Dr. Venkman

My LU-862 isn’t able to be controlled. Composer says it’s offline, and my network says the same. I’ve tried changing network cables and ports on the switch, rebooting the unit (and the C4 controller), and plugging it directly into the switch on the EA-5. Nothing gets it online. When it’s plugged in, the port light on the switch lights up and the left light on the port on the 862 lights up solid. Any ideas on how to get it back up? Thanks.

Is the Roku’s audio getting to the matrix via the Denon? if you can play/control audio in that and other zones, just not the Roku, my guess would be it’s either a connection issue with the Roku or an audio format issue, but I am far from an expert. I believe the audio matrix can handle PCM stereo or surround, but not some other surround formats (DTS, maybe). Whatever is sending the roku’s audio into the matrix (either the Denon or the Roku itself), can you set it to stereo? I know there’s an audio format setting in the Roku.

Can you explain the setup? Is all the equipment in the TV room? Is the sound supposed to be coming out of the TV or other speakers? Are you running a video or audio matrix, or just the Denon? Is YouTube TV running on a native app on the TV or on a Roku/Apple TV/etc? Troubleshooting: Can you control each piece of equipment involved? Even if it still doesn’t work, can you prove that the equipment is controllable by C4? if there is no matrix involved, can you use the individual remotes of the devices (or the manual controls on the front) to get the sound on? Video but no audio is sometimes an indication of an audio format issue, but a Denon receiver should generally be able to handle that fine. That’s usually only a problem with a stereo audio matrix. You could try changing the audio format on the video source back and forth between stereo and surround.

Thanks much. It's actually not going to be that hard with the new color handling in 3.3 - love the new color settings.

Got my dealer to add a few Hue 3.3+ lights. Just to clarify. When we talk about "scenes," we're talking about scenes set up in the Hue app? Not rooms or groups or zones, but scenes. I've got four lights in a room: Scene 1 (in Hue) is all four lights on and white Scene 2 (in Hue) is one light on and red I don't find that the Hue scenes are accessible from C4. The room is (along with individual lights, groups, and zones), and I can set one of the "lights" in C4 to control the whole room (which is cool), but I don't see that I can call the Hue scenes themselves. It's not a huge deal - I can mix and match the lights and get where I need to by some combination of Hue groups, C4 advanced lighting scenes, and/or programming. But I just wanted to confirm that I'm not missing something and that Hue scenes aren't callable from C4.

Can a dimmer/switch (as a two-button keypad) be connected to a hue scene and control dimming? Or would I need to do it as advanced lighting for that?

Thanks. Oh, it’s totally a gimmick, and no, we don’t need it. But the kids are interested, and it’s been convenient. The power isn’t a problem for us. When we installed C4, we had the switch on the wall that controlled the fan light kit wired through (always on) and replaced with a wireless keypad. The only control for those sockets is the chain on the fan. With a new bridge and the new driver, I assume I would be starting essentially from scratch (which doesn’t bother me). In a more current setup: Do individual bulbs come into C4 the way they do in the old native driver? Would I be creating scenes in Hue and calling those scenes from C4 (and can those scenes be connected to a keypad for on/off and dimming)? Currently, I don’t have any Hue scenes. If it’s C4 scenes, are the colors available in the scene, or would they be set programmatically as the scene is activated the way I do now? Thanks again.

Did you try rebooting the dimmer/keypad? 15 taps on the top button. Hopefully a reboot does it, and they aren’t damaged. Edit: Ha…you’re faster than me.

We have had Hue integrated into our system for years. It’s not much, and it’s not complicated, but we’ve mostly liked how it works. We had our first bulb in years burn out this week, and I’ll need to replace it. I could just replace the bulb (I assume), but I thought I should consider whether a new setup would be a good idea. We’ve still got the first generation Hue hub, and with the improvements in C4’s handling of color (not to mention the competitors to Hue these days), I’m quite certain there is room for improvement in our setup. Here’s our use case: First gen hub Four bulbs in each of the kids rooms (the main lights in the ceiling fan) Native driver from forever ago There’s a scene for lights (all on, all white) and a scene for nightlight (one bulb on very dim red). We have a switch on the wall acting as a two button keypad, and it turns the main scene on/off and dimms it. The nightlight scene is called from a keypad when appropriate (bedtime). No scenes from Hue are called, each bulb is a “light” in C4, and they’re grouped into a hue scene. the color is set programmatically when the C4 scenes are called. It works fine, but we really can’t easily do anything besides call those two scenes. I expect the kids would enjoy being able to play with the colors, and I wouldn’t mind the dimming working a little better or having more scene options that are easy to configure. I would love any advice anyone has about choosing between these options (or something I haven’t thought of): Just replace the bulb, reconfigure with the new bulb and keep the same bridge and functionality. Keep Hue, but move up to the new bridge and build out more functionality (not sure exactly what’s available, but I think we could build the scenes in Hue, rather than have C4 control the bulbs individually and set colors programmatically). Ditch Hue for another solution (I understand TP Link bulbs with the Chowmain driver works pretty well). Thanks for any insight.

If I ask my dealer to create a "new" playroom to see if that one will show up, would moving all of the devices to the new room be pretty easy and smooth? That room has lights, wireless keypads, a fan controller, a TV, and a Sonos Soundbar. The lights are in a handful of scenes. The TV is just an endpoint for the Leaf HDMI matrix, and the soundbar is IP controlled, but really doesn't get used for anything but the optical cable out of the TV. I'm hoping that if the new room shows up for Alexa, dragging those devices to the new room wouldn't cause any issues with scenes or connections. I realize I would have to rebuild the navigator thermostat/security/etc. settings for the new room, but that's not hard. Also any room-level programming or defaults, but I don't mind doing that. Thanks.

Thanks. I'm on 117, and after a reboot and a refresh of devices at customer.control4.com, it still isn't there. I initially thought it might be a naming issue (i.e. conflicting names), but the room is named "Playroom," and there aren't any lights or other devices with that exact name. Additionally, there's a room named "Master Bath," and the lights in that room are also just named "Master Bath." Both show up in the portal just fine (it may cause issues with giving commands to Alexa, but Control4 is making both available).

I have the Alexa skill enabled, and it works pretty well. Lights, scenes, room control, selecting AV devices, etc. But one of my rooms doesn't show as available (the playroom). It doesn't show up in the room list on customer.control4.com when choosing which devices are available to Alexa. It has a TV and a Sonos soundbar and is set up identically to another room that is made available to Alexa (same soundbar, same AV endpoint settings). I can control devices in the room, but the room isn't listed at all on customer.control4.com. Any ideas? I'm running OS 3.2.4. Thanks.

Thanks. The HDMI goes into the Leaf, and the RCA audio matrix outputs on the Leaf go into the Triad matrix. Not sure if that’s extraction or routing of audio. With a setup like you describe: There would essentially be two audio streams available to the Triad Matrix. Would the system just choose the stream from the converter over the stream from the leaf (for non-HDMI zones)? Maybe I’m misunderstanding that part. If going directly from the streaming device to the audio matrix (via the extractor), I would lose the ability to delay the audio, right? Most of my video sources require a modest delay when playing on ceiling speakers through the audio matrix, and that delay is controlled by the Leaf. Thanks a bunch.

We’re considering switching from U-verse to DirecTV Stream and are trying out one of DTV’s streaming devices. For several reasons (mostly channel numbers and regional sports network) DTV Stream, with their Android TV streaming device, is the best option for us. Our dealer has it added, and it’s running through our LU862 (non-downmixing). The only issue we have is with the audio. The LU862 is connected to our Triad audio matrix, and when the audio on the streaming device is set to surround, it plays just fine on TV speakers/soundbars, but it won’t play through ceiling speakers. In order to get it to play through ceiling speakers, it must be set to stereo. That all makes sense to me. But when it’s set to stereo, it is incredibly loud through the TV soundbars (a reasonable volume level is like 4% instead of the normal 25%). Without the downmixing Leaf, is there a way to either convert the audio to stereo for use in the ceiling speakers (while using surround to the TVs) or lower the level of the stereo output so the volume doesn’t have to be turned down to 4%? EDIT TO ADD: The audio output options on the device are “Surround when available” and “Stereo only.” It doesn’t mention PCM, or disclose how the surround is formatted. Worst case, I could program the room’s volume level to set to be 4% whenever the device is selected, but I’d rather not have the useable volume range be like 2-6%. Thanks for any ideas.

Absolutely. You still probably want a sensor to monitor the state of the door, but if you've got a sensor already set up and working well, this is probably the best way to go.

Is your TV through comcast, and if so, are your boxes on the coax, or are they on your network on Ethernet? I’m not familiar with comcast boxes or their connection options, but AT&T’s U-verse set top boxes multicast. The switch integrated on their gateway is configured to handle it, but if you just plug them in somewhere else on your network, they’ll choke it to death. I sort of doubt that’s your issue with comcast, but it’s just a thought…

@Denis, connections in the driver for a garage door proxy would be very cool. Though obviously not completely necessary, it might allow people to slot a Garadget into their project without disturbing any existing programming. FWIW, I submitted an inquiry on Garadget’s website while I was installing mine, and Denis emailed me back and answered my question very quickly. (Denis, if you’re curious, I was the dummy that asked about getting the terminal to bite on the wire).

One unit and driver instance per door. It's a laser sensor and a hard-wired opener controller in one, and it can only do one garage door at a time. It only has one laser and one control terminal. (When I say "hard-wired," I'm referring to the connection from the Garadget to the opener. The connection from the Garadget to C4 is via Wi-Fi.)

Sure. It's the Garadget for Control4. It's a new product of theirs - just started shipping in January. I've only had it a few days, so I can't vouch for it as a long-time user, but it seems really promising so far. My dealer was at my house in December and mentioned that he had heard it was coming out, so I pre-ordered (I had never heard of them, but he seemed confident enough in their products that I went ahead and gave it a try). A little background on my setup: I've got three Chamberlain Security 2.0+ openers - I liked the MyQ integration just fine. The controls worked great until it broke. I didn't love the infrequent polling (I had thought I wanted to be able to program off the opening of a door). I added NYCE tilt sensors to try to improve the polling, but I never got them to work reliably. The Garadget appears to solve both problems, with the only issue I've found so far being the lack of a door proxy described above (though, again, it's early). A little about the Garadget: It's a little round disc, about the size of a hockey puck - it seems really well made. It mounts (with an adhesive pad) to your opener and points a laser at the garage door. A reflective sticker is included for the door. It's powered by a micro USB cable that needs to be plugged into an outlet (the power supply is included), so hopefully you already have an outlet on the ceiling right above your opener. In my case (and yours, I would guess) a Security 2.0+ adapter is needed. I bought the one Garadget sells, but you could make your own if you like to solder. Wires run from the terminal on the back of the Garadget, to the push-button adapter, then to the opener, and the Garadget simulates a press on the opener. It connects to your network on WiFi (all local, no cloud), and C4 speaks directly to the Garadget device. It took me just a few minutes to configure and install the device, and it took my dealer about 5 minutes to add the driver to C4 (the driver is a free download from Garadget's website). The reporting of the door's state seems pretty much instant, and (so far as I can tell) has been accurate and reliable. As mentioned above, the driver creates an experience button that shows the state (open, closed, opening, closing), and you tap on the experience button to open/close. Once I sort out the programming I had in place on the pre-existing garage door proxy, I think I'm going to be really happy with it. If you want pictures or have any questions, let me know.

I recently added a Garadget to control our garage door (after not doing anything for a while after MyQ broke). I like it a lot - it’s quick and smart, has good variables and programming options, lives only on the local network, but I’ve got one problem I’m trying to solve. It appears to be an experience button that it uses for control (and to convey the state), rather than a more traditional garage door proxy that would be connected to a contact sensor. It works very well, and I like it for the most part, but this means it doesn’t show up as a door for things like the security light driver or the garage door monitor. Per my dealer, it doesn’t have contact sensor connections available to report the state to a garage door proxy. Anybody have what they think is the best way to get back the functionality of those other two drivers that monitor the state of the pre-existing garage door proxy? I could blow away everything tied to my existing garage doors and do it all in programming off the new one, but that seems like a lot of work. Would it make sense to leave the garage door proxies I already have and program the Garadget to set the state of those proxies every time it opens or closes? Apologies if I’m off on my terminology. Thanks.

Awesome! Thanks - I'm not home, so I can't really test it now (not without freaking my wife out, anyway). That's terrific - I don't know how much I'll use it while sitting on the couch, but I'll definitely use it for this. Otherwise useful watch apps that don't work without the phone are a pet peeve of mine (I'm looking at you, Amazon Music).

Does anyone know if the watch app will work if the phone is not present? As in going for a run or a bike ride with the watch (but without the phone) and using it to open the garage upon return?

Yeah, I was thinking that if it were me, I would do it with a variable or a custom button. You could create a custom button called "Shade Override" or something similar, and have "on" be override active and "off" be override inactive. Then the automation for the shade would be conditional upon the button being in the off position. The button could then be toggled as you see fit, or it could be programmed to be set to "on" based on a timer or a scheduled event (so that the override expires as desired). If you have an available keypad button, you could have your dealer connect the keypad button to the custom button, so you can toggle from there and see the state of the button on the LED. You can also see the state/toggle it from the mobile app or a touchscreen. I hadn't thought about the voice command, but martymohr is right - if you use voice commands, you could activate the suspension that way, also.

Sure, what do you want the button to do? You can have it suspend the automation schedule in a number of ways. For x hours. Until you hit the button again. Until the shade is manually adjusted. Until a predetermined point in time (midnight, sunrise the next morning, etc.). Until something else happens (a specific light is turned on or off, alarm is armed/disarmed, motion is sensed somewhere or not sensed for a period of time). Some combination of the above. And how is the automation set up now? In scheduler (i.e. at 4:00 PM every day the shades lower)? Or is it based on other events/triggers? That part doesn't matter too much, I guess - either way, it will involve a condition being put on the raise/lower programming. But what that condition is might depend on how you want the suspension to function.

In the programming for the music, you’re turning on the Sonos, then you have a conditional that turns the Sonos off if it is on. I would expect the result of this programming would be to turn the Sonos on, then immediately turn it back off. I don’t know what you’re doing with the timer, but consider trying this: Move the light timer programming to the top (so it’ll run no matter what). Put a programming stop command after (and on the same level as) the play Sonos command at the end of the first conditional. This will quit running programming after turning on the Sonos, so it’s not immediately turned back off. I’m not super familiar with the best/most efficient way to call up and play a Sonos favorite, but I’ll assume that choosing the favorite (based on the day/date conditional), then pressing play works ok. If so, the changes above should be an easy way to prevent your programming from cancelling itself out. I’m guessing roku and Sonos are the only sources you’ll use? What happens (or should happen) if you push the music button while the roku is playing? Does the TV turn off? If not, consider putting a room off command as the first thing under the condition, before your day/date logic. You seem to have keypad lights for on/off state, but it’s not clear to me that the TV on/off led is going to be set properly if you push the music button while the roku is playing. I like to remove that from button programming and do it with a macro - have a macro that sets the keypad leds based on the current selected devices and have it run whenever the room’s selected device changes. That way, you can edit that behavior separately from the on/off programming, and it’ll always be right (even if you change the source from the app or remote).