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On 5/25/2021 at 12:55 PM, South Africa C4 user said:

My dealer is busy updating me remotely 🙂

I understand that the main changes are OvRC pro native to your controller, Access Agent enhancements and improvements to backlighting of keypads to allow one to balance the backlights of keypads next to each other etc.  If so, this will fix issues that a number of us have had. @eggzlot- I seem to recall this was a problem in your setup? So may be a worthwhile update!

Would be keen to hear if there is anything else in the update!

no backlighting improvement

Though all of my lighting is the latest "Version" of the hardware, some pieces were installed 2013/2014 and others around 2018.  The 2018 renovation was extensive and lots of items got moved about the house - repurposed, single gangs became double gangs, etc - lots of moving parts.

It seems clear that some LED backlights are just "stronger" even though I went to OS 3.2.2 and did what was suggested with the source/follow

So it is hard to know 100% but I am fairly sure some of my older ones likely have a dimmer LED - is that due to age?  Is that due to design?

Do I really want to bring in an electrician and start moving/swapping various parts around the house?  I probably have 3-4 areas with multi gang boxes so I'd have to see what pieces are there, what is old vs new, and hope that swapping them makes a difference.

Either way, put me down for OS 3.2.2 NOT solving my backlighting conundrum.  The saga continues

 

IMG_6052.HEIC.jpeg

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Just to clarify, what 3.2.2 does for backlighting is the ability to set one device's sensor to be the 'master' for other devices (whole house or by area).

This helps (a lot) when you're USING the sensor to have the backlighting and indicator leds dim or brighten based on the sensor - it won't do anything for a situation where (as an example or test) you set the intensity to basically be always full or the same (ie your range is only 1 step) and some keypads look brighter/darker next to each other.

 

As to why they do that, I have no good answer for you, can only speculated that either the LEDs were changed over time or indeed are dimming with age. Unless of course you have two generations of engraving - those with the insert behind the button, and those that don't (you'll know if it has an insert by looking at the back)

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I have multiple keypads in my system that were purchased at the same time that have very different LED brightness levels. Drives me crazy. I have been working with my dealer to replace these but COVID has backed everything up. And even that story is starting to get old to me.

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36 minutes ago, Cyknight said:

Just to clarify, what 3.2.2 does for backlighting is the ability to set one device's sensor to be the 'master' for other devices (whole house or by area).

This helps (a lot) when you're USING the sensor to have the backlighting and indicator leds dim or brighten based on the sensor - it won't do anything for a situation where (as an example or test) you set the intensity to basically be always full or the same (ie your range is only 1 step) and some keypads look brighter/darker next to each other.

 

As to why they do that, I have no good answer for you, can only speculated that either the LEDs were changed over time or indeed are dimming with age. Unless of course you have two generations of engraving - those with the insert behind the button, and those that don't (you'll know if it has an insert by looking at the back)

yep as mentioned engravings were all done at the same time

I am using 1 of the 3 as a source and the other 2 as followers.  I did "apply all" so the settings for the color, brightness intensities etc are all the same.  The should be fairly close.  By the picture you can see they are clearly not at all close.

I don't think its an aging thing because if you've read any of my posts for years I never thought the backlighting looked crisp.  I tried different colors.  I tried all new engravings after the process was changed.  I tried the black bar sensors.  I tried it all, no success.

I personally think the old hardware is just inferior to the new hardware, yet its all the same "generation" hardware.  I don't think its an aging thing as I have photos on this board and elsewhere going back to 2014-2015 with the same very weak backlighting look.

I was hoping OS 3.2.2 would somehow automagically correct it all and adjust things to even it out, but that is clearly not the case.

I've emailed customer support for assistance as this is impacting at least 10+ devices in my house.

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46 minutes ago, eggzlot said:

I am using 1 of the 3 as a source and the other 2 as followers.  I did "apply all" so the settings for the color, brightness intensities etc are all the same.  The should be fairly close.  By the picture you can see they are clearly not at all close.

Understand I'm not in any way debating that you're having an issue - I just wanted to explain in general/to people in general what the backlighting update does.

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@eggzlot - sorry to hear that this hasn’t helped you.

The update was great for me and helped in 3 ways:

1. I saw some improvements just generally (although I do wonder if that was just random luck / my eyes deceiving me).

2. In rooms where, at certain times, the light is uneven in the room and / or the level being read by the light sensors was different between keypads, the change to using only one sensor for the room as a whole had a noticeable impact in terms of balancing things out.

3. at my beach house, I have a number of keypads where, for some reason, the backlights and / or the LEDs were bleeding into the light sensor resulting in false readings and false brightness.  My work around was complex and had been to set the backlight and LEDs to black / off for 30 seconds under certain scenarios (e.g. when all the lights go out) so as to remove the bleeding impact and then revert to what I wanted thereafter... this worked 99% of the time. Using the source / follower methodology and choosing a keypad where this problem was not happening, removed the need for my workaround and gave me a much more fluid experience.

All in all, I am happy with this as a minor release but craving some changes in the form of a major release... Roll on OS3.3.0

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I’ve been advised that in the Sept 2017 C4 released an updated/revised Version 2 of the Gen 2 hardware with improved backlighting.  Therefore I have no “defect” just older product as the LEDs were updated in the revised hardware.  Along with the updated LED they made changes to the color palette as well to give customers a better product.

Lots of other details that they tried to keep blue consistent but given my photo, and I tested blue, it really isn’t working at all.  Otherwise custom colors may be needed to match old vs new, but again the brightness is just night and day different so a custom color I doubt will do anything.

So for those with poor/reduced/weak backlighting, if your devices were manufactured prior to Sept 2017, it is what it is, OS 3.2.2 will not help.  They are just dim and inconsistent though C4 does not see it as a “flaw”.

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On 5/27/2021 at 1:31 AM, Rexabyte said:

SSML supports a break tag which from what I can tell should work with both Amazon Polly and Google Text To Speech.



<break time="3s"/>.


https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/ssml

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/supportedtags.html#break-tag

I’ve been trying this on @Shivam Paw TTS driver but can’t seem to get it to work, so don’t think this works on the TTS drivers 😞

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15 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

I’ve been trying this on @Shivam Paw TTS driver but can’t seem to get it to work, so don’t think this works on the TTS drivers 😞

The drivers dont currently support ssml, mainly because it would be weird to program with I think and lead to many “you missed the closing >” issues 

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7 minutes ago, blub said:

my T3s seem to be a lot less laggy since 3.2.2 - but they still are slow when changing rooms/favs

Mine too. But I think this is size of project dependent... I have been eagerly waiting for a couple of T4s for many months (and no longer have an ETA for the, 😐) as I assume this will deal with the slow move between rooms...

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On 6/5/2021 at 11:56 AM, South Africa C4 user said:

I’ve been trying this on @Shivam Paw TTS driver but can’t seem to get it to work, so don’t think this works on the TTS drivers 😞

Works on my Polly driver, just use the 'Synthesize SSML' command. Example Text:

<speak>This is a <break time="3s"/> test.</speak>

No need to escape or otherwise worry about the XML formatting.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/2/2021 at 3:17 PM, South Africa C4 user said:

@eggzlot - sorry to hear that this hasn’t helped you.

The update was great for me and helped in 3 ways:

1. I saw some improvements just generally (although I do wonder if that was just random luck / my eyes deceiving me).

2. In rooms where, at certain times, the light is uneven in the room and / or the level being read by the light sensors was different between keypads, the change to using only one sensor for the room as a whole had a noticeable impact in terms of balancing things out.

3. at my beach house, I have a number of keypads where, for some reason, the backlights and / or the LEDs were bleeding into the light sensor resulting in false readings and false brightness.  My work around was complex and had been to set the backlight and LEDs to black / off for 30 seconds under certain scenarios (e.g. when all the lights go out) so as to remove the bleeding impact and then revert to what I wanted thereafter... this worked 99% of the time. Using the source / follower methodology and choosing a keypad where this problem was not happening, removed the need for my workaround and gave me a much more fluid experience.

All in all, I am happy with this as a minor release but craving some changes in the form of a major release... Roll on OS3.3.0

Wish I could figure out myself, but where are you seeing the setting to set source/follower? I see a box now under the backlight settings that says 'Sensing' but don't see where to make changes. Thanks!

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2 hours ago, booch said:

Wish I could figure out myself, but where are you seeing the setting to set source/follower? I see a box now under the backlight settings that says 'Sensing' but don't see where to make changes. Thanks!

It's a binding that a dealer must make in pro. 

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