Elvis

I only saw part of a multi-brand demo of newer TVs. I know there were Sony, LG, and Samsung -- fourth might have been Vizio, but I don't know for sure. The brief part of this demo I saw was impressive. The gentleman was using voice control through the provided remote, iPhone (Siri), Android, and I think he also used apps on these phones specific to the TV. All of the TVs provided remotes seemed impressive and very responsive. I was impressed with the remote controls' cross platform (either app or input device) control. It worked a lot like a Roku or AppleTV works, but seemed a little faster, but also would change inputs as required. Since I didn't have time to watch the whole thing or ask questions, I'll quit speculating on what I thought I saw. Since none of C4's remotes have voice, I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with these new TVs and remotes, and how well they work in the real world.

Just re-enforced my poor choice of using Minka fans, for multiple reasons.

This looks awesome Mitch. I can't watch the video right now but the implication is that no fan modification is required. Is that right? For $60, seems no brainer. I wonder if you can tie one of these to two identical fans that are in close proximity?

For my boathouse, the installation is complete without any automation. All lighting is white, low voltage. The floods are dimmable, although they did not install dimmer switches. The inside sitting areas and boat slips use 12-15" light bars. There are enough on different circuits that we can control the brightness by only turning on one or two lights. Interesting side note: The LED light bars are white, and I wanted warm light. Installing them on dark stained wood beams, "warms" the light color up as there is nothing but stained wood to reflect the light. We went with Minka Fans, which have relatively dim lights on them that are very "warm" plus they are in darkened globes, so these work well as they don't attract as many bugs as the white LED bars. Important as these are the only lights that are directly above the sitting area -- the light bars are all perimeter lights. Nothing is integrated into C4 or my Lutron lighting yet. But all lights just require switches swapped out. I could put dimmers on the floods if I want. Nothing special required, unless I want to integrate the Minkas (I won't.) I am happy with the lighting package. My wife is happy with the Minka fans, but I am not. They look great. Theoretically, their CFM airflow is high, but the wind speed they create is low. When you get out of the water in the 100* day, and get under a fan, I expected better evaporative cooling effect. Not from these fans. So if I had it to do over again, I would have used four fans with higher windspeed rather than two big fans. I don't know about everyone else, but contractors and trades here in northeast Texas are still swamped with business. 9 month wait for the boat house. We're at 6 months on a minor kitchen remodel, and he just slipped a few weeks. And I'm on 3 contractors' list for the same project -- at their recommendation. "Line up as many guys as you can, first one there gets the job." It is just crazy. The contractor that told me he couldn't get to me until October is probably going to get the job. The other two are slipping past that date.

Being a beta tester implies that they are listening to your feedback and working on it.

I actually did do it again. All the motorized shades in the house will be Serena. If the house hadn't been bare with no window coverings at all, I would have motorized a lot more of them, spreading out the cost over time. Since I just retired, I was too chicken to write the big check required to motorize more of them.

No, I swapped them for z-wave plus (faster response).

I am very happy with them, and I am going to purchase two more of them from Dawn. For motorization and integration, I'm not sure you can beat Lutron. We've seen a few brands in showrooms and they weren't nearly as quiet or nearly as easy to change batteries. There are two issues and cost is one, but the price is consistent across brands (except for Ikea's where you have one color choice.) So buying motorized just means $$$ -- it is not Lutron specific. The main issue is that the buyer has to measure and install, and there are no mulligans. If you screw it up, there is a 100% re-stocking fee. For the price of four motorized shades, we purchased non-motorized for the rest of the house. And they came out with large samples to show in place, measured every window, and wrote up the quote. When they come in, they install them all and if something doesn't fit, they replace it at no charge. Hope this helps.

Last year’s S650H. They have a cheaper $280 model if you don’t need Airplay2. Has Bluetooth.

I have a Ring Pro. Even with the Rapid Ring app it is pretty slow and fails with "Front Door Connection is too weak." Even though my phone and laptop have great connections in the front yard further away, I guess it has a poor antenna. FWIW, I do not have an Arlo doorbell, but have some of the Arlo cameras. They come up twice as fast as the Ring and hold the connection.

Thanks, yes I'll be buying these new.

Was considering a couple of configurable keypads bedside. (One on each side.) Would probably have 5 engraved buttons. My concern is LED brightness. How does that work? Is it automatic? Having 5 LEDs glowing right by our pillows that don't auto-dim would be two expensive mistakes I'd like to avoid. Thanks.

I left that out of my original post. It is in a storage room in my boathouse. Definitely not cooled. Hot and humid.

Temp was 98*, heat index of 108*F today. Need an amp/receiver than can tolerate this out in the boathouse. Currently have a Denon 3300 AVR working okay in these conditions but not sure how long it will last. Thanks.

I have the exact same problem. Top row works great. Don't use the bottom row at all. They say they'll replace it but I have to find my original receipt -- not going to be easy.

Pioneer VSX-LX303 boasts Sonos integration. Anyone with any experience with this? Really interested in what happens on Sonos with zones 2 and 3? If they are separate Sonos targets, this could be a great deal for me. Seems like a lot of receiver for $500.

If you just want the insurance discount, Ring is the cheapest. $99/year. If you have a Ring doorbell, it's worth it.

Takes less than 2 seconds if the app is running in the background. If I've been using it, it is almost instant on. If it has been a while, takes a second or two. Much better than it was. If I kill the app, or refresh the navigators, it takes about 10 seconds. I can live with that.

If you keep the original box and contents, there is a pretty decent resale market for anything Apple. You could go ahead and get the 4k ATV now and if they really do offer something groundbreaking in the Fall, you could sell it -- or move it to another TV. Guessing what Apple is going to do is impossible. If you'd told me they were going to move Macs off Intel chips, I'd have put $20 down the they wouldn't... and lost.

My iOS app takes nearly 10 seconds to start up if I kill it and restart it. Once it is loaded, it is very responsive. If it is running in the background, and has to re-connect to the system, it only takes a couple of seconds. June 4, 2020 release. 320.23.0.371 -- I'll call it up tonight and see if it still re-connects that fast. If it does, this is a major improvement.

Thanks for clarifying. HomeKit integration is all I need so I'm going to give it a try. Don't want a keypad on the door so this will work perfectly, I hope.

This is a deal killer. I understand not knowing if the door is open or closed, but not knowing the state of the lock? That's fundamental. Are you sure it doesn't know its own state?

Thanks Bill. Good info. For what it's worth, we turned off auto-lock on our kwikset Premis for that same reason. It's longest delay was 4 minutes. If you have an AppleTV, you can automate it with HomeKit.

Want to try one out. Pretty ingenious.

I've got two places where a C4 configurable keypad would be a nice addition. First, can I make the volume (up/down arrow buttons) on the bottom control a selected button on the keypad. I would like to press a button and it toggles the fan on/off. When on (and last button pressed) then the up/down buttons would change speed of the Lutron fan controller. Another button would make the up/down control the shades. Another would be the ceiling lights, and dim up/down. Sonos volume, etc.