NextGenAV

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I would suggest switching to Shelly devices and using Alan's driver (Chowmain)

You would need to have RCA audio from the EA to each speaker as an Aux input. I've also found that the Spotify connect client built in disappears and needs a power cycle to recover. The native app is pretty bad and crashes a lot. Audio wise they are OK, but I think these are really only retro fit speakers. When compared to proper multi-room they just don't hold up.

I have 16 Lutron Palladiom keypads for sale. Recently changed over all keypads to Control4 and customer wants me to sell his Lutron ones.

These are mega expensive new so looking for £300 per keypad. Phoenix connectors included and all are in perfect condition.

PM me if interested. These are also listed on ebay.

Brilliant, thanks for you help. much appreciated!

Yes it is a bit odd as the customer has already been told they are not compatible with the Conexis L1 by Yale. I just wanted to confirm this. Would you do me a huge favour and let me know the firmware version and age of your lock? The customers version is 1.0.0 (from Bluetooth app)

I also wonder about ZigBee range as the doors are 6 to 10m from the EA Controller. Unfortunately this is a remote install so I'm relying on customer feedback, I've never visited the job.

Thanks in advance for the information.

On 10/15/2020 at 1:50 PM, J to the D said:

I have a multipoint door so only the Conexis L1 is suitable. The old version which had a keypad on it was supported so struggling to understand why the current version wouldn’t work. 

Did you ever get any joy with this? Have had an enquiry about modules for this lock, but can't find compatibility information.

Cheers

Is this Control4 lighting or something else?

It can be that the director is not getting the current state of each lighting circuit back from the lighting driver. If all the lights do not report the 0% then the off scene state will never be Active. Some drivers do not report the current light value until a specified polling time and some are just a bit unreliable.

In these situations it is sometimes better to resort to programmed feedback rather than rely on the Advanced Lighting Agent.

I read through this with interest ... I did a job recently for a friend of a friend and went down the route of pretty much giving him the equipment at trade on the assumption that he would install most of the kit and I would program it up. Nothing wrong with that, and I was happy to just do remote stuff.

He gave me back a EA-1 he said he wouldn't need now ... tested to be knackered! dead as a dodo. Of course it 'was like that when I got it' .. hmmm

Decided not to put speakers in a couple of rooms so returned a Traid amp ... a two year old one (which I found on sold listings on eBay)

Couldn't be bothered dealing with anything else so cut my losses at a couple of thousand. It's not always the dealer that is trying to maximise return from the customer.

On 5/22/2020 at 3:57 PM, BBLV said:

I have C4 controlling the display devices in both Shield setups. The IRUSB is only controlling the Shield. Hmmmm... I'm stumped.

Have you tried going through the watch sequence without the shield attached by HDMI? Attach another device to the HDMI input you are using for Shield, if the same is occurring then it isn't the shield. You could then connect the shield directly to the projector and repeat until you find the source of the 'sleep signal'

13 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Thanks for your reply.

Yes it is Google and Alexa control so are you saying it is very easy to integrate with Control4 if I am happy to have the curtains cloud based control?

I could live with that for now and try and flash for MQTT control if I feel the need to.

Will I he able to program curtains with timers etc still? For example, as the sun sets have the curtains close automatically, or when the alarm goes off in the morning have the curtains open to welcome the day and let in light

Cheers

Unfortunately, without trying it myself I couldn't say if the control would be good or not. There is too much variation in the implementation of these products, if it has IFTTT then it is much more likely to work with C4, but this requires additional drivers which are licensed.

But, if Control4 can tell the blinds to open / close then yes it will be able to do all the scheduling and sunset / sunrise control. You wouldn't need to touch the Tuya app.

13 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Heos?

I did look at Heos a few years ago, but the stand alone app stank and the C4 integration was poor. Has it improved any?

I will ask the question for suggestions in a separate post so as not to hijack Alan's post.

I did mention to the manufacturers that, with a little push, they would have a Sonos killer on their hands. I'm not sure why there isn't any custom install competition to Sonos, all I want is a good value source/amp for £500 that talks nicely to C4 and compatible with major streamers ... but also a stand alone product. Many just too much to ask.

2 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Hi David. I've been talking with the factory direct. I'll PM you.

Edit: PM sent

Ah OK, I see the one you mean. The control part of it is Alexa and Google home compatible so Control4 will be able to control it no problem at all. I'm guessing that the Tuya part of it is just a relay based on ESP chip. I'd prefer not to use cloud services to control local things, but it may be possible to flash new firmware and have local MQTT control.

Hi Alan,

I've been playing around with a set of speakers for a day or two and they are pretty good. App needs loads of work, but for the price I like them.

Are there plans to develop the driver to be able to start playlists, radio stations etc from programming? That would be amazing in a product of this price.

Cheers

Steve

2 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Hi David. 

I need to buy some motorised curtains for my yet to be installed Control4 system. Budget blow outs prevent me from spending 4 times the price on control4 compatible curtains so I'm looking at Zigbee and WiFi motors. 

What will enable me to use through control4? I am not very knowledgeable with any home Automation programming but capable of learning

I'd prefer Zigbee if it's possible.

What do you suggest?

Thanks very very much!

Hi,

Almost all available motorised curtains are C4 compatible in some way. Something like Somfy or Silent Gliss are good options. I would recommend DC motors over AC as the AC motors are much louder than DC.

It does need the RF gateway for each of those systems, but this does give you stand alone 'real button' remote controls too. I don't see the point of installing something that needs an app to control when a hard button does a better job (and quicker). After all, you are trying to automate things, not make it take more time.

I take it that your are DIYing your C4 system, if so then both the above are easy to integrate.

If the two above systems are out of your budget ... then I will have to let someone else help on that one ... I've seen the super cheap systems and they sound like a 747 warming up when they operate, kinda embarrassing if your are showing off your super automated home!

I don't think there is a direct Zigbee system available as C4 use a proprietary version of Zigbee Pro that isn't plug and play with other Zigbee devises. Unless SnapAV have something now?

I think the cloud is only for driver updates and installation. I have had a MQTT broker running on a Pi for over a year now with Berto drivers with no issues at all even when the internet connection is down.

Yes just as long as the Control4 switch is the non-dimming one.

I'm assuming you are using an iPhone. Is it set to switch off WiFi when the screen is off?

I tested on Android and connection to the system (locally) is under half a second from opening the app. The phone 'sleeps' after 30s of no use and then the app takes about 3s to connect.

I'm converting / upgrading a Lutron install that has 20 Palladiom keypads to Control4 keypads. This is UK square keypads, various button configurations, but mostly 8 button.

System was installed by Lutron specialist and customer hates the keypads now, specialist won't take them back.

If anyone is interested in a bulk buy or some of them please PM me in the first instance. Client is only trying to cover cost of new Control4 keypads and faceplates. Will add pictures a bit later.

Cheers,

Steve

Couldn't you just buy a 5V PSU rather than a new (old) HC-300?

If you bought an enclosed one like a laptop PSU ... something like a 20W one would do. I did something similar to an HC-300 years ago and it still plods along quite happily.

The 300s are great for those low speed automation tasks

Brilliant!

Thanks again David, This driver has opened up so many possibilities for Control4. I dislike using cloud based services and a Pi running Mosquitto and Node-RED give C4 access to so much IoT content.

You need to have a 'Donate a beer button' ... if I use the driver on a project I will charge them a 'quality beer' fee and pass it on. You already have one in the tap!

23 hours ago, david@berto.co.uk said:

Please update to V2, see https://github.com/davidmassot/Berto/blob/master/src/Berto_MQTTBridge/README.md.

Thanks

Thanks David,

That's seems to have done the trick. Didn't see in documentation (which means it may be obvious and I'm dumb), what is the difference between DEVICE MESSAGE and GENERAL?

Cheers.

Hi David,

Not sure if something has changed with the driver or it's me, but I'm not seeing messages from topics on the MQTT Driver properties page. The Sonoff relay driver is showing connected to broker and control works.

I'm using a Pi as a MQTT broker running Mosquitto (no username or password) and Node-RED for testing. Node-RED shows the messages from Control4 in debug but sending messages from Node-RED shows nothing in the driver. Topic subscribed is cmnd/#  (Sonoff with Tasmoto firmware)

Only started messing about with it on Thursday and same settings were working then ... 

Great driver!

14 hours ago, poseidonsystems said:

Does anyone have a driver for the Hikvision NVR 7600 series? I'm trying to be able to view the cameras on a touchscreen and navigator. Can this be done? I've tried the blackwire designs driver and it doesn't really work and also the houselogix hikvision driver disappeared. 

Hi, the easiest way to get this to work is to power the cameras with a POE switch rather than using the POE on the back of the unit. Then the cameras can be on the same subnet as Control4. You can then add each camera individually to the C4 system as fixed cameras. This also has the advantage that you have access to the camera webpages to adjust them since some of these functions are missing if you do it from the NVR webpages.

Means a little more work connecting the cameras to the NVR, but not rocket science. The NVRs are much better controlled with an IR driver you make yourself so you can restrict which button presses are available. I only allow changing camera view (number buttons), cycling view type (PREV), and up, down OK. I also remove the IR from any number button that has no camera on it to prevent the Camera not available pop-up.

The NVRs are also pants with other IR codes. It reacts to pretty much anything from LG TV remotes to an old Technika TV from Argos! So cover up the bug receiver well.

In my opinion it is a waste of time trying to allow playback and search from a touchscreen or TV. Connect a monitor to the NVR with a mouse, it's fast and will avoid the customer being frustrated. If having the customer in the rack room isn't an option then I locate the monitor in a study or somewhere  and HDMI over twisted pair and mouse over twisted pair, works great.