Control4 X4

[msgreenf]

@blub I'm in dated in terms of its age, not in terms of it being outdated. When you think about a technology and its age, it's based on its release date

[RyanE]

1 hour ago, blub said:

Devices like that should continue to work as long as the HW works, period as it is a simple money grab from C4, the devices still work just fine.

And they will continue to work just fine, and be fully supported, as long as you stay on OS3.0 or the initial release of X4.  Control4 is not sending out some kind of 'kill code' to make them stop working.

The devices don't and won't support the updated Zigbee stack.

Call it what you want, at some point, having Control4 support legacy products that were *designed and chipsets selected* 21 years ago in their newest lighting architecture and with the newest stack doesn't make business sense.

RyanE

[RAV]

4 minutes ago, RyanE said:

Call it what you want, at some point, having Control4 support legacy products that were *designed and chipsets selected* 21 years ago in their newest lighting architecture and with the newest stack doesn't make business sense.

The difficult to accept part is;
Control4 will still be able to interface with Lutron, Kasa, Shelly, Mike's, and Dave's lighting controls.
Granted not likely with the same x4 features I suspect as Control4 Gen3 and Panel, but no one has said they have to go.
So why can't Control4 manage the inclusion of their own products? Granted with less abilities.

Kicking out the 3 and 6 button keypads is one thing, kicking out dimmers and switches is another.

[blub]

3 minutes ago, RAV said:

Control4 will still be able to interface with Lutron, Kasa, Shelly, Mike's, and Dave's lighting controls.
Granted not likely with the same x4 features I suspect as Control4 Gen3 and Panel, but no one has said they have to go.
So why can't Control4 manage the inclusion of their own products? Granted with less abilities.

exactly! - and thats why it looks like a money grab

[RyanE]

8 minutes ago, RAV said:

The difficult to accept part is;
Control4 will still be able to interface with Lutron, Kasa, Shelly, Mike's, and Dave's lighting controls.
Granted not likely with the same x4 features I suspect as Control4 Gen3 and Panel, but no one has said they have to go.
So why can't Control4 manage the inclusion of their own products? Granted with less abilities.

Kicking out the 3 and 6 button keypads is one thing, kicking out dimmers and switches is another.

Could Control4 write a bridge to EOLed products?  Yes.

Should Control4 spend time on that vs. getting X4 out?  I don't believe so.

It would increase support calls and not generate significant product sales.  That's not great business, especially since Gen1/Gen2 product is typically in older OS installations.

This sounds like a great opportunity for a 3rd party developer.

RyanE

 

P.S. This is of course all only my personal opinion, I'm not speaking for the company or setting policy, etc.

[ChzBurger]

20 minutes ago, RyanE said:

This sounds like a great opportunity for a 3rd party developer.

Could do the basics today. OS 3 controller to Home Assistant. Home Assistant back to X4 controller.

[SpencerT]

1 hour ago, blub said:

Ha I knew it -
We did get a few years later, but I do not remember the reason

 

If a lot of ppl write C4 about that topic they might offer a bridge solution or a replacement program with discounts.

A PC, an iPAD or a notebook is dated when it comes out it is a piece of technology that at one point will not work anymore with web pages, processing load etc....

Devices that you install in houses, boats or whatever aren't supposed to become dated that quickly they are supposed to last and all Gen1 or 2 switches and dimmers continue do their intended function just fine an probably will for another 15+ years until HW fails  - if lighting is now what will be next, HVAC system will not work with Control4 after 10 years - well just rip it out and buy a new one when u want X5 ! easy, right?

Devices like that should continue to work as long as the HW works, period as it is a simple money grab from C4, the devices still work just fine

Yeah maybe the extra $ of doing KNX might be worth it. If I am going to spend 20-25k€ in C4 dimmers and keypads and I cannot be sure that Control4 will still work wit their own product in 10 or 11 years then it is not a worth spending my money on them -wh now maybe Gen4 is up in 2026 and then G3n wil be dropped in 10 years and I a stuck

 

 

"Devices like that" DO continue to work. They aren't forcing you to upgrade and they aren't sending some kind of poison pill to the device to render it useless. The simple solution is to not upgrade to x4. 

[msgreenf]

43 minutes ago, RAV said:

Mike's, and Dave's lighting controls.

Never seen a driver for that brand

[msgreenf]

Is it any different than Apple only including AI features on the newest iPhones with the latest iOS?

[Cyknight]

1 hour ago, RAV said:

but no one has said they have to go

And no-one said they didn't, or when they might, or might not.

Or who will be responsible for keeping it working (ie is it C4, a 3rd party developer?)

[Cyknight]

2 hours ago, blub said:

Devices like that should continue to work as long as the HW works, period

And every last one of your light switches will continue to work as is - even if there is no C4 system installed at all anymore. And it'll work for years to come in a C4 system at least. The biggest cutoff will be when you can't get a Core, EA or CA controller anymore - IF the next line of controllers (which we have no clue when it'll come) are locked into X4+ and can't run OS3 anymore.

 

The 'loss' of lighting in short term is non-existent. The only 'loss' is the ability to update.

 

[therockhr]

All the reasons mentioned are valid and good business reasons for Control4 to sunset those lighting products and remove them from being on the current platform. I guess it would be nice to see a company take care of customers who have been loyal to their brand for almost 10-20 years and not be abandoned (if they have those generation of lighting and are keeping current with OS updates they have to be a pretty decent customer). And yes, not being able to upgrade to the latest OS is being abandoned.

As I mentioned in another post though, I think they have to have some decent data on this to see that there are not many customers left who have really big installations of previous generation lighting. Probably see a few people here or there who have a couple of gen1/2 keypads or light switches. My guess is that if a customer had a large installation of old lighting and pushed it, Control4 would probably offer a crazy discount to keep them from going to another control platform. No way they would do this if half or even a third of the customers were still exclusively using gen1/2 stuff.

[pdapice]

1 hour ago, RyanE said:

 

This sounds like a great opportunity for a 3rd party developer.

RyanE

 

 

I see a lot of people mentioning that a 3rd party developer could write a driver for the older dimmers. is this really possible? does it not require some proprietary or closed source info? If a 3rd party could interface with gen1/2 lighting products then theoretically that would open them up to being able to be used with all 3rd party systems would it not?

[ekohn00]

2 hours ago, RyanE said:

Could Control4 write a bridge to EOLed products?  Yes.

Should Control4 spend time on that vs. getting X4 out?  I don't believe so.

It would increase support calls and not generate significant product sales.  That's not great business, especially since Gen1/Gen2 product is typically in older OS installations.

This sounds like a great opportunity for a 3rd party developer.

RyanE

 

P.S. This is of course all only my personal opinion, I'm not speaking for the company or setting policy, etc.

X4 will work with EAs and Core controllers, correct?

Today the core controllers work with Gen1/Gen2.

If that’s the case, it sounds what Control4 actually did was decide not to continually develop their SW to support Gen1/Gen2. They could have worked a dual RF or at least support one or the other.

Now if you told me we needed a new Core V2 controller….yeh that’s really EOL then. 

 

 

[RAV]

37 minutes ago, pdapice said:

I see a lot of people mentioning that a 3rd party developer could write a driver for the older dimmers. is this really possible? does it not require some proprietary or closed source info? If a 3rd party could interface with gen1/2 lighting products then theoretically that would open them up to being able to be used with all 3rd party systems would it not?

Since the Zigbee is proprietary, it wound require using a Control4 processor as the communication center.
Some work was done for home assistant tie in, when knowing the device ID in composer.
So it's possible, but I would expect require the blessing of corporate so as not to break it later.
And I'd expect new light drivers would need to be written for the x4 system to tie in the corresponding bindings from the secondary system.

That's a fair bit of work development wise.

[therockhr]

47 minutes ago, pdapice said:

I see a lot of people mentioning that a 3rd party developer could write a driver for the older dimmers. is this really possible? does it not require some proprietary or closed source info? If a 3rd party could interface with gen1/2 lighting products then theoretically that would open them up to being able to be used with all 3rd party systems would it not?

this was over 10 years ago but this guy was able to get smartthings paired with a control4 dimmer. No idea what ever came of it.

[RAV]

58 minutes ago, therockhr said:

As I mentioned in another post though, I think they have to have some decent data on this to see that there are not many customers left who have really big installations of previous generation lighting. Probably see a few people here or there who have a couple of gen1/2 keypads or light switches. My guess is that if a customer had a large installation of old lighting and pushed it, Control4 would probably offer a crazy discount to keep them from going to another control platform. No way they would do this if half or even a third of the customers were still exclusively using gen1/2 stuff.

Don't loose sight of the who.
The owners who will be most upset ARE the LOYAL Control4 owners.
They've been feeding the upgrade monster for 10, 15, or more years.
(Re-Read this thread to find a few)

[Alt]

17 minutes ago, RAV said:

Don't loose sight of the who.
The owners who will be most upset ARE the LOYAL Control4 owners.
They've been feeding the upgrade monster for 10, 15, or more years.
(Re-Read this thread to find a few)

I would have to agree. As this only affects clients that want to upgrade, and spend new money on the latest and greatest. Which I admit is a small % of our clients. Most clients only upgrade composer version when they’re forced to when old components fail or they expand their system. But the side effects of not allowing gen1/2 lighting for legacy customers means that some clients will stop upgrading and buying new controllers, t/s, etc because that would effectively force them to not upgrade, but replace their entire C4 system. 

[ticketsubmitter]

I would be very curious to know the median household income of people with, let’s say, more then 25 gen 1/2 switches. I bet it’s very high. 

[RyanE]

3 hours ago, ChzBurger said:

Could do the basics today. OS 3 controller to Home Assistant. Home Assistant back to X4 controller.

And of course, you would not need to have HA in the middle.

RyanE

[South Africa C4 user]

As long as the Domaudeo driver is updated for X4, it will do exactly what everyone wants and allow an HC250 as a hub for lighting (using an older OS as the hubs director)…

I’ve got a few gen2 switches so am going to get my dealer to set them up on a separate system with an old Hc250 as a test.

Features summary:

• Manage your country home system from the same app instance as your main house
• Perfect for Airbnb or rental property
• Allow the monitored system to be kept stand alone for reliable operation even with network outage
• Bidirectional and Real time update of all monitored "cloned" devices
• Also allow custom events to be used to trigger anything on the remote system
• Reliable direct IP communication with no cloud service or account required
• TCP/IP or RS-232 for communication, IP Communication is encrypted
• Can clone devices to multiple remote systems (using multiple instance of the driver)
• Compatible with older C4OS versions and controllers such as the HC-250

[Control4Savant]

9 hours ago, therockhr said:

this was over 10 years ago but this guy was able to get smartthings paired with a control4 dimmer. No idea what ever came of it.

Smartthings? not much…

 

[blub]

23 hours ago, Alt said:

As this only affects clients that want to upgrade, and spend new money on the latest and greatest.

It is an OS/Software upgrade, those mostly do not cost money and even controller changes aren't required most of the time

23 hours ago, Alt said:

Most clients only upgrade composer version when they’re forced to when old components fail or they expand their system

I would call that more an assumption than a fact as I doubt you/we have sufficient data on that

 

21 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

As long as the Domaudeo driver is updated for X4, it will do exactly what everyone wants and allow an HC250 as a hub for lighting (using an older OS as the hubs director)…

That would be sufficient I guess if it works.