Hi. Obviously first time poster - but I've lurked for a while before registering and done a fairly extensive search before asking this question. That being said, if it has been asked and answered, and I have missed it somewhere, can you kindly direct me to it please?
Now that that's out of the way, I'm a technology fluent, C4 knowledgeable enough consumer in the process of gutting an old home. I'm planning on using C4 to integrate "what makes sense to integrate" (I'll explain that in a bit) and wanted some advice on products to avoid. My personal view, is I like things that "just work" - that is to say, there is rarely a problem. I'm not making a value judgment - it's just what I like. As an example, I am comfortable paying more for the apple products because they "just work" compared to the PCs. Sure, you can do more "stuff" on the PC - and there are certain tradeoffs to working on the Mac platform but I would rather have a platform that does a little less but works more of the time.
I know control4 "works" for the products that they sell. For example, their lighting controllers work. Like all the time. When people complain about C4 lighting it's usually because it's been designed or integrated poorly, not because the underlying platform doesn't work.
But there are also things in the C4 world that don't really work so well. But that's not the fault of C4. That's the limitation of products that are being integrated. Let me give you an example. Let's go back to OS1 when home theatre control was done via IR. Turning on multiple sources from the remote didn't really work all the time. Sometimes the DVD player wouldn't turn on because there was no feedback from the DVD player to C4, but the amplifier was on, etc. So then you had to manually turn on the DVD so all the devices were in the same state so the macro continued to function. See to me, that's not really working. I can figure out and fix that problem, but when it happens I don't know, once a month to my wife I get told the system doesn't work. I don't want that.
So what integrates nicely with C4 and what doesn't? Here's my experience so far with the system I currently have, I'd love to hear thoughts.
The control4 audio integrates nicely with everything except sharebridge and I'm guessing it's that apple doesn't play nicely.
The Baldwin lock doesn't play nicely because it's battery powered. I don't want to be dependent on changing batteries.
I would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on what integrations I should avoid or what products I should buy - I would much rather a system that "works" than one that "does something cool"
Thanks!
