GregCAMS

Thanks for setting this up. I installed my first Micro in 2020 myself in the wall and had a remote dealer out of state help with the initial setup. It was a POE setup and must say didn't have any issues with the setup listed so far listed from the OP. Maybe mine is an outlier perhaps, I don't know. A few bullets from my experience based on the OP: I have opted to make Josh the front facing UI for at least the iOS app and the remotes (AVA Touch) in guest bedrooms for about 5 months now: We (wife and I) use the 6 Micro/Nano combinations 50-75 times per day for 4 years so it's part of our normal way of interacting with the home. Replaced 3 Halo remotes with the Josh (AVA Touch) remotes in guest bedrooms; so far the guests we have had much prefer them since they are used to using phones to control their DIY devices in their own homes. And they love the scenes function I programmed to the scene buttons with the associated iconography Josh provides Scene programming, adjusting and the visual interaction is much smoother, and engaging in our comparison (have had C4 since 2009 for reference) Scene programming is much more intuitive to program and adjust from my personal experience. I do light programming and have done some in Composer HE and needed a dealer tutorial on a few occasions for C4. By comparison I needed 0 for Josh and watched a 5 minute YouTube video on the scenes and natural language programming Verdict out on the remotes in common areas. Using Halo Touch in those areas but the battery life is terrible and at least 1 remote has to be restarted on average 3-4x per week after losing connection to the project. 1 other remote was RMA'd as it stopped working 2 weeks after receipt. I'm testing a Cinema remote next month to see how it compares and having the wife try it out since that'll have a heavy factor in deciding what path we go with it. I'd say the voice recognition and correct action has been 95% first time quality/correct. That wasn't the case in 2020 when we got the first Micro but it is certainly the case now. We did disable the wake beep on the Nanos but kept it on the Micros. On the Micros we have had 0 issues keeping it enabled but the Nanos are much better without the wake beep. I really like the visibility that the web portal provides. It has been invaluable in setup, adjusting and troubleshooting on my own without having to bother/engage with my dealer (they are great and don't need me bothering them all the time!) The music is the only current issue similar to what you are experiencing. I've sent my project into Josh to review for a short term solution. However, I was already planning to use Autonomic starting this summer as the primary streamer for the distributed audio. In talking with Autonomics lead engineer it will continue to work in the use case we have of programmed playlist keypads for guest bathroom zones, as well as the more ad-hoc music we use with app, voice, remote and eventually touchscreen interfaces. The keypads with music will remain a C4/Autonomic interface for those zones I have video surround speakers in 10 zones and 16 zones of dedicated music. In C4 I had to have separate zones (i.e. rooms) for those that had both (i.e. Living Room for everything except music and then a Living Room Music) in C4 which is a PITA. With Josh I didn't have to do that at all. They are treated as 1 zone (Living Room with a Living Room Music and a Living Room Video button). Love the Home page that gives me a status of all devices and the wife loves it as you don't have to go thru multiple button/menu presses to see what is active/on. The areas menu is better then before but not a game changer for me. However the Scenes is awesome as well as the nested way to group areas in the portal that show up in the app. Lastly the icons, stock photos, and photo import make the interface more refined IMO and on a similar level to that of Savant and Crestron. Support has been fantastic. Have e-mailed support or posted on a thread in the FB communities and an answer from the company comes back within minutes or less. Thankfully, my dealer is good and responsive on C4 issues but in firsthand observations, I've seen the extreme pain they go thru more often than not to 1) get someone from Snap on the line and 2) get a reliable answer. The Luma NVR was a case where they had 4 different tech reps give them 4 different answers until they were able to work thru to a reliable solution. Thanks for starting this thread. I still enjoy the reliability of Control4 and the interfaces it has for specific items and its interoperability. After 15 years on C4 it just no longer meeting the needs for us from a user interface and quick change / flexibility standpoints.

Interesting read from the NICE CEO on the contrast they are taking in the subscription model compared to what can be assumed to be Snap in this interview and their prior statements. Wondering how dealers that offer both NICE and Snap/C4 product offerings may factor this into presentation to prospective clients when showing them the total cost of ownership in addition to other feature set comparisons. https://restechtoday.com/nice-north-america-ceo-pushes-back-against-customer-direct-cloud-based-services/ https://restechtoday.com/nice-north-america-ceo-bertolini-clarifies-partner-pledge-announces-os-8-8-601-update/

sounds like the implementation may have had issues like you mentioned which is the case I had with C4 with prior 2 integrators before the current one that has worked to fix many control4 issues over last 4.5 years. The voice portion has greatly improved since we originally installed Micros in 2020. In our case we use voice commands on average 50-75 times per day based on my logs. Based upon a spot check of the data in my Portal we have about a 90-95% first time quality in the microphone on the device picking up the request whether it be scene triggering, discrete single device commands, compound device commands, and GPT style voice commands. I think Josh's foray into more control is a natural evolution and a means to grow revenue beyond a single product/service offering like any business in this era and even a push by any VC's that are funding the capital investments. The UI experience has been much better based upon myself, wife, kids, and guests so the consensus wins here!

that could be the approach they take, but would be running counter to many other control platforms that have embraced the interaction with Josh (Crestron, Lutron, and now Vantage) and the specific OEM hardware partners. At a time when they are trying to grow revenue in light of what their last few financial reports have shown wouldn't make much mid or long term strategic sense. For someone like myself that has spent in the 6 figures on C4 equipment over 12 years and readily upgrades when needed, they would lose out on revenue of similar minded folks if they cut off their interoperability. As mentioned, the front end user interface and reliability is what matters most for many customers, myself included. If they were to take that approach it only shrinks the pie of revenue as customers would look at moving to a different backend solution that Josh works with if Snap/C4 were to cut off. At present and at least for a few years now the likes of Crestron and Lutron are not threatened by what Josh brings to the table so it would make you wonder why C4/Snap would take that strategic business approach and what benefit would it provide to the segment of their customer base that values a UI and good voice control integration.

Yep we have tried 4 of them so far. I like Breck but the wife has been waffling. I like all the options and definitely more natural sounding to an already good setting. We'll likely shuffle thru all of the new ones until settling on one. But I like the flexibility available and option to change it directly and immediately.

LOL. Here is the spec sheet on the touchscreen Josh-Touchscreen-Spec-Sheet-0224-v2.pdf

I agree with you - is like a miss and part of it whether the OEM for the touchscreens has the current ability to put a far field micorpone on it. My guess (wild one at that) is that this may come in a future version. I'm not that hard on this topic as there were a ton of problems with T3 touchscreens that took forever to get resolved and the time to delivery T4 ones that that have none of this embedded for Alex and Google integration. But yeah I can see where it is a miss and think they'll see what feedback comes from customers and dealers after install (and showcasing at CEDIA) along with the hardware OEM partners for future development.

My assumption today is yes since it is the same OS that the current Touch Version uses. I've had 3 Touch versions for 4 months that control all my C4 items integrated including shades, locks, fireplaces, HVAC, TV, music, Firepit, outdoor heaters, outdoor lighting, all video sources, ceiling fans from the remote. Those scenes are done via their portal each customer like myself gets access to create and show them visually and locked to specific zones/rooms if desired. So as of writing this the answer would be yes, unless C4 takes any further steps different from the other control platforms and tries to firewall/block it.

Yeah think the inside baseball is a good analogy. Assume that'll get worked out since nearly all other major control platforms (Crestron, Lutron, ELAN) in addition to point solutions (Tidal, Nest, Google, Sonos, etc) are supported on that remote control platform as was just mentioned. I don't see C4 putting development cost into voice as by many (not myself personally) as a niche market and just leverage the Alexa, Google, and Josh plaforms instead. I know there will be different perspectives but glad that the touchscreen does not have a far-field microphone for my specific use case. I already have Nano and Micro devices in every zone of the home and just want to add a few touchscreens for a few spots for guest to have easy access for scenes they would not know otherwise when visiting (i.e. Great Room, Kitchen, etc.). If they decided in a V2 to add a far field microphone with the option to disable to far-field microphone I'd be good with that similar to disabling the mic on the current hardware. Pre-ordered the Cinema remote last week with anticipated delivery in early March to see how that goes. Have 3 of the current models in guest rooms and based upon visitors in those rooms they loved them since they are phone app folks with their devices back at their homes. Having the ability to have scenes in a visual format I can do without needing a dealer or effort of Composer style HE work is great and easy to swap and test within seconds. Will see if battery life is better compared to Halo as definitely disappointed with some of the lack of functionality in Halo without doing button programming that I can already do on the Josh/Ava remote (locks, shades, fireplaces, heaters) from day 1 of receiving unit. Biggest differentiator for our case is the UI is an order of magnitude better and the OTA updates both are detailed and frequent. Along with that the end user customer like myself can go to a Medium Blog by the company or to their YouTube channel and review the changes and updates made. In the case of C4 I have to rely on a forum where the release notes are not published often or a change happens (like the photo icons in the iOS) with no accompanied detailed blog, video or detailed information on what updated and why. That's a gripe but a reason for only using C4 now as a 'backbone/back office' element and not the front end UI we used to use it for those in the household and visitors.

will be interesting to see what comes from their litigation as most of the contention is between Ava and the remote instead of Josh which is a dealer/selling/distribution dispute when you read the legal filings (can see on the Strata-gee site). Hopefully don't block it, otherwise just replace all C4 items I have with Lutron, Shelly and the like as it's unanimous in our household that the Josh Interfaces we use are fare more intuitive and engaging from a UI perspective to C4. In addition, the ability to get answers directly from Josh support directly within minutes and fixes compared to my 12 years of support protocols from C4 and now Snap is in stark contrast. Just my own experience but hope they don't cut it off as would be a farewell to C4 as a result.

Concur - just pre-ordered 1 today along with Cinema Remote from my dealer that also sells Control4

It did ducking back in 2020 when I only had Micros and the Core and Nano did not come out. Now have added Cores & Nano's in addition to C4 system and does the ducking as shown in videos showing the functionality. I use the announcements for a few scenarios: Everyday use - Items on scheduled time like dinner and my wife who runs an in-home childcare in casita to announce specific activities that are also tailored to a time/day and announces activities, turns the lights on, opens shades, plays kids song and puts TV on mute. Same for dinner in terms of specific time/day, announced, and carries out actions on the C4 devices (lights, music) and shades (Lutron) Events - Family in town - use the whole home announcement function in Josh to say 'we're headed out' or 'time to eat' that plays thru the Core and then thru the Triad matrix to all audio zones to announce Probably doesn't answer your question fully. I eliminated all C4 scenes about 18 months ago and just use C4 for non-scene actions and a few remotes.

@chopedogg88 surprised you didn't mention the other hardware option for this (lol) that does the ducking as part of this in its build as an add-on

Really like the centralized lighting - wish that was available when I was doing my remodel - was thinking if I did may end up going with Lutron's but wanted to get your take on experience so far on the C4 lighting

very good points - I'd be in that demographic of what you're offering based upon the service level contract with my dealer and their pricing structure of what their RMR supports that goes well beyond what Assist/Assist Premium are offering. And they are quick to respond. Case in point this morning, I got booted out of my ovrC Connect and & LUMA Apps with no notice. I used the local integrator's service and within 15 minutes got a call back from my local team that was already on the phone with Snap and found that the 'accidentally' deleted my ovrC app and had to reestablish the account.

Had similar this week with another control system I use for some of my TVs. They spotted the issue as a change on Sony's end and did an update to their firmware and pushed it to their controllers. Since then no issues with that control system on the Sony TV's they control.

interesting note in this disclaimer on soon to be new Ava remote (Note on Control4) https://automatednow.com/ava-cinema-remote/

Interesting article below. From site that tracks the business as well as legal impacts of items in the CI industry. The request to engage with the dealers on the advisory panel to get more feedback on the experience was rejected by the Snap CEO https://www.strata-gee.com/snap-one-seeks-to-change-the-integration-industry-model-with-subscription-saas-plan/

agreed - was same experience with Parasol from prior dealer. New One uses OneVision and their resources at least so far are much more helpful on the level 1 support in conjunction with the things I'm already able to troubleshoot.

I hope not. have dealt with the largest dealer in my area 4 years ago and they absolutely are terrible.

I'm wondering how a dealer would struggle with this especially when Parasol, OneVision and others offer this service already and been in the market for quite some time? I have used the former with a prior dealer and used the latter now for much less than this fee per month that is an umbrella package (24/7 support) covering more than just Snap/C4 items at $1,200 less per year. Plus if you are a dealer that does more than just C4 (RTI, URC, Savant, Crestron, Josh) which some dealers do all of them those services mentioned handle all or most and not just limited to one control platform provider. Howling at the wind but this is a bad rollout IMO

Control4 Connect Using Core Lite - $99/year Using any other controller - $249/year Control4 Assist (Optional service) $899/year - Base package $2,999/year - Premium Link to details - https://www.residentialsystems.com/technology/automation/snap-one-launches-saas-for-control4-adds-new-service-options This thread also have Vimeo video link to what what was provided to the dealers. Not sure about your dealer. Here in my area the equivalent of the Premium is $150/month that includes all of what is listed in that offering plus dozens more elements and onsite cleaning and servicing of the rack twice per year.

I live here in Vegas and would love them to come to my residence and show me exactly what would and would not be covered in their Assist Premium program LOL . There are so many scenarios of what they likely won't cover with this whole thing of items that connect with Control4.

For me the amount mentioned covers ALL Home automation servicing including items not under the C4 umbrella that I use. So the dealers program for this covered some items including, not limited to: C4 & SnapOne Products Josh.ai and included 2 hours of scene training and alias setups Pool & Spa controls and threw in the driver for free with Control4 MyQ setup Firmware updates on all A/V, network, control products Google Nest Smoke/CO monitors All internet issues beyond the SnapOne products (i.e. ISP modem) DirecTV (now Apple TV) issues Actually come out and clean the products/rack Free 1 Hour per month of service calls Adding in ovrC Home resets Business Server (Synology) troubleshooting Roon Nucleus setup on network Faradite motion sensors Etc For $3,000 I already get all of what they are trying to offer plus all of this above and a few items that escape me at the moment. I guess if people aren't price shopping or evaluating all the items they have then it may be a way for people to get that service. I would be cautious about spending the optional $3,000 without a full awareness of what you have installed at your home and what this Control4 Assist will not cover. A few cherrypicked dealers on a video is not my idea of listening to the customer. Can anyone that is a customer (not dealer) on this forum state they were reached out to by their dealer or by C4 directly about an interest level in a program like this?

whoa lol - if that's the case i pay $40 dollars a month for that now since I had the dealer every connected device onto an ovrC enabled WattBox with me having the ability to do resets on everything. Please tell me you are kidding!!