cnicholson

On 9/10/2023 at 2:52 PM, eggzlot said:

my simple mind has trouble processing the how and why behind it

My assumption is that Apple would implement this based on their existing framework.  There are two concepts: occupancy and the intended target room of a command.   Currently, Homekit tracks whether people are "home" or not (or other rough geofencing).   That could be refined using Air Tag type locations (via U2 chips) so Homekit could also track which room you are in.   This could drive presence based automation.  Related, but separate, is using location as a "hint" to decode the scene/device you are trying to control.   Currently, if you talk into your phone or watch and say "turn on the lights," it doesn't know what (where) you mean.  You can always *specify* room "turn on the outside lights" and it will turn on the light device(s) (or scenes) in the "outside" room.    Compare that to when you talk to an Apple TV or HomePod.   Homekit *always* knows what "room" you are in, because you must assign those devices to a room (and it knows which microphone hears you most clearly).   See what I mean?   I would like enhancement so it always knows which "Room" your watch and phone are in and have Homekit be smart about this.  So, when in Kitchen, if you tell watch to turn on lights, it turns on the *kitchen* lights.  Hope that makes sense.  

On 9/9/2023 at 5:02 AM, eggzlot said:

i think localized in house geofencing could be interesting.

Part of this week's Apple announcements are rumored to include new "U2" wideband chips.   I have assumed for a while that Apple would turn your Apple Watch into a precise indoor tracker, using HomePods and Apple TVs (etc.) as triangulation beacons to track what room you're in (and not just that you're home).   Maybe that is finally coming.   With existing 3rd party Homebridge drivers, that stuff could be easily tracked via C4 dummy devices.

12 minutes ago, eggzlot said:

what the article states as examples are all things that can be done with C4/Alexa or C4/homebridge or C4/Google Voice Services already available? 

It would be nice if the Siri/Homebridge stuff were officially supported, but it is still great that 3rd party solutions are available.

Without official Apple cooperation, however, any Siri integration is going to hit a big wall: music.   Homekit is happy to control 3rd party devices, but Music is *native*/exclusive to Siri.   Good luck using Siri to play a specific song via voice commands on your Control4 system (other than by controlling an AppleTV with Halo--- which is huge, but depends on Apple TV being on and set to active session).

It seems like Savant is offering a more Josh-like experience of single-interface control of media AND home automation controls.   Control4 falls short here, currently, IMHO.

What is the "AI" part, as it relates to home automation?

I wonder what the expected use cases are.  Like standalone (pricey) universal remote?   If you have a Neeo or Halo, how much would people use OSD?  Maybe it's just generally good business to give people a (relative) easy onramp to the ecosystem?  And then be able to tell people a nice story about being able to "upgrade" without tossing anything?

11 minutes ago, slim42dog said:

I have lost all control to my Apple TVs

Did you disable/re-enable Apple TV Control from the C4 iOS app?  If that doesn't work, use the "Factory Reset" driver action for the "Apple Bridge" driver in Composer.

If theater system isn't waking up Halo, you need to up your game.     I notice same thing.   Dual 18" subs. It would be nice to allow this to be tuned, in all seriousness

The two devices look very similar, are clearly part of a series of devices and the buttons are literally identical and, in that D-Pad zone, are identically arranged.  I don't think that it's a stretch to suggest that the behavior be consistent, at least when submenus are on the display.  I would not expect people with lots of TVs (I have 20) to go for the much more expensive Touch variant everywhere when the hard button would be perfect for bedrooms.

Anyway, I shared my initial impressions.  The best fix for *me* is for my brain to adapt, but I have a decent sense of what will be confusing for family/guests. And this feels like one of those cases.   

As I suggested, perhaps the best approach would a tick box "Lock D-Pad to Transport"  done and done.   I'm probably not thinking through all the implications and maybe this idea is dumb.  But I'm not the only one to flag the issue.

I assume they are working on it, but, without live camera viewing and intercom capability, I'm not seeing the reason to pay up for the Touch.   It's over kill for TV control, so, IMHO, it needs to come pretty close to what iOS app can do.  

So far, the "kill feature" of the touch is just its compact size.   Give me a "Halo Lite" with the keypad from the Touch and the screen from the hard button!

Got my first Touch this morning.   Love the smaller size.  My biggest first impression complaint is that the UI is "mandatory touch."   Coming from hard button Halo (I will have a mix of the types), I would prefer it if I could use the D-Pad to navigate sub menus and make selections (like on non-touch).   Right now, the D-Pad is "locked" to transport controls (and I see the argument for that), but having an option to have a mode making it more consistent between Touch/Non-Touch would avoid frustration, IMHO.   Obviously, I'm not saying touch interface should ever be disabled in any mode--- just have an option to use D-Pad for navigation in certain contexts.

Do you have AppleTV and your iPhone signed in to the same Apple ID account?  Homekit active on Apple TV and assigned to a Homekit "Room?"

Just now, sdmat said:

How do you restart the remote. 

Press and hold power button until it gives you option to restart or it turns off.  Wait a couple seconds, then press and hold power again briefly.  It will reboot.

1 hour ago, pinkoos said:

would a lay person like me be able to switch out my Araknis components with Ubiquiti hardware on my own and then use the app / website to setup everything?

I mean, "yes."  But in the same way that a lay person can change the brake pads on their car.  It's a simple job if you've done it before and generally known what you're doing.  But could be dangerous.  Only you can evaluate this.

C4 is a dealer-supported model.  In general, you should turn over the whole thing to one person / company to avoid finger pointing and wasted hours diagnosing a system glitch.   You want "one throat to choke," even though you pay a premium for that peace of mind.   

I went with UniFi and did do most of the setup myself, but I have "eyes open" that my screw-ups could cause problems and I am on the hook to fix it.  But I also am comfortable changing out my own brake pads in th paddock during track days, and then blasting around at 140MPH 10 mins later on track... YMMV

Agreed.  Seems like great feature.   Sounds like I can get rid of my programming for AVR zones (if AVR OFF, turn it on. wait wait wait.  send announcement.  wait wait wait.  Turn off AVR.   Seems like the AVR, even when powered up, will cut audio for a moment if it needs to switch inputs to play the announcement, which is random based on the last source active.

The baluns (old or new) have nothing whatsoever to do with network/internet/buffering.   It just sends HMDI over the copper wires (coincidentally in CAT cables, but not sending IP network traffic at all) without any delay.  The problem seems to be with the network connection to the Roku stick or the Roku itself.  Sounds like you broke IR controls when switching baluns.  I would go back to your old gear and focus on the Roku.   Incidentally, you CAN listen to "Apps inside TV" on your stereo if you backhaul the audio to your receiver (or Matrix).  That's how I run my TVs.  But that's an unrelated topic.

If you're using WiFi for all devices, your root problem if probably there.

Good luck.

Still need more info.  You say the problem was "streaming services" but that they worked from "Mini Apps" in the TV (which obviously has nothing to do with C4 if you use native TV remote to access them).  

So what is source now?   Do you have a streaming box connected to Receiver and then the video out of receiver connected to you balun sender?   You don't need C4 to check this routing.  Just manually turn on TV and set to input from balun, and make sure your streamer is on and you receiver is set to right inputs.   If you still don't see video on your TV, then the problem has nothing to do with C4.  Make sense?

If no video, and you are SURE the wiring/source selections is correct, then next guess is a HDMI handshake issue.  Power cycling the balun will, in most cases, do an auto-reset of these settings.

Need more info on how you have the audio, video and control paths set up in C4.   If you are using IP control for TV, you don't need IR.  But you do need to have physical audio return path (if you are using built-in speakers and not TV or sounder connected to TV).  And you need to tell C4 how everything is connected (via "CONNECTIONS" settings) in order for C4 to do it's magic.

Your dealer should be able to do this remotely as long as you tell them what the physical connections are (like which HDMI input you are feeding with your balun).

2 hours ago, time2jet said:

Josh Micro rings that bell and it can be plugged in and sit on a table like Alexa

Josh is the gold standard, but it costs gold to get that standard.    I know I'll never achieve Josh-level functionality or integration, but my approach was to buy a dozen HomePod minis on clearance for $79/each.  They're small and unobtrusive enough to get wife approval, but imperfect solution at best.  As an aside, believe it or not, they kind of rock the house and sound decent when they're all playing music at same time!

I use DTI Siri driver to get my room awareness.

23 minutes ago, jebt2921 said:

viewing our cameras through this driver and in C4 app are extremely pixelated but in the Hik-Connect app everything is great.

My guess would be that the native app is defaulting to a higher resolution/bitrate stream.  Maybe go in to cameras' settings and bump up the quality of the stream being grabbed by C4?   I assume that there's not a lot (any?) video processing done in the controller-- it's passing the stream to the display device (which is prob doing the decoding/processing) so you're seeing whatever the camera is sending.

Another issue with voice control is location awareness.  Without this, voice becomes a lot less useful.  "Open the shades" or "dim the lights" becomes pretty useless if you have to say "dim the lights in [insert name of room that people don't know the name of]"   Josh's solution is "no problem, buy 20 Nanos and pre-wire before you build your house!," but, if you're using a Halo button (or my dream of "always listening when in cradle"), C4 always knows the room you're in because YOU TELL IT what room you want to control ahead of time--- and yet you can still move it around to different rooms (no drywall work required for clean deployment).  I think this is a key point.

21 minutes ago, Cyknight said:

Voice control is still CONTROL.

For sure.  As Elon likes to say "All user input is error."   But, OTOH, you can only automate default preferences/behaviors (including default actions based on (non-voice) sensors).  You can't automate based on dynamic preferences.  Sometimes you want the lights at a level different than the automated default.  If you find yourself consistently overriding defaults (with voice or with clicks), you should update the automations.  But you can't automate everything and using voice to over-ride is often faster and more convenient than walking to T4 or KP or pulling out your phone.   I'm never going to rip out my KPs or delete the C4 app, but having voice as an option seems to me unambiguously good (cost aside).   Whether having this alternate mode of control is "worth it," is a personal preference.

Ironically, in my limited implementation of voice controls, the biggest "problem" is setting expectations with family and guests about the scope and depth of voice controls.   You demo some things you can do and they think they can use voice for EVERYTHING, creating frustration.  

50 minutes ago, booch said:

When I’m by my computer later I can screenshot the exact setting.

Awesome.  Thanks

39 minutes ago, booch said:

it also doesn’t make sense from a product perspective

IDK.  I think it depends on what "it" is.  I don't think anyone is suggesting that C4 offer something that people would buy *instead of* Siri/Alexa/Google, but rather some kind of better bridge/integration/support for having C4 stuff being controllable via voice commands interpreted by one of these existing voice solutions.  The existing Alexa/Google C4 (semi) support is evidence of this approach.  Halo talking to AppleTV (and, thus, Siri/Homekit) is another quasi step in this direction.

I think voice control is becoming so ubiquitous in the low-end consumer space that the absence of some kind of C4 workaround is going to be an increasing impediment to selling expensive C4 deployments.  I think they need to do better, and fast.  I suspect the biggest challenge for tighter integration with the big boys (Apple/Amazon/Google) is not so much the competitive threat that those guys would perceive, but more along the lines of "Don't care/not strategic/why bother?"   

Josh.ai is the most obvious partner, but they are a niche product already, so tough for them to further their narrow their market and corporate "Enterprise Value" / exit potential by being seen as too tied to one player (C4).  Plus the natural strategy of everyone wanting to be the "center of the universe" versus a "mere add-on."

So the economic realities are tough, but I think they must do *something*, IMHO.

I biased toward the Apple ecosystem, but I would love C4 to buy (or build) a C4/Homekit bridge driver, and make it a supported solution.  That would be (relatively) cheap/easy for C4 to do, and they could charge for it-- and it might also "pull through" additional Halo sales.

3 hours ago, dadjokesfirst said:

New house build with Control4 dimmers

You're using 0-10V dimmers, right?  Not normal dimmers.

That sounds odd.  In concept, it should be impossible for a single bad device or port to crash the whole network.   Was the "small switch" A USW Flex Mini?   I have lots of those and they are second-class citizen devices that seem to be generally flaky (hey, for $25, what do you want?).    Several of my mini's fail to show "online" (from a management console perspective) but they still function perfectly as dumb unmanaged switches, which is all I really want them to do.   So I would not worry about that.  

I assume you have RSTP (on by default) left on.  This would prevent loops in network that can saturate it (but still shouldn't hard crash it, I don't think).

My Sony TVs have flaky network hardware that causes *them* to go offline, but I haven't observed them doing violence to the network, in general.

I assume you already tried rebooting you primary UniFi gateway/router (Dream machine), which will trigger an auto rediscovery of your topology and network elements.

I hope you get it resolved.