TundraSonic

That's the customer who wants someone else to do everything for them so that they never have to do anything?

On 11/9/2023 at 11:20 AM, Cyknight said:

They're hardly dumpster fires at all, especially compared to some of the other similar systems out there.

Dumpster fire might be harsh, but both PRO and HE are exceptionally antiquated and poorly conceived.  I've helped a couple of different integrators do some programming in PRO and have been surprised at stuff lacking that is basic in every other structured programming environment I've used, even the old 1980's STARGATE.

As to HE … 

• You cannot see 'connections' and some other bits so have no insight in to stuff that a dealer or C4 employee has done nor any way to know if you're overwriting other stuff. 
• No good debug or trace capabilities.
• No ability to edit commands. If you want to change something you have to rebuild the entire command which can be many clicks.
• No ability to copy/paste commands
• and on and on...

That said, it's been the only game in town for providing homeowners with some semblance of control over their system. The question is when will other options like HomeKit become viable.

I'm struggling with the value here. This seems much less capable than either Security Spy or Blue Iris, costs multiples more initially and recurring, and all for only 4 cameras.  What am I missing?

We need to control the speed.

The exhaust for our sauna is a Fantech FG6 (120v, 64w, non-ECM). We currently have a simple rotary speed controller in a single gang box. This was supposed to be speed controllable via C4 but our integrator is saying that they don't know of a solution that will work.

Ideal solution would have front panel control in addition to being controlled by C4 but control only by C4 would work.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Quite frequently when I go in to the C4 app (v323.31.1.100) to adjust zone volumes… When I click on the house w/ the number of zones in it I get a single slider for the session but none of the zone sliders. I have to go out and back in and then all of the zone sliders show up. Have others seen this? Fix?

Thanks,

Perspective is important. Cisco costs approx 5-7x what UI does.  And then there are annual support contracts on top of that.  For mission critical systems it's totally worth it. I used Cisco for years and miss how bullet-proof it was, but it's not worth the extra $50k it would cost for our home.

A good example are some stadiums that use Cisco for security and teams but UI (or other affordable alternatives) for patron WiFi, retail systems, press, back office, etc.

On 8/8/2023 at 10:34 AM, SpencerT said:

You could disable chimes at the panel and set up chimes to be announcements in c4. Then manage it with programming.

This could definitely work. IIRC announcements in C4 are all interrupt though, not overlay? That could get annoying. I'll have to play with this when I get back.

I would NOT count on UI to solve your WiFi problems. Like others we have strange unexplained/insolvable dropouts and slowdowns and too many new bugs introduced with firmware updates that can take months to resolve. And there's no bug tracker so avoiding really bad updates can be difficult.

In the Edge days they were pretty rock solid, that disappeared w/ the UDM world of today. Of the options out there I think UI is one of or the best value but there are a lot of issues that come with those cost savings.  If someone else came along with the UI capabilities but more stability/reliability for 20-50% higher cost I'd be all over it (or same cost but an annual maintenance fee of 5% of the purchase cost or …). 

Definitely keep your Security Spy system. Discreet devices for discreet functions makes for a more robust/reliable system and makes troubleshooting much easier.

Rainbird's IQ4 controllers have been experiencing a LOT of problems the past 2 years. They are poorly programmed, remote access can be slow or non-existent, if you manually open a zone it might take 5 minutes for an acknowledgement (and all the while you're not sure if it's running or not). In some regions of the U.S. their weather data are so bad that we can't use any ET capabilities and have to rely on time only (in MN it will predict 107°f when actual is 84°f so each zone unnecessarily runs for 3x as long).  I'd stay far away from Rainbird.

Hunter is overall great and well designed except for WiFi problems with newer AP's and no positive feedback loop. You can tell it to turn a zone on and it will say it's done it (rather than wait for the controller to positively acknowledge) but the controller's having WiFi problems so it's not actually on even though it said that it was. Also there is NO ETHERNET for Hydrawise systems, only unreliable WiFi.

Big fan or Rachio for small systems but lack of 2-wire support (most I know are doing 2-wire even for small systems now) and 16 zone limit is a problem.

I would not look at a device by device replacement but rather start with your requirements and build a new system from there. Some good advice from @cnicholson.  

Wattbox s/b fine. I've used them w/ UI systems.

I would not use the UI NVR capability. Separate dedicated boxes for each function increases reliability (and UI capabilities are limited). UI cameras were once proprietary as well which is not good, are they still? Our go to is Security Spy on a Mac mini (or Studio) with Dahau cameras.

Note that UI SW/FW updates can be very buggy. Shouldn't be a problem for a smaller simply system but if you do a lot of LAGs, special routing or rely on Radius then something to watch out for. And sadly there is no bug/issue tracker so you have to wade through gobs of posts to guesstimate if you'll be affected or not.  UI is a good value for what you get but this can require some extra time and frustration.

Wanted to bump this up as my wife is quite unhappy with hearing the chime in the mornings and doesn't understand why "for the tens of thousands of $'s we paid for all of this Control 4 and DSC stuff it can't do something as simple as turn a chime off automatically. Do either of those companies know that this is 2023 and not 1965?"

Can't disagree with her.  Are DSC and C4 taking a page from the Chamberlain/Liftmaster playbook of we don't want to play nice with any modern technology?

Any advice on accomplishing this would be welcomed.

Thanks,

I'm not a fan of all-in-one systems nor of anything proprietary. I've also found the features of Unifi, Synology and C4 surveillance to be lacking.  Our go to is Security Spy on MacOS. Second is Blue Iris but Windows isn't as stable as MacOS. Blue Iris has some better capability for directing a PTZ based on info from other cameras but otherwise Security Spy is the winner.

We've about a dozen different notifications that get sent to our watches. They all show the C4 logo full screen and you have to click on it to see what the notification is. Is there any way to have it display the text of the notification instead?  Probably 70% of the time we get these is when we can't free our other hand to click on it.

If consumers (including integrators, electrical contractors, HVAC installers, etc.) push for things to be more standardized and shy away from products that are not then the standard will likely do well.

Is it in our best interest for products to support Matter?

Ah, the old let's not place a name on the button trick    

That worked, thank you. New bug?

The 'Programming' tab (lower left corner) has disappeared in my Composer HE. HE is v3.3.2  EA-5 is 3.3.2.651066.

Any idea what might have happened?

Thanks,

One of our keypads has died. My wife said that a few days ago she felt a bit of static electricity when she pressed a button on it and it hasn't worked since.

In cold climates like ours static electricity is an unavoidable a fact of life but rarely if ever causes problems. This is actually the first problem with anything electronic/electrical that I can remember over the past couple of decades. 

Have others experienced this? Any thoughts on the cause?

Thanks,

That's very good news. Thank you.

We are looking at Kasa, primarily KP105 outdoor dimmer plugs, for a number of applications. We have 7 of them currently but still waiting on our integrator to install the C4 app. Some questions.

- They are rated for 300w / 150w LED. Landscape lighting is LED but on the downside of a xformer (vs an LED controller). I've received two different answers from Kasa on this, one saying up to 300w will be OK for a xformer load and another that it will be 150w because it's LED. Does anyone know for certain? And why an LED controller would be 50% less (I believe these are basic trailing edge triac dimmers so shouldn't care what's downstream?).

- Once the C4 app (Chowmain?) is installed will I be able to add/delete Kasa devices myself or will I have to hire and wait on an integrator for each one (good thing I don't have to hire an integrator every time I want to install an app on my phone or laptop or Homekit or Alexa or ...)?

- Do the Kasa devices like this keep any scheduling/programming locally? What happens when they loose WiFi or Internet? And related, can I download a schedule to a KP105 or other Kasa device and then place it away from WiFi (like end of driveway) and have it run the schedule?

- At our prior house we had about 70 X10 lamp modules for indoor and outdoor Christmas lights (plus another 20 or so year-round for lamps and stuff). Any idea if we'd run in to problems with over 100 Kasa devices?

Thanks,

2 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Bad strategy. Your system is screwed if you have to reboot nightly 

Why do you say that?

Thanks. Reboots every night at 2a.  

One of our exterior sconces that's on a C4 central dimmer (8 channel module) is acting strange. It will not turn on/off/dim from a scene or within programming but I can turn it on/off/dim manually from the C4 iPhone app.  

Sometimes on a T3 it will be listed with no slider and pressing on/off appears to have no affect (it remains off according to the T3) though in reality it does turn on and at the same time it functions correctly from the app.

Per recommendation here my dealer added the Room Control Driver to our system. I have been unable to locate any documentation though. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

In a very quick review of their site I didn't see anything about GFI/AFCI and being able to customize these. AFCI is of particular importance because nuisance trips are a huge issue.