johnpg

Assuming you're not just teasing us iPhone users :-), that's an interesting observation. My experience with 2.0 was that it was always instant (on iOS). I also have (somewhere) a Fire tablet that had 2.0 on it and it didn't seem any faster to me. But that $50 Fire tablet is admittedly a lot less powerful than a modern iPhone or iPad. My theory that the start up delay is due to new authentication requirements seems less likely though if Android on 3.0 is faster/instant. Can someone with both devices do a side by side test and determine what the differences really are? I'm speaking of 3.x, I don't really care about 2.x at this point. I don't have similar spec'd devices to test with or I would. Also, I seem to remember a post on this site from someone from Control4 who worked on the iOS app. Am I crazy or was that posted here? I wonder if that person can chime in on this.

The 2.0 app was faster, usually instantaneous in fact. The only time there was a delay was when it needed to update after a settings change (refresh navigators, etc). But in normal use it launched nearly instantly. I assume others have the same recollection and experience? If not, perhaps I was just lucky. I do not know. The 3.0 app is a lot better than it used to be, for sure. But still takes 1-3 seconds, and often can be longer. The first time I launched it today it took over 10 seconds. I suspect when it takes a really long time it's due to something being paged out of RAM on the controller, or any of a million other possibilities (since I don't know for sure what's happening during that app startup). Thankfully those kinds of delays are not the norm. But the end result for me has been I've lost faith that the app will be available when I need it the same way a remote or button is. Others of course may not care. But I'm not happy with it and I really hope we eventually get back to the way it was with 2.x. Incidentally, based on your comments I tried Lutron, the iOS Home App and C4 and C4 is the slowest each time. Lutron and Home start under a second (Home is basically instant), but C4 takes 1-3 seconds. As before, this is somewhat subjective as many factors can contribute to slowness, but I can at least attest to C4 being the slowest of these in my case. Things get worse when you look at real world scenario. I can open up the Home app or Lutron and turn one of my lights on and off way faster than I can using the C4 app. By way faster it might be 2 or 3 seconds faster, which doesn't seem like a lot. But it feels like forever and makes me not want to even bother half the time. John

My experience has been consistent ever since 3.0 was released in that it is slower to connect than 2.x was. 3.0 was the slowest and later releases have improved things. So clearly C4 is aware of these issues and working to improve them. As a developer, I know from experience that it may not be as simple to fix this as some may suggest. There may be many different factors contributing to this which make it harder to solve than we'd like to think. But since reports are that the Android version is faster, that gives me hope that it's just a matter of time before this is worked out. Fingers crossed! Having said all of that, I find myself way less likely to even bother to use the app these days because the delay is so annoying. I'm speaking of local network connections, mind you. The two to three second (sometimes longer) delay is enough of a paper cut that I just don't want to bother. It feels like it would be faster to just walk over to the light switch, or touch panel. For me, that makes what otherwise seems like "not a big deal" into a really big deal. This is all subjective of course, others may not mind these delays. But for me it's aggregating. John

With MacOS Catalina Luma VMS for Mac is no longer supported as it's a 32-bit app. According to the Luma PDF they are working on a 64-bit version. Does anyone know when this will be available? The entire experience of using the Luma cameras on a Mac has been terrible ever since the web interface stopped working, and now we don't even have the app. I wish they would consider porting the iPad app to MacOS using Catalyst.

It's the new UI for thermostats (see below). Is it working for you? When I tried it, it caused home bridge to crash. It was a repeatable crash, it didn't just happen once. I have not upgraded to beta 2 though, so perhaps it was a Homekit issue that's been resolved if you're not seeing it. The next time I boot into 10.15 I'll try it again and post a an actual screenshot.

I too would like to see that, and the ability to trigger Control4 scenes, but I don't think Homekit supports that feature. Incidentally, I've been testing MacOS Catalina (unrelated to Control4) and the new Home app has a new UI for Thermostats that when opened caused homebridge to crash. I suspect the same thing is true with iOS 13, but I haven't tried that. It's not a huge deal as the release is a few months off, but I thought I'd mention it in case you were not aware. Cheers, John

Have you heard anything more about this? Thanks! John

Thanks for the update.

I've been experimenting a bit with Spotify Connect playlists and I'm really happy with this solution. One issue though is when starting a playlist (via the navigator or via programming) it always starts with the same song order, even if it was saved in shuffle mode. I've worked around this in programming by turning shuffle off, pausing, turning it back on, pausing and then skipping to the next track. But it's really inelegant. Is there a better solution for this that I'm missing? Thanks! John

That wasn't my point. It's not a real shame for Control4, it's a real shame for those who'd like to do that.

I take it those types of users are never going to be supported, which is a real shame.

Based on the eBay sale of a known good one, linked to in another thread about this (from a few years ago), they look to be identical. But obviously I can't be sure.

I'm curious about this myself, as I'm trying to decide between paying more for Lutron or going with some cheaper alternative. So far the cheaper alternatives all seem to have gotchas that make them not worth it. Having said that though, there is a driver from Annex4 that is supposed to provide full integration and individual shade control. There is even an announcement thread on this forum about it, but it was mostly hijacked by people talking about older HD systems so it's not very informative unfortunately. Anyhow, here's the driver link. Perhaps someone with more knowledge or actual experience using it can chime in on whether this makes HD a reasonable choice or not. https://annex4.link/drivers/hunterdouglas-powerview Cheers, John

Is there any reason why you couldn't use the Select bridge and the supported Maestro dimmers for light switches, and also use Control4 keypads? I'd think this would work fine, but I've never seen anyone mention it as an option. The only downside that comes to mind is potentially a different aesthetic between the C4 keypads and the Lutron switches. John