Connections ? ​😑​

[TundraSonic]

The bain of my existence with Control 4 (and HE) seems to be... 'Connections'.  Primarily that I can't even see them in HE. Secondarily that I'm not sure I fully understand them.  Is there a document somewhere that explains them?  Is there anywhere that I can download the current Composer Pro manual so that I can better communicate with our integrator?

Am I correct that a connection is simply a link between a physical button and a device or scene that both controls the device/scene and causes the indicator LED to track the load properly?  Is there more than that?

Thanks,

 

[livitup]

Think of connections as the virtual representation of the physical wires that run to and from your system.

There is an HDMI cable between your Roku (or cable box or whatever) and your AVR, and another HDMI cable between your AVR and your TV.  Both of these would be configured in Control4's connections - the HDMI out from your Roku would be connected to the input on the AVR, and the HDMI out from the AVR would be connected to the input on the TV.

With lighting, connections allow installers to "bind" a light switch or dimmer to more loads than the locally wired load, or to bind keypads, etc. that don't even have a load wired to them to control lights.  The lighting scenes created in the Advanced Lighting Agent also expose a connection point, in the same vein as the HDMI on the back of the TV.  Likewise with the light switches and keypads.  So if I use the connections tab to link the output of a keypad button with the input of an advanced lighting scene, that button on the keypad now controls the lights.

The connections/binding method is generally viewed as slightly more reliable, quicker to activate/deactivate, and more likely to "just work".  However, as you know, the downside is that they can't be modified with Composer HE.  You can change the contents of the scene, but you can't remove or add the scene from a button.  The same end effect can be done with programming: "when the button is tapped, then active scene x."  This takes slightly more processing power however, and in a very busy system can seem very slightly laggy.

[Cyknight]

On 9/4/2020 at 10:00 AM, livitup said:

 This takes slightly more processing power however, and in a very busy system can seem very slightly laggy.

Moreover, tracking LEDs etc may not be as reliable (and or take a lot more to program, giving the controller more to do which than increases 'lag')

[TundraSonic]

On 9/4/2020 at 11:00 AM, livitup said:

This takes slightly more processing power however, and in a very busy system can seem very slightly laggy.

Yeah, my wife, son and DIL are increasingly complaining about how slow the system is. Primarily the GlassEdge panels and iPhone app. My wife said that she's feeling like she stepped back in time to 1980's and waiting on dial-up connections every time she wants to do something. I get the feeling that C4 is intended for smaller systems and perhaps not up snuff for larger systems. OTOH, C4 does have HE which is far ahead of Crestron et al. Loxone apparently has a quite good system for homeowner control as well.

Thanks for the great explanation on connections. Interestingly, we had a couple of issues where a KP button bound to a scene w/ a connection was acting erratically and changing it to programmed fixed the problems. From discussion elsewhere it sounds like that's not very surprising.

[livitup]

1) Control4 can absolutely do large systems, but the controller needs to be appropriately sized to do the job.  I have ~ 100 zigbee devices, 8 zones of distributed audio, 15 zones of distributed audio, 4 garage doors, 8 cameras, a door station, etc. etc. etc.  Make sure your Zigbee mesh is not too large, make sure your controller is not too small, etc.  If you're struggling, get a dealer to check out your system.

2) That is surprising.  Generally bound connections are the best. This points towards either a misconfigured scene, or an overloaded or incomplete Zigbee mesh (or perhaps interference - WiFI channels overlap with Zigbee - again Control4 makes smart default settings, but should always be verified on site).

There's a surprisingly large amount of engineering/design that should be done for Zigbee.  The fact that it works out of the box for small to medium size deployments can lull designers and installers into a false sense of complacency.

[TundraSonic]

I'm guessing that we are similar in size though likely not as complex programming as you yet. We are hardwired wherever possible so somewhat limited Zigbee that I'm aware of.

OTTOMH... 

• 1 EA-5
• 1 EA Expansion?
• 5 EA-1's
• 9 Handheld remotes
• 2 GlassEdge Touch Screens
• 61 6 button KP's
• 17 Audio Zones (Triad 24x24, Triad Amps, 4 Anthem Receivers)
• 11 Apple TV's (no video matrix)
• 72 C4 load dimmers (wishing we'd done Lutron)
• 62 LIFX GU10 (WiFi)
• 27 Phillips Hue (Zigbee)
• 3 Yale Locks (Zigbee)
• 6 Honeywell Thermostats (Ethernet)
• DSC Security Panel (I believe 91 sensors total)
• 2 garage doors
• Several exhaust fans and MUA's (Range Hood, etc.)

Surveillance - Currently have 6 cameras on a Security Spy NVR (dedicated Mac Mini). Will I think have 27 cameras total when complete. We're kind of waiting on Dahua to come out w/ a new camera that's rumored. We've not yet installed the C4 Security Spy driver but may this coming week. Still trying to decide on door station.

The EA-5 was supposed to be able to handle this with no problems but I'm beginning to wonder about that.

We're changing out a bunch of Phillips Hue for LIFX (so will likely have about 120 LIFX devices when done) because the Hue's couldn't be seen by the Hue Bridge. Unfortunately the Zigbee alliance didn't standardize stuff very well so most Zigbee devices don't relay all Zigbee protocols with only a very few relaying Zigbee Light Protocol.

[msgreenf]

Project really belongs on a CA10 with more then 1 zigbee mesh - at least 3 mesh's likely

[JSTRONG]

Just finished a changeover from an ea5 to a ca10 and man you would not believe the difference. The loading and snappiness is greatly improved. 
and Tundra, are all of your ea1’s zigbee servers ?

[TundraSonic]

3 hours ago, msgreenf said:

Project really belongs on a CA10 with more then 1 zigbee mesh - at least 3 mesh's likely

Thanks @msgreenf. Can you expound on the reasoning behind the 3 meshes a bit?

One more thing... While perhaps a lot of devices, there are not a lot of people using the system and in particular using it at the same time. There are four of us living here and rarely are we really interacting w/ the system. How much is performance affected by the basic system simply existing vs use of that basic system?

[JSTRONG]

You want to create multiple zigbee servers (mesh) so you have less hops to reach the server. Last few years control4 tells us to no longer use zaps but to just create multiple servers. I just did a job with 9 ea1 behind each tv. We just made each of those servers. The system is rock solid. The only issue is you can’t roam with your remote controls. But they are so cheap anyway they should be assigned to each room. 

[Cyknight]

5 hours ago, TundraSonic said:

I get the feeling that C4 is intended for smaller systems and perhaps not up snuff for larger systems.

Nonsense, it's all about setup and appropriate gear. A dealer may not be able to handle a larger system, but C4 as such certainly can.

3 hours ago, TundraSonic said:

• 1 EA-5
• 1 EA Expansion?
• 5 EA-1's
• 9 Handheld remotes
• 2 GlassEdge Touch Screens
• 61 6 button KP's
• 17 Audio Zones (Triad 24x24, Triad Amps, 4 Anthem Receivers)
• 11 Apple TV's (no video matrix)
• 72 C4 load dimmers (wishing we'd done Lutron)
• 62 LIFX GU10 (WiFi)
• 27 Phillips Hue (Zigbee)
• 3 Yale Locks (Zigbee)
• 6 Honeywell Thermostats (Ethernet)
• DSC Security Panel (I believe 91 sensors total)
• 2 garage doors
• Several exhaust fans and MUA's (Range Hood, etc.)

Don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't all that large of a system.

A CA-10 might be a good spec now that it's out, but with the amount of EA-1's you have on there, ZigBee could be off-loaded from the main controller, leaving plenty of overhead to handle what you ist on an EA-5 anyway, but yea a CA-10 would increase how snappy it runs. As mentioned, based on keypads, remotes and C4 lighting devices, there should likely be at least 3 meshes.

Where I see a larger problem is that you have such a large mixed lighting environment. Not ideal, especially using so many HUE and LIFX devices.

 

What you AREN'T lisiting is the networking setup. If you're telling me T3 (GlassEdge) screens are acting slow, something msut not be right there - unless you actually travelled back from the future.

 

[msgreenf]

You shouldn't have more then 70 zigbee devices in a mesh.

The system has to do stuff in the background regardless of who is using it. All the wifi lighting is polling based and takes resources on the controller.

I also think just based on the sheer # of drivers on your project c4 would recommend a ca10

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[Cyknight]

2 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

All the wifi lighting is polling based

which is why it's such a  poor choice

[msgreenf]

Never said it wasn't. You pay the price one way or another for it either in resources on the EA or in the actual lighting device that can connect to zigbee itself

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[TundraSonic]

All of the LIFX are on their own subnet so their broadcasting shouldn't be seen by C4. If I understand it correctly, the C4 driver talks to the LIFX server which in turn talks to the lamps. I've not looked at what's happening packet wise between the C4 driver and LIFX server though. 

Poor choice is a relative on this. The cost of a GU10 housing + LIFX or Hue lamp is about $90 and each lamp is individually addressable. Other solutions that I'm aware of are significantly more expensive even w/ circuit based dimming (which seems antiquated to me) and even more expensive with any kind of individually addressable fixture. Replacement costs will also be significantly less. In our rec room for instance we can have; 16 @ 100% white, or all off for watching a movie except 2 back corners blue, or only a couple on dim and warm in the seating area to make it more comfortable to sit and read or a couple on to provide path lighting from an outside door to the lower level hallway, or anything else we want to do. Each fixture is individually addressable and can be anything we want it to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[msgreenf]

I would disagree that circuit based dimming is antiquated and your assessment that replacement cost is cheaper is just incorrect. I have dimmers that are 9+ years old and when a bulb dies it's a few dollars vs smart bulbs.

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[TundraSonic]

2 hours ago, msgreenf said:

You shouldn't have more then 70 zigbee devices in a mesh.

I THINK that we are far below that? I believe the Hue are their own separate mesh since they are Zigbee Lighting Protocol (or Zigbee Light Link). Most non lighting specific Zigbee devices do not forward this. Otherwise we have 3 locks and the remotes.  

[TundraSonic]

2 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

I would disagree that circuit based dimming is antiquated and your assessment that replacement cost is cheaper is just incorrect. I have dimmers that are 9+ years old and when a bulb dies it's a few dollars vs smart bulbs.

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk
 

You've not replaced lamps in any integrated LED fixtures. With incandescent I'd agree with you, but not LED.

[msgreenf]

I THINK that we are far below that? I believe the Hue are their own separate mesh since they are Zigbee Lighting Protocol (or Zigbee Light Link). Most non lighting specific Zigbee devices do not forward this. Otherwise we have 3 locks and the remotes.  

How are you below that? You said like 60 keypads and 60 dimmers... Right there you are way over

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[msgreenf]

You've not replaced lamps in any integrated LED fixtures. With incandescent I'd agree with you, but not LED.

I have and they are like $8 each vs $30 smart bulbs

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[TundraSonic]

Circuit based dimming locks you in to the same thing for every fixture on a circuit.  In some cases that's totally fine but in others it's beneficial to have independent control of each individual fixture.

[TundraSonic]

4 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

How are you below that? You said like 60 keypads and 60 dimmers... Right there you are way over

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All of the keypads and dimmers are on ethernet.

[msgreenf]

I believe all of the keypads and dimmers are on ethernet.

Unless you did panalized lighting they are all on zigbee.

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[msgreenf]

Circuit based dimming locks you in to the same thing for every fixture on a circuit.  In some cases that's totally fine but in others it's beneficial to have independent control of each individual fixture.

I agree with you but 99% of the time simplicity is better than complexity.

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[TundraSonic]