in helping me out.  Now the hard part--I need to choose...

I need some help getting 3rd party drivers purchased and installed.  Mostly from DriverCentral.io.

Please PM me if interested. 

3 minutes ago, Amr said:

Or get yourself a Xiaomi Android TV with IrSUB, works nice, not sure if HBO Max is planned for the Android TV!

Nah, done the Android thing, for streaming services no reason to go away from the three I mentioned.  Gave up on local content after having too many issues.

3 hours ago, gtfitz said:

Just to report back on what I ended up doing ... I ended up changing over to Roku completely and it’s one of the best decisions I have made! We can directly access all the Roku apps from Control4 and our remotes, the Rokus themselves work excellent (including the Roku soundbar), and I recommend switching if you can.

 

i do still have the Apple TV’s on a couple TVs for the sole purpose of screen casting from my iPhone but even that is far less necessary as Roku can screencast from many other devices of mine.

Until you have something like HBO Max come along and doesn't work on Roku...nice to have all three in my opinion, Amazon, Roku, and Apple.  All excel at different things.

I can confirm there are times that I run into this.  It normally shows up eventually though.

8 minutes ago, Amr said:

I contacted RoomMe a month ago and they are working on a new smaller version that will be available at end of the year, I will wait till the new hardware comes out, but that’s me. Am sure Alan’s driver is flawless, never got any driver from chowmain that is not performing.

Good to know.  That was the major hangup for me as well.

On 1/19/2020 at 5:49 PM, sonic30101 said:

Ordered and on its way to test. Will report back, a majority of the solutions I was seeing were commercial applications with high monthly fees due to advanced analysis that I wouldn't need though following someone through a floorplan would be really fun

On 1/29/2020 at 6:39 PM, jlemonakis said:

I have had 4 of them for a few months

Ok, any reviews?  Using Chowmain's driver I assume?

5 hours ago, cdepaola said:

We pay for all kinds of stuff as it is, whats one more thing.

The "one more thing" keeps growing exponentially is the issue.

They also need to fix the bug that has been around for a very long time that you can't see the favorites unless you jump to another tab and go back.

On 3/12/2020 at 7:41 AM, tdougray said:

As we're compiling a list we best add Apple Music so here goes:-

 

Apple Music  -   NO c4 integration 

 

There's a ton more if you include ones with NO integration at all...which mentioning them isn't all bad because it might be ones to avoid.  In my case, the advantages of Apple Music for family use outweigh the lack of integration for me, and besides that I like my Sonos Connect just fine for whole house use of Apple Music.

Speaking of that, I guess it was ok for Apple to add Apple TV+ to Roku, etc when that came out, but they haven't given the same wide support for Apple Music to third parties...I know its somewhat apples to oranges but still irritating...

I had missed the whole discussion about CallKit until today, that is some good stuff, I hope the dealers that have installed Intercom Anywhere are aware of this...

There are too many times where you just CAN"T have a phone going off and I never understood why this was the way it is...now I understand.

On 3/10/2020 at 6:17 AM, c4toys said:

in os3 I have xm stations on fav. page and they are always there... I don't remember how I was able to get them on the fav. page, but they are there and works.. I was able to get pandora station on fav. page as well

I'm talking about the Favorites menu inside of the SiriusXM app on the T3 touchscreens, not the ability to add certain stations as a Favorite on the main touchscreen menus.  Not sure which one you mean...

Napster doesn't get much love it seems, but I keep it for some unique features (they have a nice playlist creation tool based on existing playlists for one), but it baffles me that they don't have a better family plan option.  I haven't really tried the others on the list posted here (except Pandora) in C4 but integration is flawless.

SiriusXM missed making this list.  The biggest issue I have with it (I thought) was the Favorites would drop off.  But there is an easy workaround to go the stations menu and go back to the Favorites.  I think it is missing some integration of some of the internet-only channels as well.  And it should be able to play the on-demand content, not sure why as late to the game that C4 was to adding the integration that they left that part out.