TundraSonic

Even if the controller could do this (that I'm aware of none can though it'd be easy to do in C4 if a controller had C4 integration) it needs to be human initiated. I don't want sprinklers coming on when people might be in the yard playing a game or reading or whatever. Totally automatic is fine overnight, not so fine mid afternoon.

We have 2 zones that get a gob of sun and about 30-40 times per year these zones need to be run an extra time in the afternoon or evening. I can't fully automate this because this is during active use time and people might be in those zones (and most controllers don't offer the needed level of automation/programming to do that anyway). Some 'automation' requires a human decision. As I said above, doing this manually with the app requires a lot of steps. It's a PITA. A single button press would be much better. That is the purpose of home automation.

@ekohn00, that could be said about nearly all home automation. The core of home automation is simplifying repetitive tasks. Taking something that normally takes 5 minutes of numerous individual tasks and making them in to a single 1 second button press.

Yep, mostly the same for us except 4a > 8a.

@zaphod, see second paragraph of OP.

This is very intriguing. Any thoughts on how Berto compares to the new Chowmain driver? When converting from Chowmain… Can the two coexist or do we need to kill the Chowmain driver? I've a good bit of LIFX via Chowmain programmed in to scenes and apps so coexisting to give me time to slowly migrate over would be good.

I'm not sure that Weathermatic would get me anything beyond the Rainbird I have now? If it had C4 integration I think I'd be all over it.

These are in a different class that add-a-zone. The reason that just about all commercial (and larger residential and increasingly all residential) use 2-wire decoder systems is that they are much more reliable and capable. If they were any kind of a nightmare then they'd not be as ubiquitous as they are.

We had numerous conversations with Chowmain, LIFX and C4. There was a local/direct API available. LIFX was baffled that they'd not used it.

The Chowmain driver, at least the old one, uses only the cloud API so every command/ack has to go through the LIFX cloud. This is slow and, due to apparent lack of positive ack's, quite error prone. If they've redone the driver to talk directly to the lamps and added ack's so that they can insure that you get the result that you expect then it should be much better. Unfortunately I have to wait on our integrator to install it.

Similar to DMX (and somewhat based on the DMX protocol). Rather than run individual wire pairs to each valve, you do a single run to all valves. Connect a decoder and it tells the valve to open (and in some cases how much to open). It also provides feedback to the controller that the valve opened/closed (and some actually provide a valve state). Easier and less expensive to install/repair, more reliable, etc. Commercial systems have been decoder based for over a decade. Many sensors are also based on this system which makes it easier to add soil moisture sensors, wind, rain, solar/UV, etc.

"Needed an additional controller reboot to pickup lights from the bridge driver." Will it now automatically pick up new lights added to a Hue bridge? That would be a huge improvement over having to call an integrator just because you bought a new lightbulb.

Thanks all. Rachio still doesn't support 2-wire decoders though so they are not an option for us.

A few thoughts… LED's last a lot longer than other alternatives but they WILL burn out at some point. What alternatives do you want? Do you want to replace a $49 industry standard GU-10 lamp or a $189 proprietary integrated lamp or, if mfr is gone or no longer offering replacements, an entire fixture? Hue, LIFX and similar are potentially a safer bet here. Technology will improve, particularly color quality and flicker of LED lamps. Is it easier and less expensive to upgrade a GU10 lamp than a proprietary integrated fixture? Ketra for example, has good but not great color quality and there is much room for improvement. Hue and LIFX both have a longer way to go on color quality. But I can more easily replace them. I have a strong preference for industry standard over proprietary. ----- In our new place we've a bit of a mix of downlights. I believe 13 Juno, 15 Ketra, 42 LIFX GU10 and 93 Hue GU10 (along with a bunch of LIFX & Hue A19, candelabra, strips and other). We had a lot of LIFX & Hue in our prior house so were fairly familiar with them. LIFX has much better color quality for white and deeper/brighter colors overall. Hue has improved but still not as good as LIFX. ----- LIFX is WiFi based and can be a PITA. LIFX also doesn't like not having constant power and will often loose its programming if power is lost for any significant period of time. Hue is Zigbee based. Zigbee doesn't like walls or interference and there are very few Zigbee devices that include the lighting protocols in their meshing. So, with Hue you might need a lot of bridges (I think we're currently at 7). Worse, Hue bridges are not POE powered (which totally amazes me as they easily could be). So every bridge needs ethernet and a wall wart. So long as you can get Zigbee to it, Hue is rock solid and even after being turned off for several months. Most of our LIFX lamps get constant power and they've been OK. I think most manufacturers will have Zigbee included in their AP's in the near future so this should help considerably. ----- Hue's C4 driver is much better than the LIFX driver from Chowmain. Hue responds faster to C4 and does smoother dimming / crossfades. LIFX can have significant delays and will sometimes or often pop rather than dim/fade. The LIFX problems are with the Chowmain driver and how it is written. ----- FWIW, we do have hard switches for every Hue/LIFX circuit, but usually not in the rooms. Some are in closets, some are in the mechanical room. You need to be able to toggle LIFX on/off to reset/program. All lighting (above plus 68 channels of centralized dimmers for decorative fixtures) is controlled via C4, mostly keypads (each room entrance is required to have a keypad per NEC). Overall we're fairly happy with how it's going after 2 years in our new house. Next house: Likely all Hue downlights except for specialty like pin lights over the dining table. Juno and Ketra have slightly better light quality, and that's important to me, but I'm not sure that its enough better to warrant the risks of integrated.

On the hunt for a new controller. In our prior house we used a number of different ones but the Rachio 2 and then Rachio 3 were overwhelmingly the best of any we tried. Never got the C4 integration working properly though my understanding is that the problem we had was fixed soon after we moved. C4 Integration. While most watering is automated there are a few instances where integration would be handy. One example, we occasionally need to do an extra watering of some zones in the afternoon to prevent stress. I'd like a push button on a keypad for me or my wife rather than having to do it manually through the irrigation controller app (at least 18 steps w/ Rainbird). Another is to skip watering for some period when we'll be in the yard. In our new house… Landscape contractor will only use 2-wire systems with decoders which Rachio does not yet support. These are less expensive, more reliable, easier to troubleshoot and provide positive acknowledgment to the controller that the valve did indeed open or close. Hunter (HCC) - He originally installed a Hunter w/ Hydrowise. Overall a really good system, good UI, promises of C4 integration. A number of better features than Rachio like more sensors (temp, soil moisture, wind, ...), reports, etc. ET/MAD functionality equal to or better than Rachio. Initially we were quite happy. HOWEVER, WiFi continuously dropped. We learned that they use a chip from Newport Media that does not meet industry specs and many mfr's have had problems with these, especially on newer AP's. Worse, the programmers for Hunter didn't include any positive feedback acknowledgments in their code. If you turn a zone on/off from the app then the app will say it's running or stopped even if WiFi had dropped and so the request never reached the controller and the zone never did run. My 14-year-old niece knows better. A minor PITA if you're at the location but a bigger problem if you're remote (like trying to turn sprinklers off for a contractor who just arrived and can't do his work because of the sprinklers). So, we switched to Rainbird. Rainbird (LXD) - One of the worst user interfaces that's ever existed. Totally awful. Especially coming from Hunter which was quite good. HOWEVER, Rainbird seems quite reliable. It doesn't tell you that a zone is running until it's heard back from the decoder. So if there's a wifi or any other problem you'll not be told bad info like Hunter. Setting it up and using it can be confusing and frustrating. We're still trying to figure some things out that were intuitive with Hunter. Hunter also had much better and more informative reports. No C4 or any other integration that I'm aware of. We may be stuck w/ Rainbird but hopefully there's a better alternative.

Something to keep in mind is that the color/light quality of most LED's, including Hue, is still quite poor vs incandescent. Some LED's are a bit better than this chart indicates but not by much. Venders have learned how to inexpensively game the CRI and CRI-16 quality systems which is why TM-30 was developed but unfortunately TM-30 is still not required for consumer lamps. One health issue is that LED light quality is likely the cause of is increased problems of people not sleeping (though it's not just a too much blue problem as was once thought but rather a lack of full even spectrum). Poor color quality and flicker are also both causes of headaches and nausea.

This is still continuing to happen. Most recent was Easter morning. All or most working zones* were selected to the session. I moved the session master slider to about 50% and it jumped to 100% and so forced all zones to 100%. When I slid it back to 50% it jumped back up to 100%. On second try it stayed. I moved it a couple of more times to see if it would jump up and it didn't do it again. We do have the analog gains (pots) on the back of the Triad amps down quite low (most are about 1.5 > 2) as well as the digital gain to the Anthem amps so that when this does happen it will no longer blow out like the first time but this is not a good solution. * We have two zones that do not yet have speakers on them and these were not part of this session. It's possible that the outdoor porch speakers (that do have speakers and are working) were not selected.

1) I've had some difficulty w/ the quality of announcement tones/sounds I've downloaded. When they play the volume seems to ride up/down like there's some kind of strange delayed compressor/limiter. They sound good on my laptop, not so good on C4 regardless of volume. I'm guessing that they are maybe too much dynamic range for C4? Or mastered at too high a level though doesn't seem the case. Is there a good source of free quality tones/sounds that might work better w/ C4? Does C4 have a preference for .WAV vs .MP3 vs ?? 2) Other problem is with announcements I'm getting varying delays in different zones. System is EA-5 > Triad 24x24 > Triad Zone Amps. Music or TV audio sync's up fine across zones but announcements not so much. Thanks,

We have two named airplay streams setup with ShairBridge. I want to program a button on a remote to select one of these as the audio source for a room/session but can't find it. Under Room Actions it's not under 'Select an Audio Device' nor under 'Select Media'. Both streams are listed in our mechanical room but clicking that in programming only gives options for Device Specific Command. Am I missing something? Thanks

There'll be a $12/yr option? I'm in

Quick note of thanks for the forum. Glad to pony up $10/yr.

#1 - Realistic Expectations. A simple light switch is the most reliable way to control a light. A simple dumb dimmer is less reliable. A WiFi controlled dimmer less reliable still. A WiFi and HA controlled dimmer even less reliable. A dimmer controlled via cloud is ... Technology and automation is great but the more complicated something is the more unreliable it will be. This should never be an excuse for poor quality products, poor installation or poor configuration but is something that people need to keep in mind. On top of this then is a semi-reliable network upon which a system like C4 rides. Ethernet/TCP/IP is at it's foundation a best effort protocol.

I live in Unix, Windows and Apple worlds. Unix/Linix and Apple are overwhelmingly the more stable and reliable platforms. The only reason I run Windows is for apps that are Windows only or the Windows app has features that the Unix or Apple do not. Mostly these are scientific apps... And Composer. In Apple's defense, their controlled/closed system has resulted in a quite stable and secure platform. For the most part things just work and always work. Those of us in the Apple Universe are generally quite happy with how stuff works across multiple platforms. Unfortunately they've declined in reliability over the past 10 years but hopefully they'll reverse that. OTOH, they can be a bit too closed and things like not working w/ C4 to implement Apple Music is irritating. A pseudo solution is to stick an Apple TV in the rack and use that to pipe Apple Music. But then there's the issue of not being able to control Apple TV , so you have to use an iphone or ATV remote to do it.

Yes. I think we've currently got 23 cameras running on whatever the most powerful Mac Mini was available 18 months ago. Combo of 2, 3, 4 and 8 MP streams. Not a lot of AI. I think 17 cameras are set for 24hr motion triggered recording. Runs well.

To clarify my earlier post. If someone already has a Unifi network or Synology NAS and want a simple 4 or 6 camera surveillance system then I think either of those are fine. If they want a more robust system then BI or SS are the better options. If they want a dealer maintained system then an NVR or whatever the dealer wants to support will be the ticket though BI or SS will be the more capable.