Aayush Arya

That's what I was trying to figure out. It would always be a hit or miss with multiple streams of audio. But if we have an EA-1, for instance, where we're assured of only ever having a single stream of audio at any one time, could it be done? I don't see any way in Composer to programmatically add the passage speakers to an ongoing Spotify session in the living room.

We have a Chromecast and an Echo Input connected to a Rolls mixer, feeding audio to the audio in port on the EA-3. We have it set up so that if we play something through either device, the EA-3 automatically starts playing it through the living room speakers via audio sensing. We can then say “Alexa, turn on music in the passage” or “Alexa, play music everywhere” to add other zones to this session. This is all working pretty smoothly. This is very rigidly programmed however, and the voice commands to add or remove audio zones work specifically with music playing via the audio in port on the EA-3. Is it possible to program the system such that if we have Spotify playing on the passage speakers and we say “Alexa, turn on music in the living room”, it selects that audio source in the living room dynamically (i.e. if a single audio source is playing, whatever it may be, the other zones are added to it)?

Has anyone figured out a fix for this yet? About a third of the time, when I give a command to Alexa that has to do with Control4, it will give the error that the device is not responding, but it executes the action every time. This is very annoying and makes for a terrible client demo. Can I fix this somehow?

I've followed that guide before but have never quite figured it out. Under "To save a preset from a Control4 touch screen or the Control4 app", the second point says that I need to "go to the Now Playing screen", where I'll find an Add Preset button. I simply cannot find such a screen anywhere. I have Spotify Connect configured so that I can play something on Spotify on my phone and have it start playing from my living room speakers using Spotify Connect, but where is this Now Playing screen?

Do you use the Nyce sensors?

We are a Control4 dealer and recently figured out solutions to two small issues that I know a lot of dealers face when setting up lighting controls at projects. Just thought I would share my solutions with you guys, for feedback as well as to help anyone who might be searching for these solutions. ALL OFF / RESUME ALL We typically set up a configurable keypad at every room’s entrance with a double height button at the top for two lighting scenes (single and double tap), two single height buttons below that to toggle the AC and ceiling fan respectively, and a double height button at the bottom that turns everything off (AC, fan, lights, media and shades). As an aside, one nuance here is that the AC button is multifunctional: it uses blue, white and yellow colours to indicate the current temperature setting (low, medium and high respectively), green to denote ideal temperature and fan mode settings, and red to indicate that it is turned off. Double tapping the AC button always switches it to the ideal settings. I wanted to change the “Lights On” button at the top to a “Resume All” button that would always restore the AC, fan, lights and shades to their last active state (when you pressed the “All Off” button). This was simple enough, using the Snapshot driver and a variable (let me know if you need details). However, if all the lights were already turned off when you last left the room and you pressed that button when you came back in, none of the lights would come on. This is how I fixed that. We programmed it so that when you single click that button, it resumes the saved snapshot and then checks to see if the “All Lights Off” scene is active. If it is, it then it checks to see whether the shades are drawn. If they are, it turns on a preconfigured lighting scene. If the shades aren’t closed, it checks to see if it is night time; if yes, it turns on the lighting scene anyway. Alternatively, if there is a light sensor inside the room, we can use it to trigger the lighting scene. The point is to turn on some lights if the room is dark when you enter, so that it does not seem to the unsuspecting user that the button does not work. As a bonus add-on, if you tap on the button a second time (either immediately or at any time after that), it turns on the preconfigured lighting scene if the “All Lights Off” scene is active, without checking for light levels inside the room. If you double tap it at any time, it activates the preconfigured lighting scene without even checking for the “All Lights Off” scene (which basically serves as an override). At its most fundamental level, this keypad now just works: when you leave the room, tap on “All Off” to turn everything off and when you come back in, tap on “Resume All” to resume everything. Our clients love this implementation! RELIABLE BATHROOM PRESENCE SENSING We are all familiar with the flail-your-arms-about-to-turn-on-the-lights gesture when on the John, because the motion sensor’s timeout is not long enough to account for our cellphone addiction. We figured out a simple solution to this: we put a contact sensor on the door and a motion sensor inside the toilet, and made the latter dependent on the former. The motion sensor is activated for thirty seconds when the contact sensor is open and the light is turned on if motion is detected and the sensor disabled. It is next activated only after the contact sensor has closed once, opened and then closed again. If it detects no motion for five seconds after that, the lights are turned off and the sensor disabled, until the next time the contact sensor opens. This completely eliminates the issues of (a) the lights turning off while someone is occupying the bathroom; and (b) the lights taking ten minutes to turn off after the bathroom is vacated. The only issue is that where you could have achieved automated lighting in the bathroom for under $10 with a simple PIR sensor, it takes $400 to do it in a way that makes it 100% reliable, which is a price almost no client is willing to pay for this convenience. As a proof of concept, however, it works perfectly. The point of giving these two examples is to hopefully spark an interesting discussion about the various ways the rest of you have found to make your home automation setups just that little bit smarter. Please chime in with your ideas.

How did you get playlists from Spotify into the preset cycler?

Should we take it to mean that it’s not worth looking into, from a dealer’s perspective—particularly because we would have to import it to begin with?

Did you get a chance experiment with these any further?

OK, I will try this again with a different splitter and see if it works. Thanks for your help. On an unrelated note, can you assist me with setting up Spotify presets for control through Control4’s interfaces? I was following their PDF guide (screenshot attached) which says I need to start playing a playlist through Spotify Connect and then go to the “Now Playing screen” in Control4 to add the preset, but I cannot find the screen shown in the screenshot anywhere in the Control4 app. Where is this screen?

The latter is what I am afraid of. How should the connections be set up?

Presently, I'm turning it on manually, but I would like to use auto sense if that's an option.

OK, I'll change up the hardware and see if it works. Everything else is logically sorted?

You're absolutely right. I stopped before posting, having realised the length of that first sentence, but ended up leaving as it is. Would appreciate some help nevertheless.

We have a fully configured Control4 setup that integrates with all manner of comfort, entertainment, lighting and security devices. We have AirPlay and Spotify Connect set up properly to allow iOS and Spotify users to broadcast music to any of our three audio zones. We also have an Amazon Echo Dot connected to the audio input on our EA-3 (which itself is hooked up to a 4x4 matrix amplifier), which allows us to use any other Alexa in the house to cast music from Amazon Prime Music to our speakers. To do that though, we have to issue two commands—“Alexa, turn on music source” (which sets the EA-3 as the input source on the receiver) and “Alexa, play soft rock on house speakers” (which starts playing said playlist through the Echo Dot in the rack). Any tips on making this integration smoother still are welcome. The thing I am not able to figure out is how to integrate a Chromecast such that I am able to cast any audio from any Android phone on the same wireless network to my audio zones. I have a Chromecast connected to an AmazonBasics HDMI splitter that has an HDMI output on the other end for video + 5.1 audio output and a 3.5mm jack for 2-channel audio output only. I had connected the HDMI output to an input on the receiver and the audio output to my EA-3’s audio input, but this setup is not working. When I cast anything to the Chromecast, it simply starts playing through the receiver, with the album art and controls visible on the TV as well, which essentially means that it is not using the audio output. What am I doing wrong?

I have set up the Plex Full driver with a Roku and it is working pretty much perfectly. The only issue is that when I am browsing TV episodes using the Plex Library, on some shows, it shows “No results found” on the final screen, where is should show the Play Now, View Info, Set English Audio and other options. On other shows, it does show those options, and it is working well for movies too. Is there anything I can do to resolve this? Also, is there any way for you to allow us to press and hold on any item in the library and favourite it to the room, so we can resume watching our favourite shows directly from the Control4 Home screen?