Jump to content
C4 Forums | Control4

New Control4 Remotes coming 2021?!


Recommended Posts

3 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Compared to the 260 I think they should swap the directional keypad with the transport keys.

I would despise that myself, but it'll be a personal preference or I guess what people in general use the most.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


33 minutes ago, tmj4 said:

We found it odd they don't have the muscle memory to control their remote. Is this not the norm? 

Polling time I guess? In my family we have 250 and 260 both and all of us can blindly find any of the regular use buttons by feel. Rarely used ones, maybe have to look....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/8/2021 at 11:18 AM, zaphod said:

Here is one thought - replace the EA-1 with a special purpose AndroidTV box running C4's version of the Android TV OS that could provide OSD, IR blasting as well as a regular ATV box that has Netflix, etc

EEEEK. Embedded Android is not a good solution IMO for non-touchscreen devices and something as specialized as this. Lots of unnecessary overhead w/Android compared to using a true Linux-based system. Android devs will often talk about this when choosing the "proper" system for what they're trying to accomplish and not forcing extra overhead w/Android when another embedded OS would suffice. 

 

On 6/7/2021 at 8:55 PM, Dueport said:

Sounds like some cool stuff coming down the line……

I, for one, hope they do some performance optimization with their GUIs. Very sluggish on Neeo and mobile apps. Mobile app should be heavily optimized, especially with loading. They really need to take advantage of concurrency and pushing the loading of system state to the background a lot more--they phones have the processing cores and capabilities. Don't know about the Neeo remote hardware, but would venture to guess they may have at least have dual core chips; very easily could be wrong. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, tmj4 said:

Don't know about the Neeo remote hardware, but would venture to guess they may have at least have dual core chips; very easily could be wrong. 

*Very* easily.

:)

The Control4 Neeo remote has an STM32F429 as it's main processor.  Single core.  Very low energy.

RyanE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, tmj4 said:

EEEEK. Embedded Android is not a good solution IMO for non-touchscreen devices and something as specialized as this. Lots of unnecessary overhead w/Android compared to using a true Linux-based system. Android devs will often talk about this when choosing the "proper" system for what they're trying to accomplish and not forcing extra overhead w/Android when another embedded OS would suffice.

I am not sure if embedded Android is the same as AndroidTV but the AndroidTV UI is made for set top boxes and it is the OS used in the Nvidia Shield and latest Chromecast, plus some other devices.  Could you not adapt this to use as the OS in a C4 controller - a future version of the EA-1?

On a related note - an interesting acquisition for C4/Snap would be Videostorm which could then be integrated into C4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, tmj4 said:

I've always found this odd, but I can't recall the last time I actually looked at the buttons on a remote, even when I had a harmony remote in my bc4 (Before Control4) days. Was talking to my wife about this the other day (looking at remotes) since we were watching my parents continually put cheaters on and off to read the remote buttons on the remote they've had for about 5 years. We found it odd they don't have the muscle memory to control their remote. Is this not the norm? 

Maybe a function of risk tolerance? 😃 Do you look before you click or risk it and trust you won’t screw up what everyone’s watching?  I’m in the later category and would love backlighting too 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Dueport said:

Maybe dexterity😃 Do you look before you click or risk it and trust you won’t screw up what everyone’s watching?  I’m in the later category and would love backlighting too 

Fixed that for you 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/8/2021 at 9:31 PM, Cyknight said:

 

Another one where the question is if it's worth the battery time loss vs function. The biggest point of hard buttons is that you don't have to see them. Not against it in principle, but it would have to be weighed accordingly.

 

 

PS, I'm also not saying the battery life on the Neeo is a problem now - just don't want it to become one.

For reference...Savant remote usually dies about day 3 off-charger. Regular use of touch screen, 5G Wifi, lit hard buttons, voice control etc. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, cdepaola said:

We don't watch enough TV to have the buttons memorized, I always look at least once a session. 

This all depends on what you watch and how.  Most of my TV watching is sports and I record it and watch in near real-time.  I have the Skip button set to be a 10 second skip. I have the FF button mapped to a 120 second skip. This allows me to quickly zip through stoppages in play, commercials, intermissions, etc - it should only take 60 minutes to watch a hockey game and 48 minutes to watch an NBA game.  I press these buttons hundreds of times while I am watching hockey, golf, basketball, etc. I quickly get the muscle memory to be able to do this without looking.

But when watching a show on something like Netflix or Amazon Prime I never need the buttons once I start a show - other than if I have to pause.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/8/2021 at 1:54 PM, zaphod said:

But this wouldn't be sold as a competitor to boxes from Nvidia, etc. A box like an EA-1 has pretty much everything required to be a streaming box like the latest Google Chromecast.  I just see this as an additional benefit that could be provided to C4 clients that can mean a cleaner install. To take it all the way it could be more like Videostorm Netplay where the AndroidTV box is essentially the receiver in a centralized video distribution system.

But both of these functionalities lessen the need for a video matrix and could cannibalize SnapAV's revenue on that front. 

Partner with Roku for the internal streaming hardware. Would only put costs up by $1-200.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
On 6/8/2021 at 4:00 PM, Cyknight said:

This one ... not so sure. On the one hand, makes for easier setups here and there but is anyone doing setups with no 2.4 Ghz as a back up anyway? 5Ghz is really still so redundant for something like this (data wise), has less range, and uses more power.....

I agree, for the limited amount of bandwidth that a remote needs, 2.4ghz is the more compatible and better overall range solution

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...
5 minutes ago, mstafford388 said:

I think you overestimate the capabilities of Zigbee.  

Exactly what I was thinking.

The bandwidth alone is incredibly limited, especially for the amount of media being sent to the Neeo presently. Depending on Zigbee channels used, the bandwidth is no more than roughly 150-250 kbps. No way I want to browse through lists or media on a touchscreen devices that gets data at roughly only 2x to 4x of dial-up speeds

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any kind of 'active images' graphical UI is unfeasible on Zigbee.  That is, if you have to pull icons across a Zigbee network, you're going to be waiting a while.

As an example, a 200x200 .png is around 20-30k.  Gen3 Zigbee Lighting firmware is around 100k.

Would you want to wait 1/3 the amount of time of a Zigbee dimmer firmware update for *every* icon that your UI remote pulls up for each album in a list on Pandora?

Yeah, I think that's unreasonable...

RyanE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.