TundraSonic

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with how antiquated our new DSC Neo is and wondering if it'd be best to bite the bullet and switch to a Vista or something else. Curious what others thoughts are and in particular C4 integration differences. Also exploring if switching to Alarm.com and using their app/cloud would make the Neo easier and more intuitive but that's another topic. Among many things one sore point is managing users. It's 2022 - I should be able to create a user and for each user a code for the alarm system and a code for the Yale locks along with other per user bits (times their code works, what partitions, etc.) Ideally I should have a choice to have the security system arm/disarm when a lock is locked/unlocked with their code. I should be able to perform any functions from C4 and C4 should be able to respond to any status changes. Thanks,

We like having the door chimes on most of the time but one exception is early in the morning. I often get up about 5a and when I go out the chime wakes my wife. I wanted to add a bit to a button that triggers lights in the morning to also turn the chime off for 2 hours but I'm not seeing a way to do it in the driver. Commands available include; Arm, Disarm, Emergency and Execute Function. The last two are greyed out. Ideally I'd like to turn it off for just the two doors that I use but turning it off completely for 2 hours would work as well. Also, am I correct that if we switch to Alarm.com that we will not have any connection between C4 and the security system? DSC Neo HS2128 Driver V: 049 Software V: 5.42 Thanks,

Great. Thanks Andrew. Great info. Looking forward to the new driver. On #2. We have a quite robust network (7 AP's that have been fairly well tuned) but even so some lamps have spotty signals. I don't think this can be avoided in most homes or businesses.

Thanks. I'm assuming that leaves the old references in place so you can just replicate it in the scenes or programming?

Is there a good way and a bad way?

Thanks. 1) That's a gonna be a lot of programming. So, once the new driver is installed will all references to the old levels in scenes and programming disappear? Or will I still be able to see them? IOW, do I need to go in and document every reference to a LIFX lamp before upgrading? 3) Very good news!

Yeah, but it's disabled so you have to go in and manually enable it. This and not allowing the bridge to be powered by POE are two of the stranger bits about them. The lack of POE perhaps the most baffling.

That's great news @Andrew luecke! Three questions; 1) When my integrator updates us to this new driver, will I have to redo existing scenes and programming? 2)Do you now have positive ack's to insure that lamps respond (and do you do retries?) or is this still a best effort maybe it will maybe it won't? 3) When we add a new LIFX lamp will this driver pick it up? Can I as a homeowner tell the driver about the new lamp? Or will I have to call our integrator every time we buy a new/replacement lamp? Thanks,

Thanks. One problem is not having Ethernet in a few places where a bridge is needed. Worst case I can steal a Comtrend PLA from something else (I've 6 of them operating) but I hate to do that and as good as they are they're not quite as reliable as a hard Ethernet or WiFi. Maybe if I get time one day I'll turn on the internal WiFi in a Hue Bridge to see how that works. Is the UnilogIC the 'Hue Motion Sensor' driver? Do you prefer it over the Phillips driver or just what you have?

The on/off sequence is for resetting the lamp or doing a hard ON or hard OFF. The other option that I can think of would be a button on the side of the lamp but that could be a PITA to access for a GU10 inside a fixture in a 12' ceiling.

@fleon, have you had any problems with multiple Hue bridges within a single C4 project? Also, have you found a good solution for Zigbee repeaters that support the light protocol?

Thanks for that. Some promise there. One drawback is that they only support analog valves/devices and not digital (2-wire decoder) systems. Do you know if there are other apps that work with their hardware device? It looks like someone did a C4 driver some years ago but disappeared.

I'd really like to see standard protocols/interfaces for weather/environment sensors and irrigation devices (controllers, 2-wire decoder systems of sensors and valves, etc.).

We use tunable white daily and it changes throughout the day. Our kitchen for instance is about 6500 in the morning, 2800 in the evening and about 1800 late night IIRC. We'd not want to go back to not being able to do this. Similar for our living room, bedrooms and offices. Our gym and all showers use RGB. A major advantage to Hue/LIFX is that the lamps use industry standard bases and can be easily changed. This when they burn out or when technology advances. For us we're looking for improvements in TM30 (and warm-dim) and Flicker. I don't want to be locked in to the poor light quality that's available today. Ketra, Hue, LIFX, Juno and all the rest still have a very long way to go on improvement. I also don't like the cost of replacing a Ketra, Juno or similar proprietary integrated fixture/engine when they burn out. Industry standard lamp bases are a very good thing.

Personally I would prefer a security style where you have a slot through which you insert a key to flip the switch on/off. Eliminates accidentally turning something on/off and allows for easier on/off sequences such as is needed for LIFX. Some places where we had switches/dimmers we switched to security switches after moving to Hue/LIFX lamps.

True. We can always dream (though I'd rank a long press of much higher importance to me personally).

Perhaps. But with intelligent controllers the start time for any individual zone is weather dependent. While my overall program is scheduled to start at 4a, only two zones start at that time. The next zone start time could be anywhere from maybe 15 minutes out (cool/cloudy forecast) to an hour out (hot/sunny/windy forecast). Then there are times when zones are started manually.

That could easily get out of sync. Better to simply query the controller so that you know for certain if a zone is going to start in the next xx minutes and then change the LED. With a decent API you should be able to do an orange for starting in 30 minutes, blinking orange for starting within 15 minutes, red for currently running and blinking red for running but in final 15 minutes or something.

That's all using pure ET/MAD though which are very rough approximations trying to guess what the soil moisture is. Soil moisture sensors should, I think, be able to provide much more accurate information to the controller/app and they are getting functional and inexpensive enough that you could put one in each zone or even multiple in each zone.

Two-way dimmer modules were rock solid reliable for us but they were about $40/ea so expensive relative to $10 lamp dimmer modules. About 10 or so years ago we installed a repeater / phase-coupler (can't remember the name/brand) that improved reliability of the $10 modules to well over 99.9%. Everything pretty much always worked. We'd get maybe one miss every few months. One of the great things about X10 was that it was an industry standard. So multiple people made controllers, devices, etc. You could mix and match or upgrade when something better came out. Hopefully Matter will fill this void?

RE: Industry Standard Interface between an irrigation controller app and an irrigation controller I/O device? And for that matter to a weather station? The controller could be a mac-mini, arduino, windows PC, EA-5 or whatever. The lower layers link to the I/O device could be Ethernet/TCP, Ethernet/Thread?, WiFi/Thread, Zigbee, etc.? Is there already an industry standard that the upper layers would be based on? Matter?

I think doing even pseudo accurate ET/MAD calcs in C4 would be somewhere between impossible and excruciating However, I think that this from a concept is not a bad way to go. The irrigation calcs would need to be done in a separate app or add-in but one huge advantage is that if multiple people develop them then you can choose which you use and change it if someone comes out with a better one. So no longer locked in to what choices Hunter/Rainbird/Rachio/Weathermatic make. Then an 'irrigation I/O extender' device that can be located outside, ideally based on some kind of industry standard interface to the controller app, 2-wire decoder based for zone valves & sensors, and with some way to manually start/stop zones. Otherwise it's controlled by the app or C4.

Both Rainbird and Hunter do this at closer to a zone level. The Rainbird LXD has a single master weather (online) and 4 weather sensor inputs (typically rain/freeze/wind). ET/MAD calcs are done for each zone based on terrain, crop / vegetation type, soil, solar exposure, overall local weather, nearest zone rain/freeze/wind, etc. Realistically I do wonder if soil moisture sensors get reliable and inexpensive enough if that wouldn't be the better way to do it rather than current ET/MAD. Current soil moisture plus predicted rain/sun/wind would seem the most accurate?

Yes, but not reliably. For example, if someone is sitting in the yard reading then a motion sensor is not likely to pick them up. And automation won't know if people are planning a croquet match or to work in the garden (though this human has missed those himself). Though if an irrigation controller had the C4 integration to allow fully automated then I'd also be able to program a simple button press.

Be careful disparaging X10. Until we moved in to our new house 2 years ago we still had a lot of X10. About 15 or so devices throughout the year and close to 100 for Christmas lighting. All controlled by a Stargate (Serial # 3 IIRC, and that Stargate is still in use at the house controlling a lot of the lighting and a few other things for the new owners). X10 is approaching 50 years old in a couple of years. I bought my first X10 device around 1980. IIRC I got the Stargate about 1991. Not a bad lifespan. X10 lamp dimmer, appliance and other modules are still less the $20 and often work quite well. While C4's alternative may be better, it's about 6x as expensive. TP-Link may be the closest alternative. And Stargate's 1990's WinEVM structured programming and reporting environment was in many ways well ahead of where C4's Composer is today.