DLite

12 hours ago, ferbor said:

Thanks Dlite for your comments! That isf good news for me. My dealer confirmed today that they were able to buy the HSIM in USA and will be sending it to Argentina next week hopefully. I am not sure when they will be able to install it since here the quarantine due to COVID19 is very strict and only essential workers are allowed to do so.

I am not sure if I understand correctly the strange behaviour you mention. I have 50 windows at home, and I am using 50 zones for the contact sensors for the windows itself and 50 zones for the security blinds on each window. The remaining zones are basically motion sensors around the house, and 6 more contact sensors for my outside doors and garage gates. 

At night all the zones, except the inside motion sensors are activated (not bypassed). In this scenario I do not care whether a zone delays 30 seconds in closing in Control4, I am only concerned here in the opening.

In the day, the alarm is not activated but I have bound the garage gates and exterior gates contact sensors to Control4. In this scenario I need that the opening and closing of these zones is reflected immediately for security reasons. Since all the contact sensors on the windows plus some motion sensors around the house will be opened, does this mean that the closing of one of these garage gate zones will delay to show the closing in Control4?

Anyway, for the time being it is the only option I have to be able to migrate to 3.X so I must have to survive with this until COntrol4 releases some update to the 4232 Commercial driver or I migrate to a DSC NEO (not a fan of doing this.

Good to know COntrol 4 supported on this hardware installation!

Thanks!

Yes, you won't have a problem with tracking zone opening.  This is a pretty minor problem for me, but I have seen some people on the forums offer cases where it becomes a big deal.

Let me give a quick example of the issue, just so you know.  I use my sensors to trigger commands for my HVAC -- when windows or doors are open, I shut off the HVAC in that particular room.  Suppose one window is open in the living room and another is open upstairs in the bedroom. C4 then shuts the living room and bedroom HVACs off.  Now, when the living room window closes, it takes 30 seconds for C4 to register the closing, because there is another zone still open.  This causes a 30-second delay in the time it takes for C4 to turn the HVAC on again in the living room.  Again, this is no big deal for me, but I know some people use their sensor openings and closings to trigger very time-sensitive commands.  As long as you are not planning to do something like that, the HSIM should be a good solution for you.  I hope it works out!

On 7/29/2020 at 1:49 AM, ferbor said:

the question is if it would be remedied at some time or not. As you can see from the other comment some people think this would not be the case.

Thanks!

I have a Honeywell Vista 250 panel, which is pretty much the same as yours, and I faced the same issue as you in upgrading to OS3.  I solved it by installing a HouseLogix Security Integration Module (HSIM).  It works great with the Honeywell panel.  Programmatic arming is nearly instant, and open/closed sensors update quickly on C4. (There is one finicky feature of the HSIM with Honeywell relating to sensor opening updates when multiple sensors are open.  The long and short of it is that it can take up to 30 seconds to register one sensor closing when others remain open, but this is not a deal-breaker for me.)

As an aside, I thought HouseLogix hardware had been abandoned, but C4 supported the install and answered my dealer's installation questions with no problem.

2 hours ago, jfh said:

Glad (?) to see I’m not the only one having this problem.
 

Does anyone have a WB700 working correctly?

I have it working fine.  However, I'm using a different driver, I think.  

Initially, my dealer installed the SnapAV driver, but that gave the same error messages listed in the thread.  In response, he switched to a different driver, which has worked flawlessly for me.  The one that works says it was created by "TheDriversLab LLC," and the file name is WattBox-WB700.c4i.  Not sure if this is an older driver, but I have had no issues powering outlets on or off via C4, or programming based on power states.

On 7/10/2020 at 9:31 AM, odhrean said:

So I know all about the Rachio but we have a roof deck at a condo with potted shrubs, potted flowers, 2 raised garden beds, a few planters and a few potted herbs. Everything is on casters so my wife tends to move things around. The roof deck only has a hose faucet and given issues with getting things approved through the board, it would be difficult changing this source. It looks like a few systems have come a long ways the last few years (Orbit B-Hyve for instance) but I've not aware of any Control4 integration.

Has anyone has any luck with hose faucet based systems for irrigation and any Control4 integration or suggestions based on experiences?

 

Yes, we have a hose faucet based system that is controlled by a Rachio. It waters potted plants on our deck, so I suspect it is a similar setup to yours.  The Rachio controls the system without a hitch.   (We have a different Rachio controller that handles irrigation of our front and back yards, because it was too cumbersome to connect a single controller to both areas.)

As an aside, I find that IFTTT is a very simple way to automate the Rachio.  Clearly, it's not as flexible as C4, but it is much simpler and still very reliable.  For instance, I use IFTT to trigger the Rachio based on temperature readings from our Netatmo weather station, and it works like a charm.  

3 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Sorry to say... this required an if statement for each checkbox. I did ultimately create a macro for the bypass routine, but it was still 4 or 5 lines of code for each zone, something like:

if zone1 checked then

        BypassZone = 1

       Execute AlarmBypassMacro

       Delay 10 seconds

If zone2 checked then

      Mix, stir, repeat

That makes sense.  Thanks for

clarifying.

@South Africa C4 userI know this is a super old thread, but I am currently trying to solve the exact same "broken sensor" problem you noted, and I love your solution!  Would you mind explaining how you coded the macro that issues the bypass commands?  Do you literally have an "if" statement for each checkbox that then triggers the relevant bypass command?  Or are you doing something different?  I'm hoping you have an elegant solution that would avoid 100 "if" statements!

Thanks

While running a wifi scan, I noticed that my two Roku devices are each broadcasting their own wifi network, and each network is being broadcast on the same 5GHz channel as the access point in our network that is closest to the Roku devices.  After some googling, I gathered these were the Roku Direct Wifi Networks associated with each device, and that the Rokus are designed to broadcast on the same channel as my own network and to match the signal strength of the nearest access point broadcasting that channel.

I found this design kind of head-scratching, so maybe I am missing something.  My question is:  Does this create interference on that particular 5GHz channel of our network? And if so, is there anything I can do about it?  My googling suggested that changing the AP's channel will just cause the Roku to switch to the new channel.  

(My Rokus are both connected via wired ethernet, and I used IP control via the Control4 driver to control them.)

Thanks

I do the same thing.  I won't claim that my code should be the "best-practice" example, but here is how I do it.

1. For each HVAC zone, I have a variable that counts the number of open windows/doors.  
2. Every time a contact in the relevant zone opens, the zone open windows/doors variable gets incremented by one. Whenever a contact closes, it gets decremented by one.  (I have a safeguard in the code that prevents it from dropping below zero, just in case C4 misses an opening.)
3. When the variable changes values to something greater than zero, it restarts a 5-minute timer -- if the timer is not already running.  
4. When the variable changes values to zero, the timer stops and the Ecobee is set to auto mode.  
5. If the timer expires, it sets the Ecobee to off.

I hope this helps.

On 6/11/2020 at 1:18 PM, Don Cohen said:

I'm guessing I'm not the only one, but my Ecobee 3 Thermostat continues to go offline every couple of weeks or so.

What makes it even more frustrating is that it takes 3 or 4 tries in the Ecobee App to remove the Control4 connection before it 'sticks.'  No idea why that's the case.  I then get another PIN code and it will quickly reconnect, but this is frustrating.

Yeah, as much as I love my Ecobees when they work, I share your frustration.  Fell off again last night and I had to relink.  Had to do the same last week.  It's been a pretty rough couple of months.

The Ecobees are so versatile that I have automated the heck out of them, but that makes it even more maddening and inconvenient when they keep getting unlinked.

If you’ve been having reliability issues, try AV Pro HDMI extenders. They are pricey, but seem to be the most reliable performers on the market. 

15 hours ago, turls said:

I'm asking is there a reason feature wise to upgrade to the ZP90 successor--the "Port" so I can take advantage of current and future S2 enhancements.  Considering my use case I mean.  Surely there is some great new feature that justifies the purchase of a Port in S2 right?

Do you use the announcements feature with the C4 Sonos driver? If so, you'll get better announcement functionality with the Port -- you no longer are forced to put your announcements in the favorite list for them to be pushed to your Sonos device.  Not exactly a headline feature, but it's worth something, if you're almost on the fence about it anyway.

On 6/6/2020 at 4:19 AM, C4 User said:

I am getting ready to add zigbee door locks to my house. The last time I did this was back in 2008 and we used Baldwin locks with C4. I was very happy with their performance but not with the keypad buttons that eventually faded in color and the numbers wore off.

In terms of size/appearance, long term durability of the finish and of the keypads, what does everyone recommend today?

I am only thinking of those options that have C4 zigbee direct integration. If I should be thinking different here, please give me your thoughts.

We have the Yale Zigbee locks with physical buttons, and they have all been very reliable and durable.  I think the Yale locks with the touchscreens (not the physical buttons) are a little more prone to failure.  One other non-C4 related tip -- most of these Zigbee/Z-wave locks have pretty crappy (i.e., easily picked) physical locking mechanisms.  We had a locksmith replace the cylinders inside all our Yale Zigbee locks with more secure physical locks. It was quick and easy to do; he didn't seem fazed by the electronic components. Plus, if you have a bunch of locks, you can put them all on a single key in this step.

On 6/5/2020 at 9:40 AM, Matt Lowe said:

all of your existing im sure would stay in place as is. Sonos is fine with control4 just integration is limited.

its all a matter of exactly what you have to each location.

if you are running new cables and want video distribution run FIber or Fiber hdmis that are 8k certified. it will be cheaper and save you a lot of grief dealing with baluns

 

OMG, I wish I had gotten that advice 3 years ago, when we were doing our remodel!  Dealing with baluns has been a huge pain.

I don't have a video matrix, but I had this same problem with active HDMI cables and my Roku Ultra.  Is your Roku set to "auto detect display?"  If so, try changing it to a fixed display type.  That solved my problem.  As an aside, I did have a similar "in and out black" problem with my Oppo UDP-203 and my active cables too.  I solved it pretty much the same way.

Active HDMI cables are kind of a pain, but the Key Digital balun they replaced in our house was an even bigger pain. That thing never passed HDR signals properly, even though Keystone tech support swore up and down that it would.  But I digress....

Happy to echo @time2jet's enthusiasm.  I have a Nucleus+, along with a full Sonos system (12 zones).  The iPad and PC/Mac Roon app interface is like nothing else I've experienced -- imagine flipping (virtually) through the pamphlets in each of your CDs, if those pamphlets were fully linked to music reviews, musician bios, and Wikipedia entries.  You can get pleasantly lost in all of Roon's interesting reviews, bios, and other content -- it really helps bring the music to life.  Roon also has very useful tagging and bookmarking features to help you organize your collection however you like.  It also integrates your local library with albums you favorite from Tidal and Qobuz -- it's easy to switch among different album versions, and to tweak the meta data right from the app, if you are as OCD about that stuff as I am.   

In addition, Roon's recommendation engine is really excellent.  It does a great job suggesting new Tidal and Qobuz releases that you might be interested in, as well as other albums related to the one you are listening to at any given time.

Roon also plays nicely with a variety of non-Sonos types of gear.  For instance, I do have one non-Sonos zone, which is a ProJect DAC high-resolution streamer.  It's cool to stream Tidal Masters and Qobuz high-resolution files to that unit.  As a related matter, if you like playing with detailed Digital Signal Processing (DSP) features, Roon makes this process pretty intuitive and powerful.

The zone grouping issue mentioned above is a bummer, but @time2jet has made some progress on this with the powers-that-be.  Maybe we'll finally see a fix to that.  For me, this is really the only negative.  

My dealer gave me a Nucleus unit to test out, and I was hooked within 24 hours.  If any of this intrigues you, give it a shot.  You can download the Roon software and install on a PC, Mac, or iOS, to try it out.  If you like it, the Nucleus hardware significantly upgrades the experience by giving you always-on functionality and Control4 integration.  (If you are running multiple grouped zones from Roon, you'll probably need a Nucleus unit to handle all the processing, but I'll defer to the experts on this technical issue.)

On 4/19/2020 at 11:02 PM, time2jet said:

[mention]DLite [/mention]

Do you have the Nucleus or Nucleus Plus and can you compare the two? I’m trying to figure out if I’d have any real hard reason for a plus. I love Roon. Wish they’d fix the multi-zone feature and add another service (Fullblown Spotify Haha!) If they did, or even didn’t, I’m not sure anything else is as sexy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have the Nucleus+.  I bought it because, in theory, the Nucleus is limited in the number of simultaneous zones it will support.  I don't remember the limit, but just that our 12 zones were above the recommended limit.  Also, if you have set up Roon to a lot of digital signal processing, the Nucleus+ may be more reliable.  I suspect, however, if you are using pretty straightforward DSP and playing to a few zones at a time, the Nucleus is just as snappy as the Nucleus+, but this is just a guess.

24 minutes ago, time2jet said:

The screenshots look great.

Roon just undated it’s OS to 1.7, did that change anything with C4 grouping? I find it so hard to believe. They have diehard fans, but a lot of them are old-school audiophiles. C4 just isn’t a big deal to those types.


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Nope! It is always the first thing I check whenever I see an update, and I am always disappointed.  

On 1/26/2020 at 5:33 AM, Gary Leeds UK said:

KWD, 

We have a full Sonos System will this allow us to search our Music via a T3 TouchSreen  ?

The short answer is "yes, but."  

We have 12 Sonos zones along with a Roon Nucleus.  We also have the Roon C4 driver set up.  And, yes, the Roon driver allows you to browse and interact with your music catalog, Tidal, and Qobuz, all through the C4 Touchscreens, and play to Sonos zones.  However, there is a bug in the Roon C4 driver that causes it to break whenever you join two or more zones together for multi-room playback.  Roon has known about this bug for at least 18 months, but no progress has been made. I have lost hope they will fix it.  This really is a shame, because Roon would finally bring back full integration with Sonos and C4.

On the plus side, I am still happy with my Roon nucleus. The Roon app works flawlessly with Sonos, and the app itself will make you mostly forget about using a C4 touch screen to control your Sonos. It is really unique -- like thumbing through a virtual LP collection -- and makes it so much fun to browse and play music. All that said, I wish they would just fix this multi-room playback bug and make it truly perfect.

Wow. Mine is already unlinked again. 

Just checked, and the problem now seems to be resolved. Mine is linked again.

I have had a recurrence of this problem since last night -- account is unlinked, and I can't generate a PIN code.  Anyone else?

5 hours ago, time2jet said:

Roon is the closest thing thing to perfect you’ll find, but for these seemingly easy to fix items that always linger. Then without fixing what’s broken they’ll add another great feature. Crazy. .They always scare me as to how much longer they can sustain. In a sense, they’re a always teetering on going out if business.

Do you have any screen shots of the interface on C4? I’m just curious. For all of the above issues, didn’t buy a nucleus yet.


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Sure, some screenshots are linked to below.  The C4 integration is really pretty awesome, but as you note, the multi-zone playback bug is unlikely to get fixed. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tzf94kx5d95vfm/Screen Shot 2020-03-29 at 10.17.07 AM.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ys3jm0cyy8c94rh/C4-Roon.Screen Shot 2020-03-29 at 10.16.38 AM.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8y8tk3kx344urnx/C4-Roon.Screen Shot 2020-03-29 at 10.15.03 AM.png?dl=0

There is a C4 driver for Roon that works only if you have a nucleus. The problem is the driver has a bug that prevents multi-zone playback from functioning properly. Roon has been aware of the bug for over a year, and I have kind of lost hope that they will fix it.

Apart from zone grouping, the integration is really good. However, the lack of reliable zone grouping is a huge flaw IMHO.

On the plus side, I love the Roon app, and it is still my go-to interface for music. It works really well with Sonos and a variety of high-definition streamers. And the Roon app really enriches the listening experience.

That's exactly right.
They're based on the filename because the way those URLs work is nginx (the webserver) running on the controller has mapping rules (for the "/driver/[filename]/[path]" path, /driver/um_netflix/images/ in this case) that map to the true location of the files on the controller's filesystem (typically /mnt/internal/c4z/[filename]/www/[path]).
Since .c4z files are .zip files, that are unzipped into the 'c4z directory' as the name of the driver, this works.
RyanE

Cool! I didn't think my dealer had auto-update set up for that driver, but it seemed to update to v13 automatically.