cnicholson

Cool (but pricey). Looks like AMB box supports two Apple Music streams, so I assume the three-stream MMS3E (which appears to get feed digitally from AMS and then would connect to matrix via digital inputs?) would allow you two Apple Music streams and one Spotify (or whatever) stream? Is that right? Do you have experience with this? Is the C4 interface like Tidal? Full text searching, etc. Short video promo makes it seem pretty close to Sonos in terms of cross-service searching, etc. Is that right? It touts room grouping. How does that work vis-a-vis C4? This makes me think.

Agreed. I added a Sonos Port thinking I would use that as a "bridge" to Apple Music. I basically never use it. As I mentioned above, instead I mostly use Apple TV. With Halo Remote (especially when voice is working), using Halo to browse Apple Music on Apple TV "feels" more integrated (single remote) to me (even though, of course, it's not) versus switching to Sonos app. Even though I don't use Shairbridge much, I've found that guests find that pretty easy intuitive to use.

Anything is possible, but I think the safe bet is to assume this isn't happening anytime soon. Other than Sonos (which is probably "grandfathered" via an early contract), I'm not aware of other "streamer aggregator" type services that include deep Apple Music integration. I assume that C4 and Apple must have cooperated extensively on the Halo Voice integration, so maybe that's a good sign. But, again, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I think Tidal has the best integrated experience, especially if you want to provide intuitive single-interface access for guests using T3/T4 or C4 app. I think I will always keep that as an option. I you don't mind "non-native" / multiple-interface, I find the best experience overall to be Apple Music via AppleTV. Once you start a session, you get full control via Apple TV controls or any iPhone (using built-in ability to search / manage queues)-- so you don't need to sit in front of "source" TV to manage things. All my TVs have an Apple TV behind them and digital audio is backhauled to matrix, so easy to add other zones (and, if you have multiple AVR zones and a digital matrix, it passes through multi-channel high res digital signal, so that's a bonus in terms of quality-- although you'll need to adjust delays to keep whole house zones synced with AVRs). Of course, you could also use sources other than Apple Music via their Apple TV apps-- it seems that a lot of younger people want to use YouTube a music source, believe it or not.

Not a lot of detail go on, but have you tried installing the Control4 app on your phone and seeing if that works? It is possible to run your Control4 controller over WiFi (as you apparently have been doing), but it's not recommended. That said, if it was working before, I see no reason why you would need a hardwired connection to get it back to where it was. If WiFi signal is weak, consider a WiFi extender to ensure solid connection. Good luck.

Not sure what your use case is, but you could create a (dummy) Programmable Switch in the DTI Siri driver, then "press" the (fake) buttons via programming off of the Chime button pressed event. On the HomeKit side, you can program off the (dummy) Programmable Switch events. I don't use cameras in Homekit, but I assume you can make it pop up live streams on your iPhone programatically. Similarly, you could "press" another fake button on Chime motion events and have Homekit do something. I do a similar thing to expose motion events from third party cameras to Control4, but it reverse. My NVR (SecuritySpy) can fire off HomeKit events on, for example, human motion. In Homekit, I program off those events to "relay" these events via fake devices created in Control4 Siri Driver (they show up on both the C4 and Homekit side), which I program off of on C4 side. Not sure if that helps.

I've gone from skeptic to convert. CA-10 was spec'ed for me originally and I canceled it after Core5 was announced since no one could explain why I needed it. I should have just gone for it. The absolute biggest difference is MQA audio quality. The CA-10 seems to unfold the master file infinity ways and it's now like I am in the studio with the artists. Kidding. Kidding! Sounds the same, but is snappier at starting streams and advancing songs (and adding zones). And it's not like the Core5 was struggling before (maybe a bit tight on RAM?). On a serious note, in terms of redundancy, I imagine hardware failures are rare. What would be really cool is if the Core5 (mostly twiddling its thumbs now) could serve as a true "hot spare" whereby it would takeover instantly (ish) based on like a 24 hour old backup in the event of any bricking of the CA-10 (due to hardware or software). Probably non-trivial, but that's why the C4 engineers make the big bucks. Make it happen!

Don't do it! Wait for the 15!

Agreed. But, as a cynical capitalist, I suspect the real situation is that too much raw data would convince a lot of people that they should step DOWN to a cheaper product and not step UP to a more expensive one, which could be bad for business. It seems like C4 has a pretty efficient design and even a small controller would not face CPU pressure the vast majority of time. It's just idling waiting for event driven requests and then dispatches those requests essentially immediately. It's only for "batch" operations that you really notice the speed. CA10 seems like it is a niche product to begin with, but it would be ideal for me if they offered something (maybe call it a "Media-8" box) that did not run Director, but could be paired with a CA-series (no I/O or Media) box and offered more I/O and media performance/channels than the Core5 but at around the same price as a Core5. But I don't expect them to further clutter the line-up just for edge cases.

General navigation on T4s seems faster, like switching to "listen" page all the sources populate faster-- and I assumed all this stuff would be cached on the T4. Switching rooms much faster. And media stuff seems faster too, like time from selection to music starting and adding/removing zones from session. Again, stuff that I did not expect to be faster is still faster. I'm sure that, in a week, it will just feel "normal," but at the moment it feels like I just replaced a three year old iPhone with the fresh model. Not an argument that everyone should run out and get one, but definitely noticeable.

Wow! CA-10 is super fast. Migration clean up stuff still in process, but refresh navigators is more than 6X faster and my "count to 10,000" test is 2.7X faster. I have 32 cameras and they pop up about as fast as I can scroll, and I thought the Core5 on current software was already pretty fast. I'm impressed.

It's SCIENCE I'm doing over here, Ryan. Geez. I hear you.

OK, so CA-10 going in tomorrow morning. The proof will be in the pudding in terms of user-perceptible "snappiness" improvements, but anyone have any benchmark ideas I can do as before/after of Core5 versus CA-10. So far I've timed loading project in composer (Composer host PC constrained?), backup time and refresh navigators. Anything else worth testing? I also noted Core5 CPU use at idle (15%, so not a lot of CPU pressure). RAM usage 4122 MB (out of 6GB? graph seems about 2/3 full-- but 6GB is a weird amount of RAM). Since loops require delays (I believe), not sure if I can do any meaningful CPU saturation tests, but I'm going to play around anyway right now. Edit: Counting to 10000 with While loop with 1ms delay takes Core5 121 seconds (so 111 seconds net of delay?)!!! Much much slower than I thought. We'll see how CA-10 does.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts. CA10 is ordered. Fingers crossed that it will help (although I realize that it won't solve all my problems).

I recently added a 70V system with two buried subs and six satellites. I very happy with it. Speaking of delays, if you have both house-attached and far away perimeter speakers, you'll still need to tweak delays. Not from processing timing, but just due to speed of sound. Depending on distances and seating locations, you'll need to pick a sweet spot and tweak delays for that spot.

Main annoyance right now is that my AppleTV controls are very flaky. Constantly getting "Control 4 Connected" / "Disconnected." Takes a while to start working (if it ever works) and sometimes it double or triple "works"-- meaning each click on aT4 or iOS app yields 2,3 or 4 cursor movements in AppleTV interface, rendering it totally unusable. Using native iOS Apple TV control widget (or native Apple silver remotes) always works perfectly. I have ~20 TVs, each with an AppleTV, but Control4 support has not indicated any known issues from "too many Apple TVs" so not sure if a factor or not. Relatedly (maybe?) I want to get a bunch of Halo remotes, so got two to test and they have *never* worked reliably for voice control, and they share the same problem for Apple TV button controls (generally flakiness and multi-click). Also I'm seeing a lot of network disconnects. The Halo stuff might possibly be WiFi related (Unifi), so I don't want to 100% blame Control4 yet. I'm also having problems controlling Modern Forms (WAC) fans. There is a new driver, but trying to update drivers bricks the Core5 (will not reboot, need to do the factory reset procedure and roll back to backup project). Another issue is that the system sometimes has a 5-10 second delay responding to the first click of the day (lights are lutron panelized homework, using mostly C4 wall keypads via bridge gizmo--Lutron keypads were backordered for 6-9 months when we needed them). Maybe CA10 will help with this. IDK.

Thanks, @RyanE. I'm going to go for it. I guess I'm just used to having access to objective benchmarks to compare performance. I understand that every project is different, etc. But it would be great to know that running the "standard stress-test project" on Director on ABC device yields XYZ "C4-Marks." Cynically, I suspect that, for most people for most installs most of the time, even the entry level controller's capabilities are pretty overkill, which info might be bad for business if freely available. Although I imagine hardware failures are rare, maybe I'll get some extra comfort from the CA10's high availability features, too

I have a pretty big system (over 2000 drivers, apparently) using a Core5 as main controller and also an EA-5 to provide digital audio to a remote building with several zones there. In my original design (before Core5 released), C4 local installer and regional rep recommended a CA-10 and two EA-5s. Since the Core5 is supposed to be so much faster, I asked if I still needed a CA-10. They kind of shrugged, so I skipped it. Fast forward 1.5 years and I am trying to work through several issues. When we escalate, C4 support consistently says "with a system this big, we recommend a CA-10--- that could cause issues." But they won't say exactly why or provide hard specs. And CPU/Memory on Core5 don't seem to be under stress. I'm probably going to relent and just put in a CA-10, but is it known how much additional performance (if any) the CA-10 has over the Core5? I get the point that the Core5 would offload media processing (although my problems don't seem related to when I have multiple media sessions going). And using Core5 just for digital audio seems like a pretty expensive streamer box (I know it does more, and I will continue to use for Zigbee and I/O-- but still...). Anyway, anyone have any experience with (or thoughts on) CA-10 performance versus Core5 or with this sort of upgrade helping with resolving glitches ? Thanks.

I just wanted to write in defense of separate shower zone (and C4 "room"). If you have a big bathroom, in order to clearly hear spoken content (podcast or the news) over the noise of the shower, you might have to crank up the volume a bunch. I like being able to have just the shower speaker on so as to not disturb the wifey. Agree that it is overkill, but I use it. And easy enough to manually or programmatically join the zones into common session when you don't need separate control.

What WiFi hardware is in this project?

Have you tried the "Factor Reset" driver action for the Apple Bridge driver? Then re-enable Apple TV in the C4 iPhone app. Also make sure you have latest Apple TV drivers on the Control4 side.

I'll have to give that a try. Would you mind sharing your WiFi settings on that special network? The screen where you can set UAPSD / Multicast, etc? Halo (and Neeo) still flakey for me, even after this Unifi update. Thanks

Good to know. I only noticed issues with Halo, so I guess other devices recovered more gracefully.

Thanks for this tip! I just applied the EA firmware. Too soon to really say if my network disconnect and responsiveness issue are solved, but it reconnected quickly and seems snappy so far. So thanks again! Sadly, Siri Voice button still not working reliably for me. My Neeo never liked UniFi, either. I mean, I don't think it's really fair to blame Unifi. Ubiquiti sells ~$2B of gear a year, so it's not a niche product line-- and appeals to end customers who like to tinker with things like Control4, so imagine it is a reasonably popular choice for the same customer base (especially amongst end users who even know what network gear they are running, LOL). I think Control4 should be working with them to resolve any compatibility issues. Maybe they are already. I have ~350 devices on my network and, AFAIK, only the Halo and Neeo have any issues that might be due to Unifi. On the other hand, I totally understand dealers who rule out UniFi. I'd probably avoid too if I were dealer. But I do wish C4 would be more proactive in certifying these fancy $$$ remotes, especially when marketing them as end-user deployable. Edit: My comments may be a bit misplaced since it seems like a legit bug on UniFi side and nothing that C4 could have dealt with. And, AFAIK, my voice issues might not have anything to do with WiFi. I'm just frustrated with flakey voice control and venting a bit I guess.

Siri voice on Halo has NEVER worked consistently for me. Very hit or miss, mostly miss. My dealer reached out to support and heard back that there are known issues and they are working on it. No further details. I keep hoping the next Apple TV or Halo firmware update will solve, but no love yet.