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Pre wire question that works best with Control4


yourchef51

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I am having a house built and need to determine my prewire needs. I was first just going to go with music and the Yamaha Musiccast thinking that home automation was out of my reach financially. I then came across Control4. I have been researching it for the last couple of days and was convinced to proceed when I noticed my garage door left open in the morning and the snow coming in on our second snow in 3 days here in Colorado.

With that said how do I determine what wiring I should get? I can get speakers prewired and computer cables and video cable to each room. Do I need to do that? My goal is to have each bedroom/room have its own music control (looks like 10+ zones)and have more options for the master bedroom and kitchen. I will be puting in a home theatre when I finish the basement. We will only have one TV up until then.

I like the idea with control 4 that you can add as you go along which is what I will probably be doing. Thanks for any help and I hope I have provided enough info for you . Thanks.

DJ

Broomfield, CO

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There are certainly many more knowledgeable voices here who can weigh in on this, but having just moved into a house that we spent 3 years designing and building, I can tell you what we did. I was pretty paranoid about future-proofing the place, so tried to cover all my current and future needs.

We had our Control4 dealer run speaker wire to each room for in-ceiling speakers, and network cable (Cat6) to each place we wanted to have a Mini touchscreen. I believe they offer a wireless mini-touchscreen, but I strongly prefer the wired version for responsiveness/latency.

I also installed network jacks in every room, as well as in a couple of locations I thought would be good for wireless access points. For example, there are network jacks (and of course power outlets) near the top of a couple of built-in bookcases to conceal WAPs behind a row of books.

I ran 5-strand Component video cable to locations which would have televisions and all my video sources reside in an AV closet in the basement, with a video switcher sending the right signal to the right television.

I also ran conduit to a few key locations in order to allow some future expandability. It's pretty cheap and easy to run before the walls are closed in, and makes adding wires in the future a whole lot easier. One runs from the basement AV closet to the attic, then I have runs from the attic to the front and back door for cameras. I also have a run from the AV closet to the projector in the theatre so that if I ever want to upgrade from component to HDMI I can run it through there.

All the Control4 lightswitches and 6-button keypads are all wireless, so you just need line voltage running to them. I had initially toyed with the idea of putting all the light switches in closets and just using 6-button switches to control them, but in the end I decided on the less risky prospect of putting the switches in normal locations so that if I ever needed to abandon the lighting control I could revert to regular switches. While I now know that I could never go back to traditional switches, I'm still very glad I left the switches out. It turns out they are highly programmable and if you like to tinker you can really do all sorts of cool things with the standard C4 dimmers. For example, a lot of my switches have "extra functions" programmed in so that if you press "off" when the light is already off (an otherwise pointless gesture) it will do something else, like turn on all the lights in the room. Essentially each light switch can become another point of wider control.

I'm definitely a big fan of the idea of centralizing your equipment in one place and running everything from there. The video switching in particular is something I was not sold on until I actually tried it out. Now being able to start a movie in the gym and finish it that night in the theatre is just a pleasure.

Hope this helps, we're several months into our house and (knock wood) so far have not found anything we wished we'd put in wiring-wise but didn't.

--Jason

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I am having a house built and need to determine my prewire needs. I was first just going to go with music and the Yamaha Musiccast thinking that home automation was out of my reach financially. I then came across Control4. I have been researching it for the last couple of days and was convinced to proceed when I noticed my garage door left open in the morning and the snow coming in on our second snow in 3 days here in Colorado.

With that said how do I determine what wiring I should get? I can get speakers prewired and computer cables and video cable to each room. Do I need to do that? My goal is to have each bedroom/room have its own music control (looks like 10+ zones)and have more options for the master bedroom and kitchen. I will be puting in a home theatre when I finish the basement. We will only have one TV up until then.

I like the idea with control 4 that you can add as you go along which is what I will probably be doing. Thanks for any help and I hope I have provided enough info for you . Thanks.

DJ

Broomfield, CO

I'm no expert and I'm just starting mine but do you really think you'll have 10+ zones. I'm mostly talking about your 1st floor. Will want different music playing in each room? Most houses tend to be some what open on the first floor so I would think you would have 1 maybe 2 zones down there. at least that's what I'm planning.

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Thanks for your responses. I am hopefully going to talk to someone tomorrow about Control4 and you gave me great info to start.

jbs - how are you powering your speakers? Are you using the Speaker point or is there another way? I agree and it is my goal to have all the components in the basement as well.

str1der - Good Point. I thought that each room would have to be a zone in order to get the music there but I guess I could put multiple rooms and speakers on the same zone? Thanks

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Thanks for your responses. I am hopefully going to talk to someone tomorrow about Control4 and you gave me great info to start.

jbs - how are you powering your speakers? Are you using the Speaker point or is there another way? I agree and it is my goal to have all the components in the basement as well.

str1der - Good Point. I thought that each room would have to be a zone in order to get the music there but I guess I could put multiple rooms and speakers on the same zone? Thanks

I have 2 receivers, 2 C4 Amps and 1 C4 Audio matrix handling the speakers. And actually I have 16 audio zones in the house, so I maxed out the 2 amps and the matrix. The 2 rooms with surround sound (theatre and living room) each have their speakers controlled by one of the receivers, and all the other rooms are powered by the amps.

I chose to do each room as a separate zone because it's easy in C4 to combine them into one media scene or one party if you want to listen to the same thing all over the floor, but if it's just me in my office watching the news, there's no reason to have someone in the kitchen also having to listen to it. And when we're having dinner we'll usually have the sound on just in the dining room, not in the kitchen and living room, even though both those rooms are part of the same open floorspace. I prefer the feeling of having the sound more localized.

I'm not personally using any speaker points, but speaker points are a good option for adding sound later. If my kids ever want to have music in their bedrooms, I'd probably add speaker points (though there is speaker wire coiled in the attic above each room, but don't tell them or I'll end up having to install ceiling speakers for them!!).

Please feel free to post any more questions, as you can tell a lot of us really like talking about this stuff!!

--Jason

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I am also building a new home as we speak and hae been losing sleep over how I will wire it all up. I also planned to do some conduit. What size did you use? The flexible stuff? Where did you buy your stuff? Sounds like you have somebucks into the system with that many zones:D. What kind of speakers are you using? Did you run conduit to your outside camera locations or did you install just conduit? Did you integrate aintercom system? you mention 5 strand component...What exactly. I had planned on just doing 3 RG6 Quad shield for component, 21 cat6 for future/data/voice, and then another coax in the casejust wanted to have a local sat reciever or antenna- all this to each tv location from central point in basement. Also leave a pullstring in your conduit. What did you do for security. I like wired rather than wireless but man I have a lot of windows. Was thingin of just doors with wire then glass break, motion, fire..any thoughts?

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I am also building a new home as we speak and hae been losing sleep over how I will wire it all up. I also planned to do some conduit. What size did you use? The flexible stuff? Where did you buy your stuff? Sounds like you have somebucks into the system with that many zones:D. What kind of speakers are you using? Did you run conduit to your outside camera locations or did you install just conduit? Did you integrate aintercom system? you mention 5 strand component...What exactly. I had planned on just doing 3 RG6 Quad shield for component, 21 cat6 for future/data/voice, and then another coax in the casejust wanted to have a local sat reciever or antenna- all this to each tv location from central point in basement. Also leave a pullstring in your conduit. What did you do for security. I like wired rather than wireless but man I have a lot of windows. Was thingin of just doors with wire then glass break, motion, fire..any thoughts?

Whew, lots of good questions, let's see if I can get to them all. First of all, I share your sleeplessness :-) The day our drywall went up was bittersweet. Sweet because it looked GREAT and was a huge sign of progress, bitter because I realized that anything I forgot would now be a lot more difficult if not impossible. But, so far so good, I have not found anything lacking.

I used a combination of 3/4" and 1" conduit, flexible plastic variety. I bought it from an EXCELLENT site called Mcmaster-Carr. They are an industrial supply company with a website at mcmaster.com, and I suspect half the people on these boards will love them just as much as I do. You search their site for conduit (or anything else for that matter) and they come back with dozens or hundreds of options, neatly organized in a hierarchy. You select next by material, size, length, or whatever, and it constantly narrows down your options till you find exactly what you need.

Flexible is much easier to install than rigid, and I think it's easier to fish through later.

We used a variety of speakers from Tru-Audio. I'm the first to admit I'm neither an audio- nor video-phile, I enjoy music and movies, but I listen from 128 kbps MP3 files and am delighted by the sound, so others will have much better advice I'm sure on true fidelity. That said, the guy who speced the system is an audiophile and likes TruAudio speakers, and I've been delighted with them.

Cameras are the area I most expect to see technology change over time, so I did run conduit to all camera locations. For now I'm using some inexpensive cameras which run over phone cable, and I like knowing that in a couple of years when IP cameras come down in cost I can pull out the phone cable, pull through Cat6 and have the latest technology in place.

We use our cordless phone for an intercom, and I expect that at some point Control4 will integrate a solution or I can rig something up to allow announcements over the speakers (i.e. kids come to dinner or I'll shut off the network). Again, having the infrastructure in place (speakers, network cable and C4) makes me reasonably confident I can address the future need.

The video cable which was run throughout the house is RBGVH, which can be used either for Red Blue Green, plus Vertical and Horizontal, or for Red Blue Green with an extra stereo audio pathway. I'll again defer to others as to whether this is a video-phile grade solution, but so far everything looks great to me. I suspect if money (and distance) were no object one would run HDMI, but that would have required an HDMI switcher and very very expensive cabling. To my two main televisions I have conduit available so that in the future I can run HDMI, but for now the whole house gets video from the AV closet via this 5-strand component cable.

My installer convinced me to put in RG6, but I have to say it's probably the least useful thing they did. Because we have FIOS (which has no unencrypted channels and therefore nothing to tune in over a plain coax), and because we have all our video sources centrally located and being distributed over the component cable, I expect we'll never use the coax for anything. If I had it to do over, I might still run the coax, but not terminate it at each drop, just leave it in the wall. The threaded jacks at each point sort of stick out (no pun intended) against the otherwise flush screwless faceplates.

I intended to leave pullstring in the conduit but the electrician accidentally cut most of it when he was installing it. If you can't push a fishtape through, the other thing that worked very well for me on a couple of particularly long, twisted conduit pathways was to put a shopvac on one end which I attached to a remote control power outlet. I then climbed up to the other end of the conduit in the attic and fed through a small twist of paper towel with a thin nylon string attached to it. This sucked the string all the way through in a matter of seconds. I then pulled a stronger line through with the string and my cables through with the stronger twine. Oh, and I attached another piece of the stronger line to the cables so I can still pull more through if I need to. The vacuum trick seems to work quite well, as long as you're using an airtight conduit such as the continuous plastic ones I used.

The decision about what to arm depends entirely on the layout of your house and how you use it. Keep in mind that motion detectors can be very effective when the house in unoccupied, but many installers will leave them out of the home armed setting to avoid false alarms. In that case you're relying on glassbreak alone, which means an accidentally unlocked door or window can render your system useless. Most important I'd say is to find an alarm installer you trust and who seems to know what they're doing, and rely on their insight.

Good luck!

--Jason

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  • 1 month later...

Hi all,

I'm exactly in the point where Jason was 2 years ago deciding whether to use a 3 or 6 button keypad versus a switch. I'm pretty new to the control4 solution, so bare with me if I ask something really basic...

From what I could understand, the 3-6 button keypad is basically just a keypad, thus if I want to use a 6-button keypad, I'd still need 6 switches, correct?

Now does control 4 sells switches AND 2-button dimmers? I thought they were the same piece of equipment.

I'm also curious about how Jason used his lighting control? Did he not use any 3 or 6 button keypads at all, only 2-button dimmers throught the house?

Regards,

Fernando

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Hi all,

From what I could understand, the 3-6 button keypad is basically just a keypad, thus if I want to use a 6-button keypad, I'd still need 6 switches, correct?

Now does control 4 sells switches AND 2-button dimmers? I thought they were the same piece of equipment.

I'm also curious about how Jason used his lighting control? Did he not use any 3 or 6 button keypads at all, only 2-button dimmers throught the house?

Regards,

Fernando

You are correct, the 3 and 6 button devices are just keypads, they do not directly control a load. C4 also makes a 2button keypad that visually looks just like a C4 dimmer or a C4 switch. The 2 button keypad also does not directly control a load. Yes, you will still need the dimmers and/or switches to control the loads in your house.

C4 also makes a dimmer that can control a load. This dimmer again looks like the 2 button keypad; the difference is that it can directly control a load. The dimmer is rated for certain types of loads so you must be careful what you control with it. For example the dimmer can control/dim incandescent bulbs but should not be used to dim standard CFLs.

C4 also makes a switch that can control a load. This dimmer again looks like the 2 button keypad; the difference is that it can directly control a load. The dimmer is rated for certain types of loads so you must be careful what you control with it. For example the switch can control CFLs and a ceiling fan but it is net rated for incandescent bulbs due to the high inrush current that incandescent bulbs draw.

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really, i though the amp had a built in matrix...You can't send one input to all outputs??? I would REALLY like to know if this is the case, because otherwise, the two should pretty much be purchased together.

AMP has a matrix switch.

The switch itself is used for larger installations I think...

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Yes, the amp has a built-in matrix switch.

Best practices are to use the matrix switch if you're going more than 8 sources, and then take those outputs into amplifiers, whose inputs are locked to the outputs.

I'm not sure exactly why that is, but it's what most dealers I've talked to do.

RyanE

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  • 3 months later...

Hello all - I am new to the forum so hopefully my questions are valid.

The audio/zone discussion is exactly where I am having nightmares.

I have 10 zones and I want to be able to stream different mp3 music stored on either a HC500 or NAS drive to each or all of the zones. I believe Speaker Points will enable me to do this but I don't really want to purchase 10 Speaker Points. Is there another option for me? I know about the 8x8 multi-channel amp but am I correct in saying that I wouldn't be able to stream different mp3s stored on the NAS/HC500 to each zone?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

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And you'll be limited to the # of streams equal to the number of audio outputs you have in the system.

For example, if you have an HC-300 as your master, it has two audio outputs. You can use those as inputs into the Amp/Switch, and play either of those audio outputs in any zone.

The SpeakerPoint has it's own audio output, so it can always play any mp3's you want.

You need to discuss this with your installer, and insure that you have what you want.

RyanE

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Thank you for your replies. Can I ask something else on the same subject please?

Ryan said that I am limited to the number of audio outputs on the HC300 or 500. I believe it is 2 on the 300 and 3 on the 500. My Daughter and both my sons have all their music stored on the network as mp3s. My wife and I also have our music stored on the network. If all 5 of us wanted to be able to play our stored music at the same time and in whichever room we were in, would it be possible to do that by using the 2 outputs from the HC300 plus,say, 3 speaker points with the SP outputs fed back into the 8x8 multi-channel.i e. use the SPs as inputs into the multi-channel amp?

Also, if I had a media server such as a Roku Soundbridge for instance, could I connect that to the C4 m/c amp and the network and get the HC300 to talk to it and be able to set up and view playlists on the HC300 and play them through the Roku connected to the amp? Hope you understand what I am trying to do there, I sometimes disappear up my own butt when I try to put these things into words.

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No, you can't use the Roku as a 'native' audio endpoint within the Control4 system.

Yes, you could use the outputs of multiple SpeakerPoint as audio inputs into the system, but once you have a couple of those, it would be more advantageous to just get another 'slave' controller, like another HC-300, which would give you an additional 2 audio outputs, as well as provide an additional on-screen display, a contact and relay, 2 serial ports, and 6 additional IR outputs.

Besides that, it's somewhat of a waste to use the SpeakerPoint just for it's audio outputs, not even using the built-in amp.

RyanE

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  • 2 weeks later...
No, you can't use the Roku as a 'native' audio endpoint within the Control4 system.

Yes, you could use the outputs of multiple SpeakerPoint as audio inputs into the system, but once you have a couple of those, it would be more advantageous to just get another 'slave' controller, like another HC-300, which would give you an additional 2 audio outputs, as well as provide an additional on-screen display, a contact and relay, 2 serial ports, and 6 additional IR outputs.

Besides that, it's somewhat of a waste to use the SpeakerPoint just for it's audio outputs, not even using the built-in amp.

RyanE

i agree just use and oldler htc for that! For me right now they (my old htc's) are just that, speakerpoints without amps... :o)

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