cnicholson

When re-configuring my DS2's after recent update to get them working again with my NVR again, I noticed a setting to allow audio RTSP streams.  So now my NVR can capture motion movies with audio, which I like.

Problem is that, after a couple of days, the setting seems to turn itself off.   Anyone know how to make this setting more sticky?  I'm wondering if the C4 driver is messing with this setting?  Not sure why DS2 manufacturer would have that setting auto revert to off, but maybe a bug?  See screenshot below from DS2 web config screen accessed from inside Composer to make clear what I am talking about.

18 hours ago, Cooper said:

If I have 16-24 switches will it slow my connection?

Modern APs can support 100s of clients, each.   And you probably have more than one AP.  Also, these little IoT gizmos are not bandwidth intensive at all and generally aren't even that "chatty," so I don't think this is a concern.  Although the capacities claimed (in terms of "max clients") are fuzzy, I suspect they are thinking more in terms of a typical laptop or phone client, which would be 100X (making that up) more network intensive than a smart switch.  

For reference, looking at WiFi activity on my network dashboard, yesterday my Shelly's used about 600KB each compared to 80GB of traffic on my busiest WAP and 25GB from my most active laptop client.

I have 18 Modern Forms fans.  The C4 integration is fine, but the fans sometimes drop off WiFi and need to be power cycled from breaker (can't control them even from native Modern Forms / WAC iPhone app).  I wish there was a hard-wired option for use in new construction.  But when they work, they are really nice fans.   Not sure if other C4-friendly fans are any better-- just sharing my experience.

Also, and maybe this is prob a C4 thing, I wish they showed up in Comfort and not in Lights--- especially since my fans don't have lights.

11 hours ago, neil12011 said:

I cannot believe this is the first time I've heard about these products. 

Hate to be cynical, but a <$20 DIY solution that avoids a $200+ high-margin dealer-channel solution is not going to get recommended much by most dealers.   I love Shelly (and the Chowmain driver suite is really top notch), but I still wouldn't use on any "mission critical" loads, personally--- but awesome for "extras."  Maybe I'm just paranoid.  I use their RGBW modules in lots of places, for example.  Amazing value for that application.  

Make sure your WiFi coverage is solid, as those little pucks can go off line if you bury them behind too much stuff when WiFi is iffy in that location.

45 minutes ago, chopedogg88 said:

4 to the AMS16 and 2 to the AMS8 is probably how I would do it actually

But then if he wants a Core5 source to play in one zone off Matrix 1 and another zone off Matrix 2, he'd use up two of his six Core5 streams, right?    I would have thought you would Y-out the sources and connect to both Matrixes (subject to leaving room for his TV audio sources).   In real world, I'm never been limited by number of concurrent Core5 streams, but burning two at a time could be an issue if he has 21 zones.  Not questioning your wisdom (I'm just an end user).  Just curious.

24 minutes ago, Topspin14m said:

Developing a well functioning voice assistant seems incredibly difficult and costly

Yeah, I don't think they need to make it a general-purpose Google/Alexa "ask me anything" system.  Just a narrow control-oriented system would be awesome.  Being able to control devices and kick-off scenes is all I need.  Maybe set a timer, or ask the weather for bonus points.  But I don't need it to answer trivia questions (at least not in v1).

1 hour ago, SpencerT said:

Pulse eight (used to be zektor) has analog matrices that will cover up to 64 zones. 

I have the Pulse eight ProAudio32 (which has 32 analog outs to feed Amp and A LOT of extra digital in/outs).   We actually stack it with a Triad 16, but only use digital connections to the Triad.  Because PulseEight has so many extra digital connections, I don't see any downside from stacking.

For video distribution, many of the fancy distribution baluns cost more than an Apple TV, which is our primary (near exclusive) video source-- which to me seemed silly.   So I just put an Apple TV behind every TV.   For the rare (for me) use cases when I want the same video source on multiple screens (usually live sports), I just got a cheap IP encoder/streamer in front of a "shared" AppleTV and put a decoder box behind each TV--- About $50/decoder IIRC.  I didn't even go for the 4K version because very few live events are even in 4K, and I can upgrade later very easily.   C4 doesn't even "know" about this "shared Apple TV" IP distribution set up.  As far as it is concerned, I just have very long HDMI cables.  In summary: max quality is *always* from direct/local physical HDMI connection, so why not do that (with audio backhaul).  And I sacrifice quality for my rare "multi screen, same source" situations.  

11 hours ago, Dueport said:

built into keypads and touchscreens that’s the only form factor better than Josh Nano I think

Since we're dreaming, to compete with Josh (or even Alexa), C4 needs an always-listening mode and a trigger word (I suggest "C4" since I am so creative).  T3/T4 could be in always listen mode-- same for Halos (although perhaps only when in charging cradle).   That would be cool.  You can't really claim to "have a house you can talk to" if the only voice path is holding a remote and holding down the voice button.

I think that would sell a lot of Halos and could push people to buy some (or more) touch panels in order to get broader voice coverage.  Plus T4's speaker and always-on nature is much better for snappy voice feedback-- especially versus speakers connected to AVRs that take a long time to wake up).   I can also imagine C4 offering a direct-swap Keypad the has a Mic and maybe even a small speaker (and, presumably, WiFi connection independent of Zigbee/wired "control" connection)...

Any rumors that C4 will announce native voice controls?  I assume, with the Halo voice buttons, this MUST be on the road map.  But any indication that that would happen in the near term?   Would certainly be consistent with this litigation and a general chilling between the companies.

Prob just wishful thinking on my part.  

11 hours ago, Carter Hobson said:

Has anyone had any issues using a full Unifi setup (Dream Machine, Switch, Access Points) with a Control4 System?

My Neeo's never worked reliably with my UniFi.  Other than that, no issues.  I have ~50 UniFi elements (a lot of them are 4-port mini switches behind 20 TVs), 18 WAPs, 10G backbone connecting 4 IT racks.  Lots of stuff.

Hi.

Weird issue.  Probably something I screwed up, but asking anyway in case it rings a bell for anyone.   When listening to a Pandora station, instead of going from one song to the next, after every single song, it plays this soothing music (like a "default track" maybe?).   Navigator says that it is playing the next song from playlist, but actual audio is this dreamy soothing music.   And, another weird thing: it seems to only do this when several zones are playing from the Pandora source.

I thought maybe somehow related to buffer size, so I tried changing to higher latency, but same issue persists.

Anybody ever experienced this?  Thoughts on cause/resolution?

8 minutes ago, MikeK said:

is there a way to tell the Halo to always send commands to a specific Apple TV, even if the room is "off"?

Not that I'm aware of.  It's probably not a "feature" that would have occurred to anyone.  I guess you could, in programming, on Room Off, select Apple TV in that room, wait a bit and turn off the TV and mute the volume or something kludgy like that.   If you have an extra or old Apple TV around, I guess you could just leave it plugged in somewhere and use that (I guess you'd have to be able to programmatically switch the room Halo is controlling).

But what's the real use case?   You're much more likely to always have Apple Watch or iPhone with you versus carry around the Halo, right?

To be clear: Halo voice must be targeted at a specific Apple TV that is the active source for voice to be sent to it.

1 hour ago, MikeK said:

Do you mean that if you have a HomeKit driver set up that it's possible to use the voice command button on the remote to route commands to Siri that way

The way the DTI Homekit/Siri drivers work is that you sort of "Publish" (or "expose") C4 devices (or virtual devices) to Homekit, so in your Home app on iPhone, your C4 lights appear and your can control them on iPhone.  There's really nothing "Siri" about these solutions on the C4 side.  On the Apple/Homekit side, Siri voice control can interact with most Homekit stuff-- it just so happens, that that includes the C4 devices in their Homekit mirrored incarnation.   So you put a HomePod in the same Homekit room as you put your virtual C4 devices and you can tell your HomePod "Hey Siri, turn on the lights" and it will dutifully turn on the C4 lights *in that room* (kinda like Josh).  So far so good?   Now pretend you don't have a HomePod in that room, but you have an Apple TV.   With native silver AppleTV remote, you can press the voice/Siri button and say "Turn on the lights."  Boom.  Works.

Now, turning to Halo, the voice button (when targeting Apple TV) is exactly the same as native Apple TV remote.  So you can grab your Halo, press voice button, and say "Turn on the lights" and it just works.  Get it?

I mean, you need to have Halo in hand and the TV needs to be ON and "Watching" Apple TV--- although guess technically your TV doesn't need to be on, just Apple TV.  Or you can just put a $100 HomePod in rooms where you want voice control.  That's what I did.  If you don't need location awareness, you can always just specify the room "Het Siri, turn on lights in Great Room" for example.  Or just use Siri on Apple Watch, iPhone, Mac, etc. (those devices are never room location "aware")

I'm also curious about string comparison / manipulation, but perhaps you can program off the underlying lock/unlock events and pop the results into a variable that you can use to drive your logic later (or real-time, depending on what you're trying to do)?   See screen shot showing events available from August lock as an example.

Sometimes, with disputes like this, the end result of the big company buying the little company.  I wouldn't rule this out.  

I think the C4 voice button on Halo would allow them to quickly integrate with any "smart speaker" system pretty easily, as the source of the voice audio stream input.  The hard part is the control backchannel.  In other words, Halo already can control the target device the same as if using the devices native voice remote.   To complete the loop, the target device needs a way to pass events back to C4.   I.e., in the Apple Ecosystem, a Homekit<-->C4 bridge.  You can do that today with third party drivers, but something officially supported would be awesome.

32 minutes ago, ClassicMuscle said:

Can anyone speak with me on the advantages of IP control vs IR control?

Except for some odd edge cases, IP is always better.  It is typically two-way (commands are confirmed, TV can report it's status) and you generally get access to a much broader command set (invoking mini-apps, maybe changing picture modes, etc-- it will vary by TV/Driver).  Also, you said you had lots of TVs-- you need available I/O ports on your controller to driver all those TVs via IR.

The edge case I have in mind is that I have some LG TVs and, for whatever reason, they won't respond to IP commands to switch inputs for about 30 seconds after cool power up.  I've been told that IR works immediately.  But, apart from weird stuff like that, I can't see why anyone would prefer IR.

I have one of these behind every TV.   If you have POE you don't need power at TV location (Note: this doesn't put out any POE power, it, itself, is powered by POE).  You can also power it locally.   Price is right ($29/each).

https://store.ui.com/us/en/pro/products/usw-flex-mini

If you happen to have Ubiquiti gear, this little guy even has some limited management.  But works fine as standalone dumb switch, too.

I think it is intuitive (Music near volume up/down) and good for consistency to always use button 5 for Music Selector.  But, if you don't like that, maybe stick a Keyboard Enhancer driver in front (or "behind") of the Keypad Audio Driver?   Half joking, but maybe that would work to remap it?

3 hours ago, pinkoos said:

What is the Halo thing that several of you have referred to?

Halo is the new line of C4 remotes.  Halo with hard buttons (and small screen) and Halo Touch (larger touch control screen, fewer hard buttons, more $$$)

2 hours ago, pinkoos said:

 I'm actually using SecuritySpy with an always on Mac mini with Amcrest cameras - it's rare to run into someone else who knows about SS!

Ditto.  I really like SecuritySpy.  My comments about not being a fan of Ubiquiti NVR were in reference to SS versus Ubiquiti.  Although this was a couple of years ago that I tried it, so maybe it's a lot better now.   The Apple Silicon Macs with HW Codec acceleration can deal with A LOT of cameras at 4K without complaining.   I don't know how much juice the Dream Machines have in that regard, so you might want to confirm that your cameras (at resolution / settings / features you want) won't put too much strain on the Dream Machine.   One thing that would be hard for me to give up is the AppleTV client for SS.  I use this often.

As I have noted elsewhere, I use the SS Homekit integration to throw alerts (e.g., if a vehicle (but not other motion) appears on driveway, flip a switch in Homekit).  Then I use a C4/Homekit driver to pick up that alert on the Homekit side and I fire off an "open gate" command.  Not sure how this would work with UniFi. 

I assume you are using streaming sources?  Which have you tried?  AFAIK, all major streaming services adjust (on their end) tracks to a consistent "LUFS" (general perceived loudness), while still allowing some dynamic range.  

If you are playing local MP3s, that would be a different story.

Any sign of support for viewing live camera feeds and/or video intercom/Chime/DS2 support?  This is the feature that might make the Touch "worth it" to me versus hard button Halo.

I have a full Ubiquiti network and I like it, although I still suspect that some of my Neeo/Halo issues might be due to UniFi WiFi (not sure, and the latest Halo firmware seems to have fixed things.  TBD).

I guess I would start with: what has changed that makes you want to do the swap?   I would start from your requirements/expansion plans and build a system around that.  The core of a Ubiquiti set up is usually one of their Dream Machine "God Box" (Acts as management console, WAN Router, dual-WAN failover, VoiP controller, firewall, WiFi controller, PoE ports, CCTV controller, NVR, physical access controls, etc.).   Pick the one that suites your needs.   You'd probably want to add a main switch to add more PoE (and general) ports.

Things to keep in mind: 

1.  If you plan on using the Dream Machine's built-in advanced firewall/filtering (not really "advanced," compared to real enterprise box, but has some good functionality), make sure you get one that can support your WAN connection at "line speed" with all filters running.  If you have multi-gig ISP, you probably want a higher-end model.  Ditto with dual-WAN, some boxes do not support dual multi-gig WANs at line speed-- which kind of defeats the point of dual-WAN.

2.  If you are going with WiFi 6E, make sure you have a 10G backbone connecting your Dream Machine and your main switch and that your main switch has 2.5G PoE ports with enough PoE power to support 6E WAPs.

3.  Although some Dream Machines have built-in NVR and empty HD/SSD port for storage, I think the NVR features are pretty basic-- and I'm not sure how easy (possible?) it is to integrate with C4 for event triggers, etc.  Check into this if that is something you need.   I assume, but am not sure, that the Ubiquiti cameras can just talk directly to C4 via ONVIF/RTSP-- so maybe that's good enough (live views from C4).  I found their cameras to be pricey compared to LTS, etc.  But I don't use Dream Machine for NVR.

4.  If you want to do 10G wired client connections, obviously get a main switch (or smaller switch just for 10G) to enable that (assuming your Cat cables support that).  

Good luck!  

If money is no object, Josh.ai is your best bet.   I was going to do that, but I decided to try the DTI Siri driver first.   I'm happy with it, although I realize there are some other drivers that people seem to like better.

If you are not a DIY kind of guy, go with what your dealer will support (I assume they will push you toward Josh.ai for support reasons).  Siri controls require running Homebridge on a Pi (or some server) and forces you into a much more complicated world in general.

I'm pre-wired for Josh and might do that eventually, but C4's inclusion of voice button on Halo's and voice compatibility with Apple TV has made me defer any move to Josh.   Keep in mind that, although the C4 Voice integration with Apple TV doesn't really know or care about what contents of voice control audio streams it sends, it opens up a lot of possibilities.   You're not limited to "Open Hulu," your can also say "Turn on the Fan," etc.  If you have Apple TVs behind each TV, once you have your basic Siri/C4 integration up and running, you can invoke *any* Siri voice command with your Halo.  And, critically, it knows what room you're in (because each AppleTV is assigned to a room).  What this means is that you can press Halo voice button and say "turn on the lights" and it will turn on the light IN THE ROOM WHERE YOU ARE (or, more properly, in the room where the Apple TV you are controlling is).   Just like Josh but kind of "for free."   This only works when TV is on and you are holding Halo, but you can also add cheap HomePod minis for hands-free room-aware voice commands.

I started with EA5, then added a Core5, then added a CA10.   Speed bump from EA5 to Core5 was noticeable but not dramatic.   Speed bump from Core5 to CA10 was MUCH more noticeable but, if I'm honest, not dramatic for common user functions.   The reality is that, most of the time, your system will be idling and there won't be any human perceptible reduction in response time / "latency" for simple things like "turn on light."   It's all instant.   Things where you notice speed are "batch mode" things like switching rooms on T4, bringing up screen of lots of security camera feeds, etc.   If you tinker with Composer, you do see MAJOR speed bumps from  stuff like refreshing navigators, making backups, rebooting, etc.--- but these are kind of "developer" improvements and not "user" improvements.

To put it in perspective, when trying to "benchmark" different hardware, I run a script that does an action 10,000 times as fast as it can--- not a real world thing that you would do.

Since you asked the "forget about money, what is best?" type question, the answer (today) is Core5 + CA10 (keeping in mind that the CA10 is just a brain box and you still need a Core or EA box for media and I/O).

Edit: 100% agree with other comments: if you can upgrade for "few hundred,"  Do it.  No brainer.  But if the plan is to EBay the EA5 and pay MSRP for Core5, you're prob looking at few thousand, so not a no brainer for most people/projects

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