Joshua Pressnell

It's very much on my list of "want to do" items.

You'd need to poke a port forward through to your driver port to allow outside control, but since I am including security as part of this interface, it's reasonably safe to do so. You're correct, it won't be able to control the other HA system, but you will get full control of C4 and can get direct feedback via callback URL.

Kaas, I'll be expanding features as I roll along. One of the key advantages of my driver vs. the one you listed is that I also support a feedback URL, so that you don't have to poll to get devices status updates (very inefficient).

Have any of you found yourself wanting to integrate Control4 with other home automation systems or custom code, but don't know how to start with driver development? I have expanded on my HomeKit driver to provide a basic HTTP API for controlling Control4 systems from anywhere, via any system. With a little software knowledge, you can control an ever expanding list of devices from anywhere you can call a web URL! For a preview of the driver API, check out this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15csLkkoWDTZ691vxScvGrPdofYB7fSuYdBK6G6m34RM/edit?usp=sharing The driver is going through some final testing now and I need to finish off the documentation and clean things up a little bit, but it's nearly ready for prime time. Anybody out there interested?

That will be because you have a driver that has a single driver but exposes two separate blinds, is my guess. Send me an email and we can look at that.

Amr, that's excellent. I suspect that what happened is that there were some changes to device IDs in your project at some point and for some reason the system wasn't picking that up. I'm happy to hear that a basic reset and reconfigure worked out the issues. The "two relay" garage door driver you're talking about. That uses one relay to command "closed" and one relay to command "open" right? HomeKit doesn't support garage doors that don't have a contact sensor to indicate open/closed state. I've avoided "faking" the contact sensor because it's a safety issue on single-relay garage doors... but I might work out something for two-relay drivers that I could be happy with. Please send me an email with the specific garage door driver you're using (name, driver file name, version, etc) and I'll take a look at it. I am now supporting blinds in the latest version of the driver and plugin. If you update all software to the latest version, blinds should auto-export in the config list. There may be some issues still, as I've just released past beta, but I'm trying to work those out as people report them to me.

I think you sent me an email on this? I've just been a little behind on catching up with emails this last week, as it's been one of those weeks. I'll follow up with your email soon, but I'll need a bit more information from you to diagnose. I'll need the output from http://<cr_director_ip>:<driver_port>/config and I'll need to know which devices are missing from that output (device type, and the device ID and proxy ID values from Composer, preferably a screenshot of the driver info from Composer for each). For the GetVariable issue, I'll need to see your homebridge service logs (from all services if you have multiples) that are recording during a time period where that output in the driver happens, as well as the full driver logs. If you'd like to just send me another email with that, that's good. Mostly put that here in case other folks need help with similar, as I'll need detailed information to track any issues folks might find. :) Best, -Josh

I assume this means you got it worked out? For other folks information, there's an option in the driver itself to output all of the relevant device configuration information. Details on this are listed in the Control4 driver documentation (in Composer).

Sorry for the delay getting back. I've been out on a business trip. Please contact me at josh@varietassoftware.com and we'll get you back up and running.

Not too much documentation needed. Install the driver and install the plugin update. The driver will output blinds via the driver command or via Home Hub device import. Once you save the new device JSON to homebridge, everything should work from there automatically.

Unfortunately, you still need a HomePod, AppleTV, or iPad to fulfill that function.

I've just released version 1.21 of my driver (https://varietassoftware.com/control4), which now includes support for blinds. This update also requires that you update to the latest version of my homebridge-control4 homebridge plugin, either manually (for those DIY folks out there) or via the Home Hub web portal (for those of you with my software/hardware). With this release complete, I'll be turning my attention to additional device/feature support. Let me know if you have any suggestions! Best, -Josh Pressnell Varietas Software

It's possible Apple has changed some things since I last went exploring. I'll go take a look. I'm always happy to be adding more to my driver/plugin support list.

The last I tested it, the Home app (and thus Siri) would not recognize 3rd party speaker accessories. They end up showing as "unsupported accessory". 3rd party HomeKit apps (Elgato Eve, etc) do see Homebridge speakers and operate correct with them, but since the main reason people want integration of Control4 with HomeKit is so they can use the built in iOS support, it's sort of problematic for me. The mechanism Zaphod suggests is a good alternative. I generally use this approach to sync Control4 Scenes to a "switch" in HomeKit. (While dummy lights will initially show up as switches during import, you should change them to switches in Homebridge to avoid issues when saying "Hey Siri, turn all the lights off"). If you name the dummy switch AppleTV in HomeKit, then you can say "Hey Siri, turn on the Apple TV in the Kitchen" and it should work. I think HomeKit has some reserved words, so you may not be able to use "Apple TV" as the name and have Siri work quite right, but you can fiddle with it until you get it how you like.

I've used a common licensing system for my drivers from the start, so other than getting your driver updates from Blackwire or from my website, nothing else needs to change. RE room volume control, the Home app only recognizes apple speakers for room volume. I've implemented room volume and while the device does show up in Home, it shows as "unsupported device". It works properly in Elgato Eve, however. There is a way to get around that, although it's a little ugly. If you use a "virtual dimmer" and link room volume to the dimmer level via programming, then you can use a "dimmer" in HomeKit to control room volume. The "ugly" part is that Siri considers it a light, so if you say "turn off all the lights" it will also mute all your rooms. But if you use the Home app more often than not over Siri, it works pretty well. Glad you're enjoying the driver!

I'll take a look and see if anything has changed. Apple has had a pretty annoying history in the last couple of years of upgrading HomeKit protocols, but making it so that ONLY Apple hardware using those protocols is discovered and recognized in the Home app. Case in point, Apple now supports volume control, but ONLY through Apple's own speakers. If you implement room volume control with C4, it shows up as "Unsupported Device" in Home, but works just fine on other HomeKit based apps, like Elgato Eve.

Please contact me via email (josh@varietassoftware.com)... if I haven't updated your unit yet, it probably just needs to be updated to the latest OS and software, which I am happy to handle for you.

1. The complete list of supported device drivers and proxies is included in the driver documentation accessible via Composer after adding it to a project. 2. There's no special language for this driver in particular. Siri is Siri no matter what is underneath reacting to her commands. The best bet here is to review Google for Siri tips. 3. This is one of the most tedious parts of setup. Unfortunately, there's not a good way around this yet. If you think about it, there's not a perfect way to do this. HomeKit lets you add devices, and individual devices (the lightbulb or switch) doesn't generally know where you've installed it. So the HomeKit protocol doesn't have a way to pre-assign rooms based on pre-determined data or algorithms. Thus, you must place each discovered device into a HomeKit room. The best thing I've found to do so far is to make my HomeKit rooms match Control4 rooms, and I just put the devices there when I do the install. 4. I've personally found the best practice to be the following: a: install driver and import devices to homebridge. b: rename devices in the web portal to include room names and more descriptive text, which helps during HomeKit setup. pair the homebridge in HomeKit and use the long names to more easily place devices in rooms. d: Once devices are all placed, rename in HomeKit to make customer happy. 5. Vince's guidance is definitely good. Virtual switches are powerful concept that can be used for all sorts of things.

Glad to hear you got it all worked out! Have fun!

I plan to work on getting shade support eventually, but I've been a bit busy lately with day job and COVID stuff. RE integration, my driver can only support exposing C4 stuff into HomeKit. There's no way that I'm aware of right now to bring HomeKit stuff into C4.

Please send me a direct email at josh@varietassoftware.com and I'll get you setup.

Can I quote you on my website?

I updated my system to OS 3 about a month ago and have had no problems at all since. So far, all is well. If I haven't updated your unit's OS yet, that may be the issue. Homebridge evolved to the point where it needed an OS update on many of my original units to keep up with all the updates. Please contact me by email, and I can work out your issue for you. For the benefit of folks here: 1) My system fully supports OS 3. 2) Version 1.16 of the driver was the last version on Houselogix. The only update in Version 1.17 was to move to BlackWire's licensing system so I can sell through their platform. 3) I chose not to do an "auto-upgrade", on the principle of "if it's not broken, don't screw with it". If something is not working and you need to update, or if I release new device compatibility and you want to have the new features, that's the time to update. You can easily update all the plugins and such on the appliance through the web portal.

Just have to contact me via email at the support address. The issue is that the pi OS needs an upgrade. Homebridge evolved to the point where it needs the latest OS updates as well. It's a very easy update for me to do for you.

It's possible, but I've been less than thrilled with Apple's Garage Door access. Because it's a "home security" issue (opening portals to your home), Apple doesn't allow you to use Siri to open/close garage doors while the phone is locked... which is to say... "most of the time". So when I'm coming up to my driveway, I say "Siri, open my garage doors" and Siri tells me she can't do that because my phone is locked. Then I have to fish my phone out, unlock it, and repeat my command. That works... but if I have to unlock my phone, the whole point of Siri voice commands is pretty much useless. I haven't found a way around this yet. HOWEVER... since you have an Apple Watch "always unlocked" on your wrist, you CAN open garage doors using Siri and your watch without too much hassle. The total costs vary depending on whether you provide your own hardware or not. You at least need a license for my driver. But after that, it's possible to setup the homebridge stuff entirely DIY if you want to, for no additional cost. If you want to license my OS image, you can purchase that for $50, or a drop-in ready-to-install homebridge hardware appliance can be purchased from my site as well. This will give you much more than garage doors. It unlocks all HomeKit compatible hardware from Control4 for use with HomeKit/Siri.