Jump to content
C4 Forums | Control4

Epic Driver for Alexa stopped discovering new devices


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, RyanE said:

With the Control4 "Voice Scenes" driver, your voice scenes themselves can only be on/off, but I don't think there's anything that would keep you from using a dummy light that gets set to a value in an Alexa routine, and then checking that light's value.

That said, I've never used the Epic driver, and haven't setup any Alexa routines.  If the Epic driver is working for you, I'd say the best thing is of course to keep using it.

:)

RyanE

I have used both the native driver and the Epic driver extensively and this is correct, you can get round the “set” limitation in the native driver by using a dummy light.  However, this does get a bit messy and it would be so much nicer if the Voice Scenes allowed a set command also.

The other big advantage of the Epic driver is the reaction speed. The native driver is virtually as fast once connected.  So if one executes 2 voice commands (using the native driver) within a short period of time, the first is frustratingly slow while the second is pretty much instantaneous.  

I moved to the native driver a couple of years ago expecting that there would be significant development on this and that both of these frustrations would disappear, but I was wrong (not the first time,  nor the last!).  I do feel that a persistent connection or the ability to programmatically force the connection (combined with some clever programming to “guess” when someone is likely to speak soon) would help significantly with the speed issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Well @RyanE, I will have to take another look at the C4 driver then.  If it now supports passing and being able to query the light level it could do what I need.  But when it first came out there were only events for on/off/up/down - there was no way to query level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
  • 2 years later...

Sorry to revive this, but I was trying to add some new triggers, and found this thread. Does anyone know the current status of this? @chopedogg88

I do have some 1st gen devices on the network, I have not updated the driver, Using version 110 - but I no longer see that driver listed on the website. 

I don't want to mess up what I have working. If I have to delete and refresh, I'm fine with that, but only if things can work on the other side. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry to revive this, but I was trying to add some new triggers, and found this thread. Does anyone know the current status of this? @chopedogg88

I do have some 1st gen devices on the network, I have not updated the driver, Using version 110 - but I no longer see that driver listed on the website. 

I don't want to mess up what I have working. If I have to delete and refresh, I'm fine with that, but only if things can work on the other side. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the driver is no longer sold or supported. It’s stopped allowing me to discover new devices a long time ago, so I switched to the built in Alexa integration. Only thing I haven’t been able to recreate is being able to open my driveway gate through voice with the built in experience. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, chicagoskiguy said:

That's unfortunate. 

Perhaps if @chopedogg88 has decided to no longer sell this driver, he'd consider throwing the source up on github, and perhaps people in the community could help out?

You’re assuming a lot there. ;)

I love the driver and it’s better than the C4 one in a lot of ways but at this point it doesn’t seem like it’s worth anyone’s time to provide an alternative to C4s free driver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wait, C4 has a free driver?

I started with the C4 "solution" a long, long time ago, it required 4sight and I thought the integration was terrible and slow. I switched to the Epic driver, and didn't look back. 

What is the current state of the C4 solution? Is it still super slow?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, chicagoskiguy said:

Wait, C4 has a free driver?

I started with the C4 "solution" a long, long time ago, it required 4sight and I thought the integration was terrible and slow. I switched to the Epic driver, and didn't look back. 

What is the current state of the C4 solution? Is it still super slow?

 

It’s still slower than the epic systems driver.  The integration has improved (but that’s a low bar) and it does require 4Sight.  Fingers crossed that C4 improves it because it’s still primitive compared to what Alexa is capable of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, chicagoskiguy said:

Wait, C4 has a free driver?

I started with the C4 "solution" a long, long time ago, it required 4sight and I thought the integration was terrible and slow. I switched to the Epic driver, and didn't look back. 

What is the current state of the C4 solution? Is it still super slow?

 

Speed also depends where you are located.  I moved from Epic (instantaneous) to C4 a couple of years ago and it was super slow but when Amazon upgraded their servers in South Africa, the C4 driver became instant again for my use case (residences in South Africa).

Virtually all of the  other shortcoming of the driver can be worked around.  Often using Alexa routines and occasionally using C4 programming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Topfox said:

I think the driver is no longer sold or supported. It’s stopped allowing me to discover new devices a long time ago, so I switched to the built in Alexa integration. Only thing I haven’t been able to recreate is being able to open my driveway gate through voice with the built in experience. 

Why can’t you open the driveway gate via voice? Is this due to the “silly” *my opinion* security restrictions in C4 voice? Lots of work arounds for that (I didn’t say that here though ;-)).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Why can’t you open the driveway gate via voice? Is this due to the “silly” *my opinion* security restrictions in C4 voice? Lots of work arounds for that (I didn’t say that here though ;-)).

Yes. Treats it like a garage door. Feel free to DM me any work around :)

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.