Good afternoon,
I am looking at a house that is currently being build as our new main residence, i.e. still time to run all cabling. I am a techno-nerd, started dabbling in home auto-mation with Smartthings back in 2013, but now want to jump to the big leagues. I spoke with a rep from C4 Corporate out in Salt Lake just to go preliminary needs and see if Control4 would be right for my family. The house is 2 main living levels + full basement (will not be finished off right away) plus a playroom in the attic area (again, will not be finished right away). I've planned out my network requirements already; I ran about 2 miles of Cat6a in my current home to get proper wifi and network performance for all streaming devices etc etc. I am a big believer of hardwiring a device that doesn't move, leaving wifi for phones/laptops/tablets. My plan is to do the same in this house. Everything will be homerun to the rack in the basement storage area. Which now begs the question; what hardware am I looking at here? Here is some practical information for you experts:
Multi-zone audio:
8-10 zones of audio (each zone may have 2-8 in-ceiling speakers). I'm thinking audio matrix, C4-16ZAMSV3-B, combined with external/"dumb" amps. The main/pretty much the ONLY source of audio is Spotify. Here are the zones I've thought of:
Family Room, Kitchen, Breakfast Area, Dining Room, Master bedroom, Master bathroom, Guest bath 1, Guest bath 2, Playroom, Outdoor (possibly split in to 2 zones)
Audio/Video:
Family room has 5.1 setup Denon AVR w/ Klipsch speakers + sub. The AVR will be in the network rack in the basement with the rest of the gear. Currently our only sources are Cable STB and Apple TV but I'm thinking I may swap in the nVidia Shield, they are amazing, however we are an all Apple family, so working within one ecosystem has been a breeze. Would love to have the Neeo remote here.
Bedrooms (4 total) will have a TV with Cable STB as the only sources. Unsure on brand of TVs or if each room will get a TV, but I will plan to pre-wire for them anyway. The Master Bedroom will definitely have a TV with STB and possibly nVidia Shield.
Basement will house pseudo-man cave, this will have it’s own Projector/AVR/Speakers etc… no need to tie that in just yet. It will use the equipment in my current house, but wont do much with it until we decide to finish it off.
Lighting:
Ability to control all light switches and dimmers throughout the house. By my count from the blueprints, about 30 2-way switches and 15-20 3-way switches.
Shades:
Ability to control some shades/blinds if we decide to used motorized shades/blinds. I have them in the master bedroom at my current house, dual-roller and motorized, the rear roller is blackout with the front roller is light filtering and I gotta tell ya, they are awesome.
Security:
Control locks for exterior doors, most likely 2-3 doors (there are sliders on the deck, not sure how they could be locked remotely). I'm assuming they would use keypads for all. I'd like to have the Doorstation for front/main entrance. I've never had this functionality before, so I'm curious about people's experience with them. Both my parents and my wife's parents have the Ring Doorbell which I really like the idea of, but hate the product itself.
Climate:
Control 2 zones of air conditioning. We currently use 2 nest thermostats but I really don't like them. Just want to be able to control the thermostat remotely when needed.
Ideally all of these features would be controlled via C4 App on our iPhones, Neeo remote, and T-3 Wall display if I decide they are worth it.
So this is what I'm currently thinking in terms of Control4 hardware, most of it makes sense to me, but not sure which controller I need:
(1) C4-WMB-B Wireless Music Bridge
(1) C4-16ZAMSV3-B
(x) Amps to satisfy the number of speakers/zones. Probably Russound or Niles, I've used them in the past and like their price-point.
(1) C4-LU642D 4K Matrix Switch w Audio Downmixing + the HDBT receivers in the bedrooms.
(1) C4-EA5 ?? No idea which controller I need. The rep from C4 corporate kept telling me it depends on the number of "streams" I want. I know what streaming is, but have no idea what it means in this context. My wife and I are going to be the ones streaming music from Spotify to the various zones in the house. Or we'd use the T3 wall display if we are hosting a party so people can use it too.
So happy I found this forum, it's been an excellent resource so far. Thanks in advance!!
EDIT: I came across this guide and found it to be very helpful, but can't understand the need for extra controllers for the "Medium" and "Large" Residential A/V Solutions. So I was working off of the "Small Residential A/V Solution" on Pages 6 and 7. https://aplusautomation.com/pdf/Entertainment_solutions_guide.pdf