Dueport

Does anyone know if the Blackwire driver for the UniFi Protect NVR supports pulling a grid view from the NVR? If so, how many cameras does the grid view support? Does the driver support just the UNVR or is the Cloud Key Gen2 supported? It would simplify things if I could just pull a 9 camera view up directly from the NVR to C4 navigators rather than pushing everything into an HDMI view on a computer and sending that out through an HDMI matrix..... Also, does it support events based off smart motion detection (i.e. an event if a person is detected on a specific camera)?

Awesome! Please keep us posted on your experience with the Micros and anything more you add down the road. Really interested in hearing how it goes. Also, for those reading the thread, I heard on the HomeTech.fm Podcast that the Nano also includes a temp sensor which is nice too and I hadn’t heard of that elsewhere.

Thank you for your experience with this setup - I’m looking forward to tackling this project next year. Announcements over the multiroom audio system will be a great addition too - thank you!

I’d be interested in joining that some times - really enjoy the videos you do every week too and happy to support through Patreon. Please keep up the good work!

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. Great point about the relay on the back of the DS2 - I wasn’t sure if there was one so I may go with that (not sure if I will want to use dry contact relays to monitor things down there (ie firefighter key box unlocked/opened etc - in which case I might use the i/o extender still or may wire back to the house to the security panel since those wires can go farther than cat6 - I need to go about 800 feet). Your solution sounds exactly like what I want to do - beautiful seamless integration. Really like your use of the Neeo remotes to open the gate too - very cool. Are you using a DS2 with keypad then as your main call box by the gate when people drive up to the gate? What gate opener electronics are you using? Our gate people want to install a Door King system which sounds good for the opener electronics but their call box is really dated and would have little integration so I’m thinking I’ll go with the Door King opener but wire the DS2 with keypad in as the call box instead......

Just wondering how you sorted this out. I’m looking to install a gate next year and am interested in the details of how yours works with C4. Do you use a DS2 with keypad for your call box at the gate? My thought is to do that and wire a relay to the gate opener like you’re suggesting here. In my case though the distance is too far to wire a relay directly from the gate into the rack at the house so I will be running fiber from the house to an outdoor rack enclosure near the gate. That rack will have a Poe switch and a C4 I/o extender. Then I can wire the gate DS2 to the Poe switch there and wire a relay on the I/o extender in that rack to the gate opener control. Then I think I could control user access, get C4 intercom calls all from the ds2 at the gate - and even open the gate through the intercom interface in C4. This sounds like your plan too generally - how is it working for you?

Sadly I don’t have personal experience either but I believe @chopedogg88 does and wonder if he may weigh in on how the level of C4 integration compares between Alexa/Google v Josh? @ILoveC4 - parsing complex commands does seem to be a big highlight. It also seems to have some contextual awareness of the room assets (ie “turn on the lights” without specifying which lights) which is nice.

Agreed. Got some more info listening to the latest episode of Residential Tech Talks podcast with Josh.ai founder Alex as a guest. He confirms Nano runs POE (as you would expect/hope), but also has full RGB LEDs for feedback (listening/processing cues), and a programmable capacitive touch button too. Pretty slick.

Did anyone else watch the Josh keynote? I thought it was very well done. Two new products: the Nano (near flush mount mic a little bigger than the size of a quarter) and the Core (a rack mountable processor). I really like what they’re doing - privacy, integrated design. Real contrast to the new echo dots that only seem to get bigger each generation. Plus we’re getting frustrated with Alexa in our house - performance has really gone down hill over the past month for some reason (clearly on the server side). So all in all Josh is becoming a more enticing option overall - assuming they maintain a deep integration with C4.

For this, I’m using Honeywell flood/temp sensors into the Honeywell vista panel which will integrate to C4. Plan to add Flo down the road for broader monitoring but like combining with these point leak and temp sensors.

Stunning home! Perfect example of well integrated technology: you don’t see it and let the home design stand on its own. Well done!

Interesting. No delay? Was hesitant about using cloud. I had delays with IFTTT events in past. One thing I like about Vera is setting the fence size very handy also multiple fences - I’ve used other services that don’t do those things (don’t know if ifttt can just saying generally).

My plan is to use geo fencing in Vera to trigger virtual switches integrated into C4. Those switches will represent presence and program off those. Have been testing reliability and accuracy for a couple months before using and so far excellent. Frustrating to not have this native in C4 app.

same problem here seems to come and go though - both on MacOS (10.14) and iOS (14.0.1) - using safari on both. But having same problem with Duck Duck Go browser on iOS.

Is the system BACnet compatible? Apparently BACnet is a common deep HVAC communication standard especially commercial systems. Anyone tried integrating with HVAC through this method? My geothermal zoned systems require manufacturer thermostats they work great and can stay but I have to get a card to allow BACnet integration plus get a driver written. @alanchow noted in another thread that there’s an ip BACnet bridge with a driver. So maybe you could use that if your system supports BACnet? Of course you’d need a driver too.....

Also, if helpful to anyone, I've run a ton of this cable: https://www.htd.com/2-Conductor-Speaker-Cable-14-Gauge. I've had great luck with it wiring a media room at our old house, and all over our home now - including out to the pool. 14 gauge, full copper, and shielded so never had problems with interference of any kind (also still careful where I run it in relation to other wires), CL3 and UL. Very flexible and easy to pull. Only issues are 1.) it is a little large and, 2.) the outer jacket is good and thick but a bit soft so when pulling through other cables sharing the same conduit you need to be careful that the outer jacket on this cable doesn't get worn into badly.

Thank you for posting - this is brilliant. I'm going to pick one up for future zone installations. I'll probably modify my method by cutting from below with this thing rather than from the top. I prefer moving the installation as described earlier so I know I have enough clearance from wires etc - at least for rooms you can access from the attic. Downstairs zones I do use a method similar to yours @Elvis - though after that first coat hanger trick, I open the hole up a little and put a bendable camera up to confirm there are no framing, wires, etc. blocking where the speaker needs to go.

No problem - glad your first pair went well! I was able to locate the cover I used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PELN0C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Worked very well as far as I can tell. Good luck with the other pairs!

For what it is worth, I installed speakers in our master from the attic as you're planning to do - great project. Here are my experiences as they relate to your questions: 1.) In my attic we have blown in insulation but it is blown on top of the bat insulation which had two or three layers crossing over perpendicular. So I had to rake away the blown-in, then pull up the bat insulation layers to access the dry wall going to the ceiling in the master. This pulled back insulation basically kept most stuff from falling back down the holes. 2.) Even though it it low voltage, I didn't think it was a good idea to put the insulation in direct contact with the speaker so I bought a flexible plastic cover from amazon (I think) that protects the back of the speakers then I layered the insulation back on top. I live in Maine so you and I have similar winters and summers and that insulation is critical so I tried to put it back exactly as it was but honestly not a bad idea to get a bit more blow-in insulation to layer over the stuff you move because it settles after being disturbed. 3.) Cutting from the attic was much better for me because coming from below you don't know if you're too close to framing. I pushed a straight piece of a metal coat hanger up from below through the dry wall in the rough place I wanted the center to be - then went into the attic to adjust for spacing from framing and cut from attic. 4.) I hung a large piece of plastic painters plastic close to the ceiling all around the area I was going to cut in - and sealed the edges with painters tape. This way, as the dry wall dust and any stray insulation falls down it doesn't make a huge mess in the room. Hope this is helpful for you - good luck!

Absolutely agree re geofence events. Crazy that a high end system like C4 doesn’t support this natively yet.

Following this too I have a 4x4 monoprice blackbird hdmi matrix and extender so each zone can go out over hdmi and cat6. Similar IP and RS232 controls. Hope someone can write a driver for it.

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You’re probably right there. Though I don’t understand why a Sonos can be an endpoint but C4 apparently cannot. By endpoint I mean “Alexa play music on X” where X is Sonos or C4. I imagine that Amazon and Sonos struck a deal so maybe it can be done if both parties want to do it. It is too bad C4 can’t/won’t (who knows) make a similar deal.

I did something similar to this in our master suite (though not a tv in the bathroom - great idea there) in my case I ran 4 cat 6 from the attic down the wall behind our dresser (which includes a couple media drawers) then to the rack in the basement, also ran 4 hdmi, cat 6, and coax and power from behind the dresser into the attic and down into the wall where I mounted our master tv. Point being I ran a lot of cable from the attic down a wall as you’re suggesting. I opted not to go with conduit here because to enter the wall cavity from the attic you’ve got to drill into the wood framing the top of the wall which is maybe 6/8”s wide which doesn’t allow for a very large conduit and therefor fewer cables - especially preterminated cables like hdmi where the ends need even more space to pull through. Instead I drilled several holes with an inch or larger spade bit, used a fiberglass wire puller to fish nylon pull strings down those holes to the gang box behind the dresser. Note the wall was interior so uninsulated which makes this easier. I found this approach more forgiving then conduit in this case. Now I have used conduit going from the attic down three chases we installed when we installed geothermal HVAC system. Two of those were to later run two cat6 cables into two bedroom lofts so I went with 1” conduit there. The other conduit was 6” special order conduit that provides a huge path from attic to basement for future wiring projects (more whole home audio zones, upstairs surround sound media room, and anything else for the future). In these three attic conduit examples I considered other conduit like vacuum pvc but I ultimately went with grey electrical conduit thinking that it is UL rated and intended for carrying electrical lines so from a code/right way of doing things it might be considered preferred. I don’t know that that’s true because this is low voltage but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Aside from cost there’s no real downside doing it this way as it comes in a lot of sizes especially if you special order from an electrical supply house. They also make a flexible blue or orange low voltage conduit but I’ve never used that because it isn’t smooth inside the conduit and I imagine it could be even harder to pull cable through because of that. Hope this is helpful for you - good luck on what sounds like a fun project!

That. Looks. Perfect. Thank you sir!