CTMatthew

This is ABSOLUTELY a thing. No denying it. But my point is that many of these clients would use a series of non-interacting products or sandbox systems before embracing (or having it embraced on their behalf by an adventurous programmer) an open-source system. And I think it's these little "game of thrones" style alliances that pose a more compelling threat. It's easier for someone to say that they just don't need a thermostat to talk to a music system than it is to find someone willing to set up a Raspberry Pi to make them do it. If you take one of our systems today versus one from five years ago you'll absolutely see a shift toward robust sub-systems and away from an all Control4 type solution. To be clear, playing for the home team means I likely have 10x the complaints about Control4, can communicate them more precisely, and am more frustrated by them than you. After all it's my livelihood. But as I look out on the landscape I still feel Control4 is the best of breed and best positioned to evolve in a way that continues to show value to my clients and support my business. All this is to say that if Control4 crashes and burns it won't have anything to do with HomeKit or Home Assistant or IFTTT or whatever else is out there. It'll be because Lutron and Sonos work together.

Ok, I see the distinction you're making that wasn't captured in my earlier comments: that you're not talking about the end user necessarily, but a hypothetical dealer that will see a value in a hypothetical open source solution and will bring it into their portfolio as an offering to their clients. Ok. Here's why that's almost certainly less plausible: As a dealer the 1 single NON NEGOTIABLE attribute to anything I sell is reliability. This has many constituent components: the reliability of the hardware and software, the training and support materials available, and the backing of the company to support me as a dealer. I want to sell a product that's backstopped and guaranteed by a manufacturer I can trust. It's why I'd sell Lutron over Vantage, Sony over LG, and on and on. Maybe a Vantage dimmer is a nice piece of hardware and so is a Lutron dimmer, but one company will send a technician if all else fails and make sure my system works if there's a real ghost in the machine. Sony will cover out of warranty repairs. LG barely covers in-warranty. It's all part of the calculation. SO! What does that mean? It means that the second an open-source platform becomes viable and receives VC to push it across the threshold it will pull up the drawbridge behind it to make sure that it can start to make guarantees, limit liability, and maintain fiduciary responsibility as it grows. It means that the condition of an open-source platform and one that's reliable enough to tempt a dealer to sell it are practically exclusive conditions. The only company I've ever seen persist in this state of tension (and it's not an identical situation) is Ubiquiti. It's a product anyone can buy for the same price, offers no direct support, relies on a user base to communicate and develop expertise, and competes at a price point that's hard to beat. Now before you say, "Well see! that's what I mean!" you have to understand that the second Luxl or Araknis or Access Networks or whomever can come close to those features and prices (TP Link is almost there) with any kind of margin and support then they're toast. We have a saying that applies to things like Sonos and Ubiquiti - sell it tonight and hate yourself in the morning. So I get what you're saying - I think - but it's a condition that's almost impossible in the real world because of all of the incentive directions operating around it.

Yep, because that's exactly how hundreds of millions of Android users encounter and live with those products. Whatever you can do with in the Android space that you can't do in the Apple space is irrelevant when the majority of the user base will only ever experience a fully finished, tested, and supported product. The point we're all trying to get across to you is that there are distinct and (mostly) non-overlapping audiences for these types solutions. Neither one is ever likely to overtake the other. The most frustrated Control4 client in the world would still probably never embrace an open source version and vice versa. The permeability between the two types of experiences just isn't significant enough to allow much influence. After this many pages of goofy arguments I'm not sure how many more ways this can be communicated.

Ah yes. How can we forget when Palm crashed and burned leaving all of us with open-source user maintained phones in our pockets

We're all pretty familiar with DIY stuff and many of us make a handsome living rescuing people from it.

Regardless of whether I'd prefer it or not, it seems that it'll just scale with cost and access. The collateral costs of deploying hardware versus signing into something hosted on AWS doesn't compare and Cloud services lend themselves to recurring revenue which is the emerging frontier of nearly everything.

Some folks' experience with this stuff doesn't extend past their own front door. We're a very successful C4 showroom and if I told one of my clients to access the GUI on their Raspberry Pi they'd say, "hold on, let me get to the kitchen..." As has been established, it's a hobby for some folks and has no more bearing on Control4 than a pair of roller skates does to Audi.

Anyone making an obsolescence argument against Control4 in favor of Home Assistant or open source platforms in general sounds like a cult member. It's a perfectly viable hobby, but I don't come from my woodcarving retreat and ponder aloud, "what are furniture stores going to do when this catches on!?" Get a hold of yourselves.

Is indoor plumbing being lapped by pissing in the woods?

I suspect that the "under the hood" portion of how many of these systems work are so disparate that it would be very difficult to bring them into a more feature rich camera module. The way you review the footage alone can be so different from system to system that I don't see how the interface itself would accommodate most of them. More and more our systems are sort of a unified top layer, but with more focus on ALSO using the specialized app for richer feature sets. Years ago we'd always try to avoid direct interactions with sub-systems but many have gotten so good and have so many unique features that wouldn't translate up into a control system that the "both/and" model is prevailing.

Agree. Unless something has changed in the background this shouldn't be an issue. It does sound like this guy could use a better dealer, but basic viewing is solid. That being said we switched over a year ago to UniFi Protect because we were tired of the exasperating process of reviewing footage in Luma, ICRT, etc. and it's been the single best new product group we've added in years.

I'd like to offer some guidance, too, but can you pose the question with less information actually? Maybe try the classic "My whole system is down!" or just shout CAMERAS ARGH!

You'll notice a theme in your feedback is imploring you to express what you actually want to accomplish and/or what you think might be wrong with the proposals you've received. An example of a useful question might be: "I really value high-quality audio and I want music throughout my home. My dealer has proposed Sonos, but I'm concerned that this system will not live up to my expectations. Am I worrying over nothing or is there another solution that might better meet my needs?" What you've basically done is cut and paste a restaurant's menu and asked "Whadda ya think, food-wise?"

If a client put my proposal on a public forum for input I'd return their deposit and end our working relationship. This just isn't a productive way to proceed. If you don't trust your dealer find another one. if you have questions about what you're buying ask your dealer. This is like hiring a personal chef. By nature you're outsourcing some control to someone else. That's built entirely on trust. This action demonstrates a complete lack of trust.

Same here. It's connected and sitting on a desk in the office. Probably won't dig into it until a RA3 job is pending. We've been 100% Homeworks for a while now due to Ketra.

I've only been selling Ubiquiti for 5-6 years so I haven't seen this wild and crazy product portfolio everyone seems to mention.

I don't think you'll be able to make this work (at least no one that I know of ever did). B&O remotes broadcast at 455khz which I believe is still outside of what devices like C4 can emit. B&O devices turn them on and off automatically so I presume you're using a 3rd party pre-amp stage. If that's the case you can get line adapters that keep them clicked on all the time. Not ideal, but probably your best bet.

The UniFi v. Ruckus debate comes down to cost more than many would like it to. For the record we sell both. We have clients for both. But what sorts those clients isn't a technological need, but a budget. The reality is that home networking requires a fraction of what either of these companies can do and because these networks remain largely un-adminstered for years and years after installation they also benefit from less configuration and not more. I've also been impressed with UniFi when we've done 1-1 swaps and generally seen better performance from their newer waps than even current Ruckus. Toward the end of the summer we wound up pulling out 5x 650s and put in the same number of UniFi APs and got better coverage and 200Mbps speed tests. That's definitely not the norm, but shows that they're a heck of a lot closer in performance than many folks would credit.

The more we play with Josh the more the difference between this and voice assistants becomes clear. It's really an automation platform driven by voice. We frankly see more utility (at least as things stand now) in selling it as an alternative to Control4 rather than a voice layer. If you stick with their sandbox of products it's a pretty remarkable platform. That being said, the hunger for voice doesn't seem to be materializing beyond the set of skills that Amazon does well - asking for some music, asking about the weather, etc. so it remains to be seen what the trajectory will be for voice. I personally have not been able to get used to it despite years of trying. An interesting space to watch and experiment in for sure.

I've been selling and programming Lutron since those systems were new. I stopped making any attempts to work on them a few years back. If someone wants to move forward with their system it's upgrade time. Don't kill yourself to save wealthy people money.

It doesn't sound like your application would benefit from a Control4 integration in any way. The most popular reasons for integrating cameras are for easy viewing from C4 tablets, integration with intercom features, and potentially programming system events off motion or boundary crossing etc. It sounds like you need a pure security system that meets your surveillance needs first and foremost. So choose a camera system that does what you need first and then worry about integration if it adds convenience for you. (I'm personally using UniFi Protect and love it, but hardly ever view the cameras in Control4)

This is correct. My first batch of RA3 hardware is due in January. I expect the integration to be much the same as it's a LEAP platform system.

We sold RK-1 for years along with Pakedge products primarily because there was a dealer support system in place that allowed us to push capable networks without a lot of expertise. As we got more and more expertise under our belts we moved away from them. The OvrC introduction is a nice bonus if you're still deploying RK-1s, but for its MSRP it's a pretty basic appliance otherwise. I have no idea what the future of Pakedge is within the Snap universe, but it's hard to see a bright future for it at this point.

I actually got a definitive answer on this from OvrC. You have to use the SSH password that's automatically generated by the controller. If you change it it won't work. This gives you access to ports and PoE status/power cycle, though you can't name the ports like you can on Araknis. If ubnt/ubnt worked it likely means it's not adopted?

No. There are really only two sets of credentials in the UniFi world. the SSO and SSH. Since neither worked I gave it up. I did ask a Snap tech once when covering an Araknis issue and they had no idea.