GregCAMS

So far so good with the Halo touch remotes.  I bought 3 non-touch originally to try them for 4 months.  Those were a better user experience to the SR260's and concurred by the wife which is a large factor.  We received 1 touch remote 2 weeks ago and within a matter of days it was the go-to choice when they were sitting next to each other as an option.  Our use case is Apple TV and Kaleidescape so it's not taken thru a ton of paces or customizations; we use Josh for other control commands and at present some of those items like shades are not available as we know on the remote. Battery life is treated like a phone.  Charger is within a few feet of seating / bed areas (5 additional units at present) and battery life is a non-factor as a result.  Responsiveness has been good and no drops or reliability issues in the few weeks of owning so purchased more thru the dealer.  The non-touch was no issues either.  As far as voice, it's non-committal yet since Josh is used in those zones.  For a few zones where don't have it installed, we are holding out between integrating Siri or if Josh/Control4 start acting in the best interest of the customer base and get the integration for the remotes done.  Sold the 3 non-Touch so we are 'pot-committed' for the Touch units for the foreseeable future.

Should be fine.  I typically run Araknis Router & Switches, along with Ruckus APs.

Greg, just a little info on the SSD in the New Prime servers.
All Kaleidescape Servers are now the "Terra Prime" and they are much faster all around.
The only servers that ship with SSD are the 31 and the 8 and the 31TB costs the same as the 88TB (non ssd). The ssd prime is mostly designed for Boats, Planes and RV's
I have the 88 Prime and notice a really good difference in downloads.  

The looks shot between Snap & Josh when passing each other's booths.

Yes new chipset/board and chassis. Still has the same 10 player support.
 

Going here - first time attendee.  Must see's for me:
Kaleidescape new Terra SSD's Crestron Home 4.0 SnapOne indoor & outdoor experience centers.  Includes new OS update to Control4 Grimani Systems/Storm/MadVR theater demo Josh.ai Lighting solutions (Colorbeam, Ketra, DMF) Savant AVPro/Audio Control since mergered/acquistion

Going here - first time attendee.  Must see's for me:
Kaleidescape new Terra SSD's Crestron Home 4.0 SnapOne indoor & outdoor experience centers.  Includes new OS update to Control4 Grimani Systems/Storm/MadVR theater demo Josh.ai Lighting solutions (Colorbeam, Ketra, DMF) Savant AVPro/Audio Control since mergered/acquistion

Going here - first time attendee.  Must see's for me:
Kaleidescape new Terra SSD's Crestron Home 4.0 SnapOne indoor & outdoor experience centers.  Includes new OS update to Control4 Grimani Systems/Storm/MadVR theater demo Josh.ai Lighting solutions (Colorbeam, Ketra, DMF) Savant AVPro/Audio Control since mergered/acquistion

Going here - first time attendee.  Must see's for me:
Kaleidescape new Terra SSD's Crestron Home 4.0 SnapOne indoor & outdoor experience centers.  Includes new OS update to Control4 Grimani Systems/Storm/MadVR theater demo Josh.ai Lighting solutions (Colorbeam, Ketra, DMF) Savant AVPro/Audio Control since mergered/acquistion

I agree with @gregheard regarding the AVPro 24x24 matrix.  It's really hard to overlook the support and warranty.  Plus, it does a little more natively with being able to feed it audio back from a display for instance (up to 130m via a balun or out to a zone via a balun).  That's not a knock on Triad, as I use it in my office and it's been great.  But I have 3 AVPro 24x24 in the wild with zero issues so far.  The driver is bulletproof as well.  I think most AVPro products play very nice with C4 and to be honest, I think you'll save money with AVPro versus 2 Triad Matrix's.  

MoIP is great, but MXNet is an upgrade. Not by leaps and bounds. The original MXNet 1g product line was very similar to MoIP 900 series. (4K HDR @444 was limited to 30hz - most of us wouldn’t care to be honest), but has a better interface for the installer.

A good solution here could be the modular AxionX platform by AVPro. It allows for video matrixing (via HDMI and HDBT Sources and HDBT or HDMI outputs) as well as audio independent matrixing. (There are also some crazy modular upgrades that does mission critical video scaling “think medical applications”.) The max on a single unit is 16x16 (independent audio streams count as inputs against the 16 Ins). But the units can be looped out and stacked (AVPro will customize a stack solution to get you to 21 zones). Regardless of any of these solutions, you will still need amplification. I don’t mind Triad one bit. I haven’t experienced the same issues others mention. Triad has been solid amplification for our clients. AVPro just bought AudioControl which is another gold standard company (in terms of product quality). They mfr audio products such as AVRs, amplification and distributed audio. This allows you to have your entire AV distribution project heavily supported and warranted.

Give them a call, they are really nice people with crazy expertise in AV distribution. If ever needed, support will be second to none.

Feel free to DM me and I can give you some names to speak to at AVPro. They can elaborate and recommend a solution to you (or your dealer) that will work very well and provide you with a minimum of 10 years of peace of mind. They’ll likely be able to send you a recommended solution that you can hand over to your dealer. These are pro and enterprise grade devices that are not sold direct to consumer.

As far as pricing, be prepared to pay a premium, but considering that you will enjoy this equipment for at least a decade supported, do you really pay a premium? I still have plenty of AVPro Connect (prior company name) devices working flawlessly in the field for over 12 years. Jeff and Matt are hands on owners and attract and hire the best engineers in the industry. Although we all know AVPro for Residential and Commercial AV, their products underly mission critical applications in medical and transportation etc., (in areas where there has to be near zero tolerance for failure).


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I do intercom commands using Josh all the time.  it can send commands you audibly state throughout all speakers in the house on demand.  I also have the 2N (control4 branded) door station have notifications pop-up on phone and answer and unlock thru Josh.  Have same on C4 as well.  For weather I get weather updates when I ask thru the phone, micro, nano's etc every day.

We normally agree on things, but I beg to differ here. In my opinion, true automation should lean toward less user interaction and more intuitiveness. This isn’t to say that Voice integration is “intuitive” per se, but certainly removes some of the physical actions required to fire a “then” scene (scene being a very common Josh term).

If you look back through some of my old posts I have always felt that the future of automation was voice, motion, occupancy and fencing (since they haven’t figured out how to read our minds… yet) via programming. When we walk into a room at a certain time or day, maybe certain lighting fires at one time, a different brightness fires at another time and potentially no lighting fires at another time. When someone is sensed in a room for a predefined period of time, maybe the temperature is adjusted differently. When you leave your home, certain “scenes” may fire and others when you arrive home. When another person leaves the home or arrives home, maybe any of those actions are different arrive/leave scenes depending upon if anyone is still or already in the home. Maybe a scene is fired when a vehicle arrives in your drive and maybe that’s different depending on which vehicle or what time it arrives. Maybe an event fires when someone enters a specific area of your home or property. And amongst many many other automations, maybe scenes fire based on time of day, day of the week, month or year. Could also be when you leave the home and rain is in the forecast, you’re sent a notification telling you not to forget your umbrella. The possibilities are endless.

Voice control, eliminates the need to rise out of your chair or bed, walk across the home or room and other overt physical actions to fire a device or scene or to check a status. In the most simple of benefits, Voice eliminates the need for fumbling for a remote or getting up to use a touchscreen.

Control4 is an automation platform and not simply a AV/lighting Remote Control system. We strive to make our home smart and work the way we live.

Josh integration is leaps and bounds above any of the other voice control systems in every way. Integrating Josh with Control4 creates a much more powerful home automation system than either as a standalone. Anything you can do in Control4 can be done via a voice command with Josh using natural language tailored specifically to you. “Hey Josh, who is at the front door” will show you the front door camera (Yea, even a Chime) on the display in the room you are in at that time. And the room level scenes feature allows you to say “Hey Josh, turn on the lamps” (or turn on the ceiling lights, turn off the TV, and turn on the music for example) and Josh knows to turn on the lamps only in the room you are in. If you call the foyer “foyer” and your kids call it the “entry” it doesn’t care. You can say “hey Josh, it’s a little warm in here” and Josh will lower the TStat. It also handles compound commands “do this, this and this” and it accommodates. When I leave carrying something to my car I can say “hey Josh I’m leaving, lock the door in 1 minute” so it gives me time to clear the door before it locks and fires my away scene”. And of course the most advertised feature is that you can walk into a room and say “hey Josh, turn on the lamps, close the shades and let’s watch S1E3 of Better Call Saul. Josh will deep dive programming for you. You can ask for a movie and it will find options for you. (During setup the Josh driver for Control4 finds all of your steaming services and you can prioritize both where it looks first for video or music).

Okay, that was a lot… but it’s my opinion that voice control is very important and Josh is the gold standard in that space, nothing else is remotely close today. It pains me as an end user and dealer for both products that they didn’t form a better alliance and they are at odds legally right now. It is in the best interests of both to resolve this quickly and to the benefit of each.

This is quite unfortunate a turn of events but hopefully at least current state does not get worse in terms of integration.  The VC of Josh has definitely opened up our use of the system more than other interfaces like the C4 T3/T4 touchscreens have.  The ability to do compound commands, program multi-function scenes far easier than When>Then, and the usability by guests and the wife have all been benefits of Josh in conjunction with Control4.  Combine that with the ability to learn items like my Lutron shades without even needing the dealer to come out to the house to program and use via Josh is fantastic.  Other industries regularly have ongoing litigation and suits (oil & gas, automotive, Google/MS/Apple) and still have ongoing and mutually beneficial strategic partnerships.  Josh needs more development and has strengths in voice.  Control4 has weaknesses in UI and timing to market of offerings their competitors offer.  So recognizing the gaps and the benefits especially for end users like this community are important to maintain and keep progressing.

I have to respectfully disagree.  The voice is used in our home to run scenes 25-30 times per day.  Before we seldomly used the equivalent on the touchscreens.  And we didn't tie them into keypads because that created a lack of change/flexibility without using Composer HE or our dealer.  It is used here for scenes, shades, locking doors, playing specific playlists, fans, pool controls, Kaleidescape movies and the like.  For dinner, it comes in clutch to prep the space while in the middle of cooking and making adjustments.  
May be the outlier but it is used (Josh in conjunction with C4) nearly 200-300 times per month in doing one-time tasks, scenes, and other actions.  In addition, as an end user the ability to set, modify, update scenes have a much better experience than the When>Then alternative.

This is an opinion, as valid as those who don't like using voice.
I'm personally in the "I don't talk to my house" camp.
Neither is right, neither is wrong, as they're just opinions or anecdotes.
The best thing is having the ability to do whatever you like best.
RyanE
 

I have to respectfully disagree.  The voice is used in our home to run scenes 25-30 times per day.  Before we seldomly used the equivalent on the touchscreens.  And we didn't tie them into keypads because that created a lack of change/flexibility without using Composer HE or our dealer.  It is used here for scenes, shades, locking doors, playing specific playlists, fans, pool controls, Kaleidescape movies and the like.  For dinner, it comes in clutch to prep the space while in the middle of cooking and making adjustments.  
May be the outlier but it is used (Josh in conjunction with C4) nearly 200-300 times per month in doing one-time tasks, scenes, and other actions.  In addition, as an end user the ability to set, modify, update scenes have a much better experience than the When>Then alternative.

This is quite unfortunate a turn of events but hopefully at least current state does not get worse in terms of integration.  The VC of Josh has definitely opened up our use of the system more than other interfaces like the C4 T3/T4 touchscreens have.  The ability to do compound commands, program multi-function scenes far easier than When>Then, and the usability by guests and the wife have all been benefits of Josh in conjunction with Control4.  Combine that with the ability to learn items like my Lutron shades without even needing the dealer to come out to the house to program and use via Josh is fantastic.  Other industries regularly have ongoing litigation and suits (oil & gas, automotive, Google/MS/Apple) and still have ongoing and mutually beneficial strategic partnerships.  Josh needs more development and has strengths in voice.  Control4 has weaknesses in UI and timing to market of offerings their competitors offer.  So recognizing the gaps and the benefits especially for end users like this community are important to maintain and keep progressing.

This is quite unfortunate a turn of events but hopefully at least current state does not get worse in terms of integration.  The VC of Josh has definitely opened up our use of the system more than other interfaces like the C4 T3/T4 touchscreens have.  The ability to do compound commands, program multi-function scenes far easier than When>Then, and the usability by guests and the wife have all been benefits of Josh in conjunction with Control4.  Combine that with the ability to learn items like my Lutron shades without even needing the dealer to come out to the house to program and use via Josh is fantastic.  Other industries regularly have ongoing litigation and suits (oil & gas, automotive, Google/MS/Apple) and still have ongoing and mutually beneficial strategic partnerships.  Josh needs more development and has strengths in voice.  Control4 has weaknesses in UI and timing to market of offerings their competitors offer.  So recognizing the gaps and the benefits especially for end users like this community are important to maintain and keep progressing.

Good write up Greg. I think we will continue to see great control4 and josh integration. It would be in everyone’s best interest. 

Outs or not, I just hope that Josh will be supported by control4 or Snap going forward.  I had this put into my house a year or so ago, and find it really opens the system for use.  My wife was not a huge fan of control4, found it confusing at times.. she loves just being able to tell josh to 'play music in the backyard', or to turn off all the lights in 5 minutes and not have to go to a touchscreen and mess with the hierarchical controls to adjust the 7 thermostats we have in the house.  using alexa or even siri, which we did for a time, is just not the same.

agree - there seems to be a divergent path being taken in the sophistication and user experience when comparing what C4 is doing compared to the OS's UI of Crestron Home, Savant and Josh.ai to name a few.  There is a much more updated, streamlined, pleasing view of status pages at the outset of the app, user commands and the like that are on a lever higher that what I see with these C4 OS updates.  I download the demo versions of the Crestron and Savant app just get a feel for them and own the Josh App in addition to C4.  Just between the latter two the Josh interface IMO is leaps and bounds above what C4 has to offer at present.  Hopefully they will get on a projected path to something that meets their peers but in the decade plus owning it don't see it surpassing or being an UI leader in the industry.  I like C4 for the reliability and integration but the interface leaves a lot to be desired.  We use Josh for most of our system interactions and only the remotes for TV playback

agree - there seems to be a divergent path being taken in the sophistication and user experience when comparing what C4 is doing compared to the OS's UI of Crestron Home, Savant and Josh.ai to name a few.  There is a much more updated, streamlined, pleasing view of status pages at the outset of the app, user commands and the like that are on a lever higher that what I see with these C4 OS updates.  I download the demo versions of the Crestron and Savant app just get a feel for them and own the Josh App in addition to C4.  Just between the latter two the Josh interface IMO is leaps and bounds above what C4 has to offer at present.  Hopefully they will get on a projected path to something that meets their peers but in the decade plus owning it don't see it surpassing or being an UI leader in the industry.  I like C4 for the reliability and integration but the interface leaves a lot to be desired.  We use Josh for most of our system interactions and only the remotes for TV playback

I hope you are right and I hope they do listen.   To me it looks like C4 is trying to mimic (unsuccessfully) the flat Savant user interface.  I also hate the sub-menu under the new 3-line hamburger in the latest revision of OS3 so much that I refuse to upgrade.  The colors and flat iconography is just a mess.  To see them doing more of the same on the Halo has me worried they are going down the wrong path.  As I've stated before, I am ok with flat design, it just needs to be done well (like Savant) to make it look elegant and modern as opposed to it looking like a 4th grader's homework project making icons in PowerPoint...
People get heated (including me) about interface design because it is the INTERFACE and user experience.  Everything else under the hood can work fantastically (and for the most part does in C4), but if the user interface and experience is disappointing it unsteadies the entire ship.

AVPro Edge is way superior to Binary MOIP (which IS snap AV). As for stacking amps, it is true that is not good practice. AVPro and Binary have IP over audio too so no real need for the triad matrix since they suck anyhow. There are way better audio matrix