Control4 and MQTT?

[tfmeier]

I read in the I stall of David's driver that Berto_Cloud is a prereq for this to work. I'm new to this but I'm in the process of building an infrastructure on my own AWS instance/MQTT client.

Does anyone have done a similar thing or are you all using Berto_Cloud for this?

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[Amr]

I built a local MQTT broker using my Synology NAS, downloaded from SynoCommunity, I hate going to cloud for such mission critical task!

Berto Cloud is required in all cases.

[NextGenAV]

I think the cloud is only for driver updates and installation. I have had a MQTT broker running on a Pi for over a year now with Berto drivers with no issues at all even when the internet connection is down.

[david@berto.co.uk]

2 hours ago, NextGenAV said:

I think the cloud is only for driver updates and installation. I have had a MQTT broker running on a Pi for over a year now with Berto drivers with no issues at all even when the internet connection is down.

The Cloud driver does updates and installation as you say but also maintains a connection to the Berto Cloud service which provides other functions such as Google Assistant & IFTTT integration and also the free email sending service.

All drivers should function without the need for an Internet connection.

[DIEHARD]

Where did this driver go? I finally got some time to play with it and the github for it is no more?

[Zuhair]

Where did this driver go? I finally got some time to play with it and the github for it is no more?

The driver is available at www.berto.io

[Amr]

https://berto.io/c4z

[lungsir]

On 12/30/2019 at 11:26 AM, aceben72 said:

Having an issue with the programming of the MQTT bridge not firing when a message is received.

I can see the 'Last Message' being successfully received by the bridge in the 'Properties' tab.

However my programming (under 'General Message Received') only works if I press the 'Execute' button at the top of the page in Composer. It does not fire when the MQTT bridge receives the message.

Any clues appreciated!

 

+1 Same Issue, any idea...

[david@berto.co.uk]

On 3/5/2020 at 9:39 AM, lungsir said:

+1 Same Issue, any idea...

This is fixed in the current release.

[david@berto.co.uk]

1 minute ago, david@berto.co.uk said:

This is fixed in the current release.

Please beware that the current release is a major upgrade from version 13 and below and requires that you update the Berto Cloud driver first and then take the 'In Place Upgrade' option in the Service menu followed by a reboot.

Some drivers have been obsoleted as they are replaced by a single group of IoT drivers so if you are using the Shelly, Sonoff, Lifx, Flic, Tasmota, Bluetooth, Google Assistant drivers you should look at the IoT Gateway driver.

The Premium subscription plan option has finally been added to the Cloud driver and is now available. The Basic subscription plan remains in place and provides the same functionality as before.

[Amr]

David, On a side note, can we make use of this great driver in tinkering with Zigbee2mqtt? I’d love to have all 3rd party Zigbee equipment eg, IKEA and Xiaomi and used locally and completely get rid of Hub’s specially Xiaomi Chinese servers!

[david@berto.co.uk]

6 minutes ago, Amr said:

On a side note, can we make use of this great driver in tinkering with Zigbee2mqtt? I’d love to have all 3rd party Zigbee equipment eg, IKEA and Xiaomi Drives and used locally and completely get rid of Hub’s specially Xiaomi Chinese servers!

Amr,

I've got Zigbee2mqtt running on my Pi, am just adding it's installation to the IoT Gateway driver. Once done I'll look at how I can integrate the devices. 

Just need some time!

 

[Amr]

2 minutes ago, david@berto.co.uk said:

Amr,

I've got Zigbee2mqtt running on my Pi, am just adding it's installation to the IoT Gateway driver. Once done I'll look at how I can integrate the devices. 

Just need some time!

 

Just let me know if you need to test anything, looking forward to phase II

[Homerlovesbeer]

Hi David. 

I need to buy some motorised curtains for my yet to be installed Control4 system. Budget blow outs prevent me from spending 4 times the price on control4 compatible curtains so I'm looking at Zigbee and WiFi motors. 

What will enable me to use through control4? I am not very knowledgeable with any home Automation programming but capable of learning

I'd prefer Zigbee if it's possible.

What do you suggest?

Thanks very very much!

[NextGenAV]

2 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Hi David. 

I need to buy some motorised curtains for my yet to be installed Control4 system. Budget blow outs prevent me from spending 4 times the price on control4 compatible curtains so I'm looking at Zigbee and WiFi motors. 

What will enable me to use through control4? I am not very knowledgeable with any home Automation programming but capable of learning

I'd prefer Zigbee if it's possible.

What do you suggest?

Thanks very very much!

Hi,

Almost all available motorised curtains are C4 compatible in some way. Something like Somfy or Silent Gliss are good options. I would recommend DC motors over AC as the AC motors are much louder than DC.

It does need the RF gateway for each of those systems, but this does give you stand alone 'real button' remote controls too. I don't see the point of installing something that needs an app to control when a hard button does a better job (and quicker). After all, you are trying to automate things, not make it take more time.

I take it that your are DIYing your C4 system, if so then both the above are easy to integrate.

If the two above systems are out of your budget ... then I will have to let someone else help on that one ... I've seen the super cheap systems and they sound like a 747 warming up when they operate, kinda embarrassing if your are showing off your super automated home!

I don't think there is a direct Zigbee system available as C4 use a proprietary version of Zigbee Pro that isn't plug and play with other Zigbee devises. Unless SnapAV have something now?

[Homerlovesbeer]

Hi.

 

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately the Somfy models are about 6 times the price over other models available online.

I have found a manufacturer that does motors which run at 40bB which I do not consider too noisy so I am happy to try and get them to work with Control4. They use Wi-Fi and the Tuya protocol. 

I have a dealer setting up my new house with Control4 which is costing me tens of thousands of dollars but I have to draw the line on curtains as I've run out of money. 

WiFi Tuya curtain tracks and motors for my home will cost about AU $2240 compared to $9600 so you can see why I want to save money.

I do appreciate help in making this work as I need to order the curtain tracks and motors ASAP.

Cheers all.

[david@berto.co.uk]

1 minute ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Hi.

 

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately the Somfy models are about 6 times the price over other models available online.

I have found a manufacturer that does motors which run at 40bB which I do not consider too noisy so I am happy to try and get them to work with Control4. They use Wi-Fi and the Tuya protocol. 

I have a dealer setting up my new house with Control4 which is costing me tens of thousands of dollars but I have to draw the line on curtains as I've run out of money. 

WiFi Tuya curtain tracks and motors for my home will cost about AU $2240 compared to $9600 so you can see why I want to save money.

I do appreciate help in making this work as I need to order the curtain tracks and motors ASAP.

Cheers all.

What's to link for Tuya Wifi motor?

[Homerlovesbeer]

15 minutes ago, david@berto.co.uk said:

What's to link for Tuya Wifi motor?

Hi David. I've been talking with the factory direct. I'll PM you.

Edit: PM sent

[NextGenAV]

2 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Hi David. I've been talking with the factory direct. I'll PM you.

Edit: PM sent

Ah OK, I see the one you mean. The control part of it is Alexa and Google home compatible so Control4 will be able to control it no problem at all. I'm guessing that the Tuya part of it is just a relay based on ESP chip. I'd prefer not to use cloud services to control local things, but it may be possible to flash new firmware and have local MQTT control.

[Homerlovesbeer]

6 hours ago, NextGenAV said:

Ah OK, I see the one you mean. The control part of it is Alexa and Google home compatible so Control4 will be able to control it no problem at all. I'm guessing that the Tuya part of it is just a relay based on ESP chip. I'd prefer not to use cloud services to control local things, but it may be possible to flash new firmware and have local MQTT control.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes it is Google and Alexa control so are you saying it is very easy to integrate with Control4 if I am happy to have the curtains cloud based control?

I could live with that for now and try and flash for MQTT control if I feel the need to.

Will I he able to program curtains with timers etc still? For example, as the sun sets have the curtains close automatically, or when the alarm goes off in the morning have the curtains open to welcome the day and let in light

Cheers

[NextGenAV]

13 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Thanks for your reply.

Yes it is Google and Alexa control so are you saying it is very easy to integrate with Control4 if I am happy to have the curtains cloud based control?

I could live with that for now and try and flash for MQTT control if I feel the need to.

Will I he able to program curtains with timers etc still? For example, as the sun sets have the curtains close automatically, or when the alarm goes off in the morning have the curtains open to welcome the day and let in light

Cheers

Unfortunately, without trying it myself I couldn't say if the control would be good or not. There is too much variation in the implementation of these products, if it has IFTTT then it is much more likely to work with C4, but this requires additional drivers which are licensed.

But, if Control4 can tell the blinds to open / close then yes it will be able to do all the scheduling and sunset / sunrise control. You wouldn't need to touch the Tuya app.

[Amr]

Hi David, Can you list the limitations of the current drivers? Also are you planning to support Sonoff RF Bridge?

I have some RF buttons, key fobs and some RF sensors that I need to use in hard to reach locations.

Also need to know any limitations as am increasing my Tasmota based devices and it’s growing rapidly and need to know what are my limits?

[david@berto.co.uk]

24 minutes ago, Amr said:

Hi David, Can you list the limitations of the current drivers? Also are you planning to support Sonoff RF Bridge?

I have some RF buttons, key fobs and some RF sensors that I need to use in hard to reach locations.

Also need to know any limitations as am increasing my Tasmota based devices and it’s growing rapidly and need to know what are my limits?

RF Bridge support is included in the current beta release and due out in production next week. The update around the IoT drivers is quite major as I've consolidated and, hopefully, simplified much of the setup. There is support for buttons, motion sensors and contacts, also using mulitple RF Bridges coverage is easily extended.

In terms of scalability I have systems running into 100's of devices running on VMWare instances with 1Gb RAM and 1 CPU, mostly simple BMS sytems with ligting and relays. I use Pi 4's with 4Gb and have a system in the field with over 260 Tasmota devices and the load average is never above 1!

What IoT Broker are you running?

The new IoT suite comprises of 4 drivers, Berto_IOTGateway, IOTLight, IOTDimmer and IOTGeneric, which between them all provide integration to 1000's of devices running the Tasmota firmware, Shelly hardware, Sonoff DIY, Lifx bulbs and Flic buttons as well as any other custom MQTT devices. Other useful additions to the IoT suite are WebView which provides direct browser access to local devices from T3 touchscreens, useful for managing RGB color selection on Shelly devices and WebServer for bi-directional access to your main controller to interrogate/control any device in your Control4 system including REST and Websockets.

The IOT Gateway also links to Apple Homekit devices via a local Berto Hub (Pi 4 MQTT Broker) and Google Assistant using the Berto Assist service.

All drivers are free to download and use under a Basic subscription model which allows unlimited use of any single driver in a system. Multiple instances of a driver in a system available under a Premium subscription. The Premium subscription is an annual cost that gives unlimted use of all Berto drivers to a single system both current and future drivers. 

Whilst the IOT Gateway supports device discovery and control using mDNS and HTTP, the use of an MQTT broker provides a better realtime experience along with support for other proprietary third party devices such as Apple Homekit and Flic buttons. I can supply a Berto Hub (Pi 4 POE in a case) for €150 which includes one years Premium subscription if your interested?

Other integration drivers include IFTTT, Pushover and Mail using your own SMTP service plus several other video/utility drivers. See http://berto.io for more info about the drivers available and feel to PM me any questions.

Thanks

David

[Amr]

38 minutes ago, david@berto.co.uk said:

RF Bridge support is included in the current beta release and due out in production next week. The update around the IoT drivers is quite major as I've consolidated and, hopefully, simplified much of the setup. There is support for buttons, motion sensors and contacts, also using mulitple RF Bridges coverage is easily extended.

In terms of scalability I have systems running into 100's of devices running on VMWare instances with 1Gb RAM and 1 CPU, mostly simple BMS sytems with ligting and relays. I use Pi 4's with 4Gb and have a system in the field with over 260 Tasmota devices and the load average is never above 1!

What IoT Broker are you running?

The new IoT suite comprises of 4 drivers, Berto_IOTGateway, IOTLight, IOTDimmer and IOTGeneric, which between them all provide integration to 1000's of devices running the Tasmota firmware, Shelly hardware, Sonoff DIY, Lifx bulbs and Flic buttons as well as any other custom MQTT devices. Other useful additions to the IoT suite are WebView which provides direct browser access to local devices from T3 touchscreens, useful for managing RGB color selection on Shelly devices and WebServer for bi-directional access to your main controller to interrogate/control any device in your Control4 system including REST and Websockets.

The IOT Gateway also links to Apple Homekit devices via a local Berto Hub (Pi 4 MQTT Broker) and Google Assistant using the Berto Assist service.

All drivers are free to download and use under a Basic subscription model which allows unlimited use of any single driver in a system. Multiple instances of a driver in a system available under a Premium subscription. The Premium subscription is an annual cost that gives unlimted use of all Berto drivers to a single system both current and future drivers. 

Whilst the IOT Gateway supports device discovery and control using mDNS and HTTP, the use of an MQTT broker provides a better realtime experience along with support for other proprietary third party devices such as Apple Homekit and Flic buttons. I can supply a Berto Hub (Pi 4 POE in a case) for €150 which includes one years Premium subscription if your interested?

Other integration drivers include IFTTT, Pushover and Mail using your own SMTP service plus several other video/utility drivers. See http://berto.io for more info about the drivers available and feel to PM me any questions.

Thanks

David

Thanks David, this is fantastic news, I run local MQTT on my Synology NAS, will PM to range for the subscription and to get HomeKit and Google Assistant configured hopefully you add Zigbee2MQTT as well as this is the most complete driver set I came across

[david@berto.co.uk]

Zigbee2MQTT is WIP,  just taking longer than expected. Testing product from China and it’s not arriving fast enough surprise surprise!