CTMatthew

It stuns me that the only multi room system that seems to have this command natively is Bang & Olufsen. Who'da thunk?

I'm looking to recreate one of my favorite multiroom audio features with Bluesound, but I'm not sure it's possible. I'd like to be able to tap a keypad button and have the local Bluesound player "join" whatever is playing in another room. I'm suspecting "Network Audio" might accomplish this, but it doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have any experience programming Bluesound that might be able to offer some insight?

I'm just seeing this now. Not only did I NOT solve the issue, but became so frustrated (largely at Apple for making this needlessly complex) that I switched to Roku and gave away my Apple TVs.

I got rid of Concord4 a while ago. My wife hated the sonic booms.

Unfortunately they're up to date on the app. I hate to give the answer that it's an Apple product and there's nothing we can do, but without any deeper insights into the relationship between the app, the hardware, the network, and the controller I guess that's the answer.

We did a takeover recently where the client is using an iPad as a touch screen. Ordinarily we don't support these features, but I'm trying to help him out. The area is served with very strong WiFi via a Ruckus/Access A650 and the iPad itself consistently reports very strong speeds. All other features seem to work fine. The Control4 app often has to be opened and quit several times before it finally connects. What I'm curious about is - beyond general WIFi stability - is there some threshold that the iOS app is looking for? I was thinking of writing a direct route from the iPad to the EA5. Anyone encounter this and come up with a good solution?

I obviously can't speak to the precise nature of the hardware faults, but our real world experience with these remotes has lead to a renewed enthusiasm for the SR260. Of course most problems can be fixed with enough resources poured into them, but that's not why we're in business. We want to deploy reliable solutions that make our clients' lives easier and result in gladly-paid invoices and glowing reviews. We never send out Neeos without SR260s in the van as backup. Because frankly I'd rather swap in a cheaper remote than set a brick of money on fire trying to get it to work. We just prep the client now that they're WiFi and that we can't control for variables other than our network and that we'll gladly refund or deduct the difference and so far we've been good. And they do work in 80% or better of the deployments, but still better to be on the safe side.

It sounds like a pile of defective NK-1s wrote this post

I'll chime in since I'd started this thread a ways back. The fix that finally worked was adjusting transmit power. This isn't always an easy fix considering AP placement versus where remotes live, but the Neeos seem incapable of choosing when they see two or more APs with the same SSID that are powerful enough to establish a connection. We dialed back the 2.4Ghz Tx power significantly until Neeos could really only see one clear choice for connection. No more issues! Now obviously this marks them as terrible network clients and the hope is that the hardware is much-improved in some future revision, but ultimately it's not about 2.4Ghz breakout or hidden SSIDs, but simply clearing the airspace of overlap. You should be able to easily test this theory by turning Tx power all the way down on all but the closest AP and see that the issues should immediately cease.

This will not make you happy.

You've got some terrific hardware. It would probably be cheaper to find an authorized Ruckus/Access dealer and just pay them time and materials to get you configured for Unleashed than to buy a whole new system. It's like Ferrari not selling you parts directly so you switch to skis.

Because if you don't have a Control4 hardware footprint where your Apple TV is installed your cheapest option is more expensive than the AppleTV itself. In my bedroom I have a floor standing TV that I wanted to have a single power cord attached to so I could wheel it around (you can use an adapter to share own power cord for the TV and AppleTV). Obviously where it's "just that easy" it's perfectly fine solution, but that's not every case.

Obviously this veers into business philosophy more than anything, but even having experienced some really frustrating nonsense from them I still prefer their products and business model over any others. For years we used to sell integrator friendly networks and after a while I realized that not only did they have great tech support, but that my technicians were spending 15%+ of their deployment time sitting on the phone with it. All those margin dollars? Gone. Then I decided that the answer was to step up our in-house expertise as we'd done with programming years earlier and really develop that portion of the business. With that transition it made more sense to deploy less expensive gear with a configuration fee. I can sell UniFi systems that often outperform systems at 3-5x their price and walk away with about the same margin dollars in fees on top of install labor and with way fewer headaches. To me, having inventory to pull if something goes pear-shaped doesn't matter. I stock this stuff anyways. But I'm vastly more profitable with UniFi than anything else I've tried. Obviously YMMV, but I always stress when I recommend UniFi that it means a whole shift in business model to make it pay. You can't just swap in UI for Access Networks and think you're going to prosper.

For this quantity, one of the APs will act as the controller. I don't recall the exact number but I think somewhere over 6 APs they recommend adding an AP that will ONLY run as a controller and not broadcast. Ruckus does do true mesh, but this deployment usually requires more ideal conditions, not fewer. I would caution against it personally, though we do have to do it here and there. If we have to mesh more than one AP we usually redesign.

For the time being I've hit a wall. My plan right now is to leave the AppleTVs out of the new integration. After a frustrating tech support call with a very nice and knowledgeable tech, I went and grabbed 2 Rokus. It seems that to proceed I'd have to reset HomeKit, but I'd have to do it to all of my "hubs" since the controller role switches automatically when one goes offline. This is just too much time to devote to this solution right now. But the C4 tech was able to determine that C4 was getting an error that indicated that the Hub was already present in HomeKit even though I'd removed it and it was no longer listed as a connected device. So, to be continued... maybe

If the best access point from a technological standpoint comes with a price tag that influences your deployment, it's no longer the best access point. If your budget can accommodate 610s you'll have a hell of a system. Not sure going to the 7 series in a residential application would be meaningful. It's not a perfect analogy, but your car's top speed being 210 or 260 probably doesn't matter to your commute. A lot of these APs we're discussing have use cases for SMB applications and conditions we'd never be able to recreate in a private home.

If you don't like random gremlins become a wood carver. They're a fact of life in networking. If you sell this gear you need to have config backups and hardware in stock to deploy in emergencies. That's not just UniFi. I've had more Pakedge "die" on me than any other manufacturer, but I haven't touched a network brand that hasn't had hardware crap out or firmware bugs that no one can get to the bottom of.

If you're in the New England area I saw one in the mirror earlier this morning.

Access essentially brings Ruckus to the residential market and offers support for dealers who likely don't have a great deal of in-house networking expertise. Their "versions" are very highly supported and allow companies to deploy really capable networks based on Ruckus APs (and now switches).

I'll be sure to post whatever the outcome is. I also agree that prior to this the integration was solid as a rock... for me. I've heard the horror stories and have no reason to doubt them, but HomeKit as a concept has been remarkably reliable. I actually find myself using it more often than Control4. And yeah, from the integrator's side it's a bit of a pain in the ass because it's not just grabbing their phone for a second, but really taking a little time to make sure their HomeKit is set up at least minimally and that they understand what's going on so they don't accidentally break the integration down the line.

Another interesting piece of data: Out of curiosity I VPNed into my home network from my showroom and was able to add my showroom EA5 to my home's Apple HomeKit successfully. So I feel comfortable at this point pointing the finger at my EA and/or the programming on it.

As individual pieces of hardware I find the current gens to be pretty good pieces of gear. Every so often we'll put those wall-mounted 510s in. But overall they don't have a controller which means a lot more tinkering to make them all work. As I said in a post above, OvrC is starting to pull more functionality up from the individual AP to the OvrC platform, but that process is just beginning so for anything beyond a basic WiFi deployment they're a little bit more time consuming. Also the antenna setups in Ruckus are practically alien technology and the UniFi APs are incredible bang for the buck as well.

What I like about the UniFi Controller and the Ruckus Unleashed or ZD based controllers is pushing system-wide settings out. Araknis is getting closer, but not there yet. I know they're benchmarking the UniFi experience and hopefully will start to compete in that space.

Yes and yes. Both current 4K models, both on latest firmware, both static on the network on same VLAN (along with everything else relevant to this system). And the thing that's the most frustrating is that both worked in different rooms in almost identical setups. So aside from an updated TV in one room - which doesn't figure into the control scenario - this exact gear was working fine. I don't know enough about HomeKit, but suspecting it might be something in Apple's black-boxed control environment I started deleting and re-adding control hubs ( Lutron, Aqara, Philips Hue, and HomeBridge) and all of them re-added and re-populated with no hesitation which leads me to believe there's something happening on the Control4 side. If it were a client's house these would have flashers on them by now, but since it's my own home I'll suffer a little to figure out a root cause. Onwards...

In my day job we use Ruckus/Access Networks. In my personal home & side work I use UniFi exclusively. The Ruckus access points are fabulous and the Unleashed configuration is very easy to use and manage. Of course the price on these units is very high, even at cost, so I've seen over the course of my career that deployments tend to be as spare as possible - sometimes at the expense of coverage. About 5-6 years ago I was introduced to UniFi and it was a revolution. The "single pane of glass" interface is second to none, but the really useful thing about the APs is that their performance is on par with Ruckus or any other enterprise grade AP, but at a fraction of the price so that you can deploy them generously. There are plenty of WiFi 6 APs in the Early Access store so plenty of them coming to market, but I also echo the remarks that WiFi 6 isn't really a key consideration at the moment. I'm only worried about it to the extent clients are demanding it.