Köhler Medientechnik

However, they are trying to get into the "lower end" market with Crestron Home.

In my experience, people saying that because they can´t afford a system that´s build by an integrator. Because they can´t, they start fiddling themselves. In most cases, the tech-savvy dad isn´t even sad about it because he gets justification to play around for himself. But the rest of the household (wifes and children) hates it because they have to adapt to new procedures every time daddy brings some new gear home. In my opinion, the more of all these "home automation that require little to no skill" solutions come up, the more work for integrators. I know all that´s a bit provocative, but that´s what i come across when people are fed up with DIY and finally come to an integrator. But for sure there are others where the DIY or "half-DIY" approach works pretty good. So i guess there´ll be a niche for everybody.

I guess the tablet is removable? Then point 1. on my list applies. If it´s fixed, then i would always go for a manufacturers´ touchpanel for points 2. and 3.

1.610 for the 10" wall mount in Euro. €1.250,- for the 8" wall mount.

That depends on the amount of people living with you in your household and how strict they apply to your rules. For me it´s on first place on the list for good reason. But sure, every project is different on this.

Sure, the thing is i´m not aiming for ALL clients. I didn´t say a customer needs to be skilled for troubleshooting. I was refering to customers who just shop the latest and greatest gear, throw it on your table to integrate and then are disappointed that it´s difficult/impossible to integrate it properly.

This is what marketing says: "The Control4 T4 Touchscreen improves upon the T3 with over 2x the resolution, larger speakers, dual microphones, and a faster processor."

It´s always at the same place - no need to search for it... GUI is available immediately, no need to swipe or open any apps or sth. No hassle with OS updates or incompatibilities Tablets are a good addition to wall panels for me, but would never be a substitute for it.

Yep, slowly catching up with Crestron pricing. But as always: if you look behind the scenes and just add up the component cost, you´ll get mad. Shouldn´t do that - you´re buying a solution, not a piece of hardware.

The problem is: as an integrator, i don´t know how skilled you are. If you don´t have the full overlook about sideeffects even a small change can have, things can go wrong. And troubleshooting these things is time consuming and unpleasant for both sides. If i come across a potential customer where i get the impression that he´s actually a DIYer but just wants to play with the real stuff, i let him pass: not worth the trouble. The people complaining the most are usually the tech-heads who like to always buy the latest tech toys themselves and want them to be integrated, instead of approaching their integrator with a requirement and let him chose and implement a proper solution for it. After all, it´s a house where usually a couple of other people live in and they don´t care about the latest gadget, they just want a house that works.

You want to tell my kids about it?... I do it similar to the South Africa C4 user. With the slight difference that i prefer to switch on the light in the bathroom manually. It happens quite often that i just don´t need/want any additional light when just quickly washing hands or something like that.

Projectors, amplifiers, video processors, AV switches, etc. Call me old school, but actually, i like RS232 very much. Yes, you need to have a 1:1 connection, but you´re totally independant of any network issues, don´t need a heartbeat to prevent connection from closing, no dependency on device energy saver settings, etc. RS232 just works.

If that´s the main driver for the move - are you aware that you can do a lot yourself with Composer Home Edition (HE)?

Of course you can, you can program that with any control system... My point is that with auto sensing, you don´t need to programm anything and no need for a relay "to fire". However, i think the OP got an idea about triggering vs. sensing...

Well, even in "C4 land", if you play a playlist and the playlist ends, the amp stays powered on until audio is switched off (which might be end of the day when probably the room switches off). With sensing, the amp (or even just the channels involved in that audio zone) would switch off a couple of minutes the playlist ends.

Hi, sensing ensures that the amp really only powers up when music (or an audio source to be more general) is actually playing. When using just triggering as part of an audio routing configuration or startup macro, amplifiers are triggered and switched on in any case, regardless if music/audio is actually playing. It stays on as long it´s actively switched off as part of power down-sequence. The downside is what you´re currently experiencing: when the signal is below the sensing threshold, the amp doesn´t switch on.

Yep, could well be. Let´s wait and see.

Yep, security awareness is not one of the major priorities of home automation companies - it makes intgeration more complex and can affect user experience if things go wrong. So they tend to keep it to the lowest level...

Well, since the effort on my side is just posing the question (which has already been done), i see no reason to try it again. Before reverse engineering the protocol, i´d just leave it and move on to a different matrix. So actually, it would be a wise move to open up the protocol to sell more devices.

Asked my sales rep and he said he´ll give it a try.

SMB1 is disabled on freeNAS by default (for good reason). You need to re-enable and then it should work: https://eric-poon.blogspot.com/2019/01/freenas-111-u63-enable-smb-v1.html

Hi, i really like the Triad TS-AMS8/24 audio matrices. I´d like to use them on non Control4-projects as well, so i´m looking for the control protocol. Does anybody have this and willing to share? Cheers, Thorsten

Yep, that´s one of the main reasons why i would love to give it a try. Unfortunetely, it´s not yet available in Germany...

Well, you could do that, even with a minimum purchase policy in place. You purchase the stuff you need and after the end of the year you realize you havn´t reached the target... To avoid confusion, i just checked the dealer agreement and found that there´s indeed a minimum purchase requirement, but it´s only €5.000,-/year. So relatively close to "none". But apologies for the misinformation. I mixed it up with RTI....

As i wrote further above, i went though all this. It wasn´t a big deal at all: call with the RSM, do the training, getting dealer status. No showroom required (although i have one), no minimum purchase. But as already mentioned by others - it might be location-related. Anyway, becoming a Crestron dealer was a much, much bigger effort. I guess C4 is trying to get market share here in Germany.