elee532

This was released Yesterday.

Is anyone aware of reasonable priced blinds or shades that will work with C4 system? I thought I read about some Lutron blinds that started at about $299, but I can’t find where I read that or maybe I was mistaken. I need two shades for my basement theater, and was hoping I could get something in the $200 to $300 range. Any recommendations?

Fast and reliable. Reasonable... Honest... Updated all my stuff and everything worked.  Got my recommendation!

I love c4forums.  Just finding less and less time to visit.  Its hard to find time for my passion c4 drivers even!
Anyway more contracts for us means more free drivers!
Come by the office.  I'll show you all the stuff we're working on.

Shouldn’t be the case.  The driver now uses IRUSB commands for all transport controls.
Has worked fine for me in Netflix mini apps.
we should be releasing this soon.  I’ve been running this in my house and it has passed the wife test.

Hi all,
Which is the best configuration of drivers to get this capability:
I want to be able to add my own custom channels to be displayed in the 'Watch' menu and have them change when I pick them.
I have the irUSB setup properly with the 1.6 driver.  For some custom channels, like 'Cooking Channel' I can get it to execute when the proper command is tied to a remote buttonon the SR-250 but I can't get it to change from when the viewer selects it from the watch menu.
Thanks in advance,
RussellB

It’s a shame that you want to replace Control4 with Harmony. You can have a remote dealer from this forum take a look at your system and see what can be done.  They are great programmers here that can fix your issues. 

Thought I'd get us back on track here to say that Ari is great. He was a big help with a few things in my system this week, is very responsive, a great value with how quick he is and was great to chat with while we worked on the project----highly recommend. 

I can vouch for that. Ari is awesome to work with. Very reasonable rates and his expertise (speed of getting it done) makes him a bargain.

I have been doing a lot of remote programming for people on this forum and otherwise for the past 5 years or so...without having officially posted about it.  Well, here it is!
I am an experienced, certified Control4 technician, with over 20 years of software development experience to back it up.  My company, Epic Systems, also develops and sells drivers for Control4 (most notably, the Amazon Echo driver - www.epic-systems.com)
I have installed and programmed hundreds of Control4 systems over the years, always making sure that my customers are happy (I'm sure several of the folks on this forum can chime in and verify).  I am extremely responsive (usually within minutes or hours), and get things done quickly and done right.
I have experience integrating Control4 with just about every system out there, including (but not limited to):
-Voice Control (Amazon Echo, Google Home)
-Music Services (Sonos, Autonomic, Fusion Research, HEOS, etc)
-Networking (Pakedge, Luxul, Ubiquiti)
-Cameras (Lilin, Wirepath, AMCrest, Panasonic, Nest, etc)
-HVAC (Control4, Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell, Carrier Infinity, etc)
-Shades (Lutron, Somfy, Hunter Douglas, QMotion, etc)
-Security (GE, DSC, Honeywell, etc)
-Lighting (Control4, Lutron, Vantage, Vera, etc)
-Door Locks (Kwikset, Yale, August, etc)
-TVs (Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, VIZIO, etc)
-AVRs (Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Marantz, Onkyo, Integra, etc)
-Contacts/Relays (Card Access, NYCE, Axxis, etc)
-several other 3rd party drivers from DriverCentral.io, HouseLogix, Annex4, DriversLab, etc.
 
Please PM me with the details of what you need done, large or small!
Thanks
Ari Chopra
ari@epic-systems.com
http://www.epic-systems.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/arichopra

I should really sleep less than i do as i'm way too far behind on my work.  Anyway i have now moved my IRUSB / shield from my work test bench to the main tv in my home so i'll know about problems alot quicker now that my family has to use it.
I actually quite like the fact that Kodi can run in the background and it will come to the foreground upon selection of movie / tv episode from navigator.  Makes for a nice solution.

Ok so after quite a bit of feedback from everyone i have modified the driver to include the following.
Replacement of JSON-RPC based transport controls with IRUSB based controls if IRUSB is installed (this enables navigation of other apps whilst kodi is running). Ability for Kodi to hide in the background and be called to the foreground upon media selection from navigator - enables you to use other apps like netflix, youtube, etc and also browse movies, tv shows, etc via navigator. IRUSB mini drivers are now implemented in the driver.  This means you can now launch the android apps from navigator without using another driver The driver is currently in beta so please PM me with your email address if you want to be part of this beta.  Looking at releasing this in the next week or so.

one additional thing with the shield: make sure you turn off HDMI CEC and set "go to sleep" to "never" otherwise it will have issues

i've actually moved back to the VS driver from chowmain driver due to being able to set "go to home on power off" within the driver itself. without this, my receiver wasn't seeing any new video (b/c i almost exclusively use plex) and requiring me to press buttons a few times to create enough video movement in order to "wake up" the receiver's video processor. 

My guess is both would work equally well.

Its the only / most recent version of kodi on android 17.6    To me it seems that issuing an extra command to bring to foreground should do it.  Also presently Alan's driver by default does not wake nvidia shield from sleep.  It seems that you have to push select / enter once to wake it.

I am using alans nvidia driver along with the kodi full driver with the virtual switcher.... it generally works but:
 
1.  play a movie while kodi in background - kodi crashes -need to program to bring kodi to front first (launch app command would do that)
2.  Neither driver will automatically wake the nvidia shield from sleep... need to send "enter/select" via the nvidia driver first
 

I have a similar question to above.  Have the Kodi full driver and now the nvidia shield irusb driver.
 
Seems to work fine together in all scenarios except..... i have kodi in background because i opened youtube.  I then choose movies on c4 and choose to play a movie via kodi.  Kodi force quits with an error because i tried to play a movie while it is in th ebackground.  
 
Basically before the start of playing a movie chosen in the kodi full driver... we need a way to tell the nvidia shield mini driver to start kodi again(brings it to foregronud) then send the start movie command.
 
how would we achieve that?

You can easily install the switches, as long as you can read. I had an electrician install my first four and watched. Then I've been very lucky with the C4 keypads I have bought off ebay and installed myself. Then you can have any dealer remotely add them. I saved close to a thousand if not more considering I added well over 10 keypads myself.

Any electrician can install the switches or dimmers, so yes you can buy and have a remote dealer add them to your project.
The switches are identified via button clicks, so you will need to be on site to help a remote dealer.
Talk to a dealer first - he/she may give more competitive pricing if buying both hardware and time.

Actually our Kodi driver only has the following
IR control of any external device Fast and responsive IP control for menu navigation / all button support in any app SMS Style Text Entry Kodi App launching We decided to not implement mini app launching into Kodi as the driver is bloated enough already.
Our own IRUSB driver however does have mini apps (along with IR control, fast control, SMS style text entry).  With the method we used to develop the driver adding new mini apps does not involve updating the IRUSB driver.  We just create a new mini app driver with the new parameters entered into the driver's properties.  In fact no lua modification is required.  Anyone can create their own mini app using our architecture.  Just replace the default in the property and change the name and icon to suit and you're done.
If however you don't want to make your own we do have a version you can use as a favourite (just a star as an icon).  You can add as many instances of these as you want and just change the property.  It will persist across reboots.

fwiw, here's my assessment: 
- both drivers are awesome ,and provide super fast control over IP and direct app launching.
- videostorm driver is less "sexy" with the shield icon. my guess is that it's designed for all android tv devices whereas alan's driver has individual drivers for 4 or 5 separate units such as the foxtel box, xiaomi box, etc. 
- videostorm driver requires IP address to be placed in the connections field instead of the main driver "page" . not a huge deal, just a bit different
- [disclaimer: i use tons of alan's drivers and they're all pretty f'n amazing] alan's driver does not have the ability to re-assign the "guide" button to return home. this is what really reduces my ability to enjoy alan's driver in this case. i'm sure he will update the driver to accommodate this in the future, though. 
- videostorm driver has the ability to map the color buttons to specific apps in the main driver page instead of custom programming, this is cool, but of course you're limited to the apps they've considered, which may not work perfectly for certain countries/users
- alan's driver supports kodi full but does not yet support plex full (he's working on it IIRC). if you're using kodi then alan's driver is the winner as videostorm mentioned above
 
just my 0.02 and i appreciate not only alan's dedication to building a bad ass driver (yet again), but also videostorm's awesome community support that went from "hey will anyone use this if we build it" (referring to the IRUSB) all the way to shipping the product and providing a solid driver set with it. thanks to you both

Our driver (Video Storm) offers:
Fast and responsive IP control for menu navigation / all button support in any app Direct app launching via commands, buttons, or mini drivers IR control of any external device (just like a C4 IR extender) Alan's driver does all the above, plus it gives you some amazing features for the KODI app.  @alanchow  please elaborate 

For the Kodi app please quit and launch manually.  Also can you please stop posting AND PMing me the same question.  One or the other.  I don't mind which you do.

No need.  We updated our Kodi Full driver to support the IRUSB dongle.  As soon as you quit Kodi it will change the IRUSB mode so you can navigate and use other apps.  It will also launch Kodi (if it is not already open) when you select it as a source.