Jeff W

Setting aside budget considerations. Having a touch screen in each room that has audio makes for a much better user experience in our mind. With more and more audio services being online, the interface is a critical piece when being able to select/browse music. Drilling down through menus is so much nicer on a large screen or putting in username/passwords for online services. These are things that can't be down with a wireless/wired lighting keypad. Having the touch screens in large common areas is a great option too. I love my Control4 system and the DS2, but there are times when the phone doesn't ring when someone pushes the doorbell. I find it works much more consistent with the touch screens. When the phone does ring by the press of the doorbell, I have to answer the phone, then I have to unlock it for the intercom app to start and then it takes a few seconds for the video to start working. It takes a few moments and sometimes, people have already walked away from the door. As much as people always say they have their phone with them. That's usually not the case when people come home. A lot of people put the phone down and walk away. Sure it's somewhere in the house but if they need it fast, they can never find it. As good as the Control4 app is, it takes a few moments to load the system settings each time it's opened. If you are on the edge of your wifi coverage then app can sometimes take several attempts to reload if it detects the cellular connection, switches back to wifi, switches back to cellular connection. Having a touch screen that is always ready when you need it to be is huge win for user experience.

One of the Control4 instructors ran into the same issue. He tried multiple things to chase the deer away. What worked in the end, was a motion trigger that would play back a custom .mp3 sound file of dogs barking on his outdoor speakers. Not quite as aggressive as the roaring cougar, but it got the job done. He said it worked like a charm.

For added security/benefit, you can make Option 15 = Secondary Sensor = Built in. This will use the internal temperature sensor in the thermostat if the wireless option fails (gets unplugged by someone). It won't register the exact same heat but it's not a bad idea to have a plan b for heating.

I am not familiar with Composer HE, but based on what I've read, I don't think you can bind items with it and you may need a dealer with Composer Pro. (I may be wrong though). In order to use the z2io as a wireless remote temperature/humidity sensor you need to be able to bind the z2io "Temperature Internal" and the "Humidity" in Connections Tab to the Control4 Thermostat. Then you need to go into the Control4 Thermostat settings and use "Control4 Value" for the respective sensors you want to use. Turn the thermostat off using the heating/cooling button. Press the fan button for several seconds. Go to Enter Installer Setup System Setting 13 = Remote Sensor = Yes System Setting 14 = Primary Sensor = "Control4 Value". It's not listed in the installation guide but it is there When you're done, click Done and it should save. Depending on how deep you are into the menus, you may have to save it twice. You can do the same thing for the humidity control if you have a humidifier installed. You need to enter the IAQ section, then enter the Humidifier system settings. Humidifier Installed = Yes Remote Sensor = Yes Primary Sensor = "Control4 Value" Then it will give you sensor options. It's not listed in the manual, but once you turn on Humidifier Controls, it should give you remote sensor options. You would follow the same steps as for the temperature sensors. I don't have a Control4 Thermostat in front of me and I am going off memory for the humidity settings but it is possible. I hope that answers your questions.

The newer Sony TV's (android models), excluding the ones from Costco, work well with the mini drivers too. I believe there are close to 265 mini drivers for the Control4 eco system. But as Cy said, no luck for the AppleTV device.

Something to think about when considering AA's vs the rechargeables. Last year approximately 3 billion batteries were sold in North America. As our love of and reliance on tech grows, so will our battery usage. Far too many batteries are trashed every year. Canadians throw away over 745 million batteries a year. Source: GarbageDay.com To put that into perspective, the entire population of Canada (37 million+) can fit into California. The US population is 333+ million.

The Control4 thermostat has a ton of options and capabilities. These are just some of the features. LED Backlighting LED Button Colors Humidity Remote Sensors Outdoor Sensors For the sensors you can have primary, remote(wired), wireless options. You can tell the thermostat to fall back from remote(wired) to primary(built in) in case it stops detecting the remote sensors. If you don't like the look of the Control4 thermostats in the room/hallways, you can install an in-wall temperature sensor and install the thermostat in the mech. room. As for intelligence... You can do a lot with programming, there is a ton of conditions and states to program against. Especially if you have the outdoor temperature sensor installed. Humidity can be automatic based on the outdoor temperature. For a lot of people, setting up a schedule works well. I am not a fan of cloud based API, so having something local, that's reliable is a win win. I've replaced more Nest Thermostats than I can count. If you're thinking about switching from Nest, I'd recommend the Control4 thermostat. The only thing I wish the Control4 Thermostats did was display the outdoor temperature on the LCD.

My house has been emailing me for 13+ years or so on a daily basis for all kinds of activity. Completely use to it It just takes a quick swipe on the phone to delete the emails, it's not really bothersome for me.

I couldn't agree more. I don't believe OVRc is worth it to swap out the Ruckus. We have been using Ruckus for almost 10 years now, it's in hundred's of homes. In all that time, I believe I had to VPN into two customer homes to do a power cycle. They are just bullet proof. Not worth OVRc

My SR-260's seem to last 2-3 weeks. I don't use them a ton but I prefer the charging stations/recharge models. If the remote dies, you simply put it on the base wait a few hours (you can use it while it's charging on the base in a pinch). Nothing worst than remote batteries dying and you can't find replacement batteries. Highly recommend the rechargeable version.

Not really automating, but more programming. I had to replace the springs on my Garage Door. The old system last 18 years and 10's of thousands of use. Door guy said the new springs would only last about 7 years or so. He said it would pretty much fail after 10,000 operations. Opening and Closing would count as two. So I made a script that would count how many operations the door has performed. It emails me every time the door opens/closes and includes the open/close count. I am going to see how accurate the door guy's guess was.... It has dawned one me, I may need a hobby

Cy, I think the reason for this is our Chinooks. For anyone reading this and not sure what that is. During our winter months it can go from -22F to 50F in just a few hours. It happens when the right conditions occur during winter. Winter winds can accelerate coming down the mountains and this heats up the air. This process can repeat several times a week. When this occurs, it's very common to see people in shorts in the middle of winter at 32F, as long as the sun is shining. The second that sun goes behind clouds it gets real cold real quick again This causes the jambs to expand and contract a lot more, I'm guessing this is the reason why we have to adjust the strike plates.

cdepaola, if you get the obsidian, would be curious to get your feedback about it.

My door faces west and during the summer days, the sun beats down on the touchscreen all day and gets quite warm. The touch screen has held up over several years and I'm quite impressed it hasn't failed. I am quite north, so we still have sunlight at 10:30pm at night. The touchscreen hasn't failed yet. *knock on wood*. The only thing I will say about the kwikset touchscreen is that when the sun does beat down on it. You do have the press and hold your finger on the lock icon or the random two digits it generates during the unlocking process. Sometimes, I can be there for a few seconds until it recognizes the button press. On a side note. I really do like the kwikset random number generation as part of the unlocking process.

Unfortunately, not everyone is as diligent as keeping/maintaining that level of battery maintenance. These locks due require some level of maintenance in my region. Because we can have large temperature swings from one season to the next -40F (winter) to 98F (Summer). This affects the door jambs as they expand/contract. When the deadbolt starts rubbing on the jamb/strike plate, it can chew through batteries faster. I probably have to adjust my adjustable strike plates once or twice a year. It's probably been 10 years for myself as well. I originally had the Zwave Schlage locks before switching out to the Kwikset ones. I have 14 keys on my key ring, I have keys for other family members homes, mailboxes, padlocks, AV racks. I couldn't tell you where my house key is As long as I have my phone... I can get get into my house, so it's not an issue for me. I think this is the key... sell more Control4 locks I personally do not like cloud API's, anything that can be controlled via the site is preferred. Have no issues with Kwikset locks.

Out of all the locks we have in the field. I did have to RMA one. The Kwikset rep was very strict about not using rechargeables. They made it very clear that only alkaline batteries were acceptable in the Kwikset locks. They said the reason being is that the rechargeables have a tendency to not report the correct voltage in them which often triggers a low battery indication. Just a handy tip for customers when replacing batteries to make sure they get the best experience from their locks

I've presented the obsidian to a couple of clients, but the thought of getting locked out if the batteries dies is a deal breaker most of the time. Most people won't keep a spare 9v battery handy to power the lock in the event the inside batteries die. You know how it goes, sometimes, no matter how hard you try sometimes, something doesn't match. Either the handle is too different or the lock is too different. Function wise, the Kwikset locks have been very reliable for us. PS. Looks great Ryan! Nice doorbell too

We hear the same comments from our customers about the locks seeming out dated. Cdepaola, did you ever find a solution?

A month late, but wanted to add some additional options to make things easier. Phantom buttons reside on the main repeater. 0 - 100. Depending on how many Lutron keypads you have in the home, this means approx. 16 6-button keypads will max out the phantom buttons on the main repeater. Doing it this way also means you need to program the keypads, including picos, in the Lutron software + it means duplicating these same scenes on phantom buttons in the software. Leaves a lot of room for error and it's difficult to change or modify things in a few years once you forget how it's programmed. I would recommend getting the integration report from the Lutron software that will show all the keypads and button programming in an Excel spreadsheet. Then, One alternative option is to create the same button commands per room (in the lutron software) and in the advanced lighting of Control4. Then in the Control4 software Programming >> Advanced Lighting >> When Lighting Scene "Living Room On" is invoked >> Press Button XX on Lutron Living Room keypad. (This is where the Lutron Excel spreadsheet comes into play). This means programming each keypad in the Control4 software that matches the Lutron Software. The only downfall to programming like this, you won't get feedback in the Control4 Living Room >> Lighting >> Scenes navigator/UI. ie. "Living Room On" won't show feedback. it's a trade off. As stated before, if you duplicate the button/room settings in Control4 and create the same scenes with the same lighting values as the lutron software, you will get popcorn effect in Control4. It is definitely noticeable with more than 3-4 lights. What it boils down to is how you interact with the two systems the most. If you use the Lutron keypads (including picos) the most, this will show you the main LED feedback on the Lutron keypads. If you use Control4 as a supplement way of interacting with both systems the scene feedback may not be as important because you can verify visually that the scene has been executed. If your main way of interacting is through Control4, it may be worth it to duplicate the Lutron scenes and live with the popcorn effect. *Note. I am not sure if Composer HE will give you the same programming access as the dealer software when it comes to the advanced lighting programming. Being a dealer, we have full access to all the options in programming. Worst case scenario, you can have a dealer program the same scenes as Lutron Keypads if you'd like. Just wanted to give another perspective as we are very familiar with the Lutron system. Hope that helps.

Cyknight... just checked the date on the first post... it's not 3 years old, so I'll add to the thread (Inside joke). It's most likely the EDID issue that Cy pointed out. General troubleshooting tip when dealing with EDID/Video issues is you can try is set the video resolution to 720p, and see if it has it. If it doesn't try bumping up the resolution to 1080p and check if it's still pixelized. You can always put it back to the original setting if it was higher. Sometimes the balun's can't handle the higher resolution Sometimes the cable can't handle the throughput required for the higher resolutions. Sometimes EDID can be a real pain I'll also recommend using an inexpensive HDMI splitter to change/modify the EDID works a lot of the time as noted.

Lol... My bad... I just switched from the dealer forums here. Saw the last couple of posts in the thread and wanted to help out. I didn't realize the post was that old. . I'm used to the dealer forums that were quite active. I'll make sure to read the date on the first post next time hahaha. Just want to help out the community . PS, nice to see a friendly face from the other forums here!

Dimmers and switches can sometimes 'bleed' a small amount of electricity through the dimmer/switch. With incandescent bulbs it wasn't enough to turn on the loads but sometimes it's enough to power a LED bulb. Might be one thing to look into.

The Bond Bridge uses frequencies between 300 - 450 Mhz. Use the link below to enter your remote FCC ID in and it should tell you whether or not it may be supported. Bond Supported Devices Website