alanchow

It is bi-directional yes but not on physical button presses but on light level / state. Therefore programming the buttons to perform actions in Control4 is out of the picture.

I would have gone the Bond route as well as no requirement for electrician. Just keep it as what it was and install a Bond bridge to replicate the RF remote control functionality. I am a bit biased though. If however you still want to go down this route i would recommend looking up the FCC code on Bond's website to ensure compatibility.

Control4 utilises proxies. As such all Control4 integrated lighting will either be a switch (on/off) or dimmer (0-100) slider. TP-Link does not provide you with the ability to ramp to a level over time. Only setting of levels.

My favourite UK based Control4 compatible smart home devices are Lightwave RF. They have bi-directional control and feedback from Control4 and provide unique functionality that you can’t get from other products. in particular their power outlets and also their TRVs https://lightwaverf.com/

We haven't tested this. I strongly advise that you utilise our 90 day trial prior to licence purchase. Thus far the only products that we know are not supported are the HS100 and HS110 v4 hardware in the UK only. As an alternative we recommend the KP105 if you are in the UK.

Also to add to this the economics of driver development are like any other piece of software. You have expenses (Employee salaries, computers, software, office space, etc) that need to be paid and as such have a minimum rate to ensure that what you are building is profitable. Some drivers are cheaper as they are less time / resource intensive and others will require muliple programmers, graphics designers, etc to contribute for the project. As such one off projects are definately cost prohibited. We have had customers pay us for custom development and they have justified it as the money they save on not buying an alternative product (eg a blind in the case i am thinking of) is enough to warrant commissioning the project. Having said all of that the majority of people who contract us nowadays are manufacturers and we are finding that we are doing less of our own IP and more contracted work. You can find the majority of these contracted (and free drivers) via our website (http://www.chowmainsoft.com) with some others being certified (with SDDP implemented) and available via the online Control4 database. We do however still invest into passion projects where we see gaps in the solutions and we find a product that will fill that gap. There are actually a ton of passion projects i want to complete but unfortunately contracts come first. Hopefully now that we have 3 inhouse Control4 developers we will complete more of these passion projects but regardless you will see more output from us for Control4.

I want to chime in on this. Control4 asked us to attend a meeting at ISE last year with their senior VPs. In summary they told us (and also every other major Control4 driver developer) to stop reverse engineering APIs and to provide them with the details of the systems we reverse engineered so that they can assist us with creating a relationship with that particular company to stop the API from breaking in the future. In short there were a few 3rd party drivers out in the wild that broke and caused Control4 alot of headaches. Not sure if it was just customers complaining or legal issues but regardless it was enough for them to warn all the major 3rd party developers formally. In fact we were all reminded about the agreements we signed with Control4. As such our business practices changed to not develop any driver that contains reverse engineered code or if we do reverse engineer it we would create a partnership with the company to ensure that the APIs do not break and they understood that we were using them. By partnering with these companies we ensure that there is no disruption to the home owners Control4 experience. A good example of this is an upcoming driver we are about to release in the next week or so (we partnered with a company to do this). Here is a sneak peak.

lol

Yes it does Bluray ISO with disc menus. Not sure about modifications on cover art, genres, etc. It just automatically does it. Though Zappiti did pre-setup the unit before sending it to me so i may have missed the setup procedure. Best to reach out to them about it. Also stay tuned. I have another solution coming up for those who are even more budget concious.

I've developed drivers for so many media players and have tested so many in the past 20 years. Kaleidescape is still my go to if you can afford it as it provides you with a true cinema experience. The quality of the videos, the feedback you get allows you to programatically adjust screen masking, projection modes, lighting (eg when the credits roll). If you can't afford it (or justify it) then Zappiti is my low end choice. Bang for buck. Plays every codec you throw at it.

Zappiti is IP controllable but only if it is on. As such our driver will never turn the Zappiti off. It will just stop the movie and return it back to the home page. In regards to support for our driver its best to reach out to our helpdesk so we don't flood the forum with support troubleshooting. https://www.chowmainsoft.com/support

Control4's streams cannot be played on non Control4 devices. The only method (as discussed) is to route it via analog signals. As such you will need to use the AUX input on the Lithe speakers to do this.

If you are in Australia, New Zealand or the EU go for Escea or Stoke fireplaces. They have IP control and we developed a driver for them a few years back. https://www.chowmainsoft.com/escea Compatible models include DL850 DX1000 DX1500 AF700 AF960 DF700 DF960 DF990 DS1150 DS1400 DS1650 DS1900 (Stoke models) KS1150 850 KS1150 400 Peninsula KS1150 400 Corner (Left or right hand) KS1460 KS1460 Peninsula KS1460 Corner (Left or right hand)

This https://www.chowmainsoft.com/light-to-relay-driver

Warning for Plex users https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/plex-media-servers-are-being-abused-for-ddos-attacks/

Could possibly usa CUSTOM_SELECT command type to dynamically populate a parameter. EG The command can be called fire command and PARAM1 could be called command with type CUSTOM_SELECT

I would like to welcome @Andrew luecketo team Chowmain. Andrew is a Monash University alumni with a Bachelor of Computer Science. He has been working in the industry for the past 10 years performing home automation installation, programming, network design / setup, software development and more. Andrew has a passion for home automation and joins our driver development team with focus on Control4 and RTI development. With Andrew on our team look forward to increased output from Chowmain for both manufacturer sponsored drivers and also licenced drivers. Please join me in welcoming Andrew

Here are the products you can purchase in the US https://www.zappiti.us.com/

Yes you can mount a remote NFS share and have Zappiti scan your media files in. It has played every file format / codec i have thrown at it without skipping a beat. This includes 4K Dolby atmos rips in both ISO, H.264, H.265, 8 bit and 10 bit encodes. Yes it is a perfect replacement for a Dune where you just want it to work. Most people don't have the patience to manage their own servers. Not saying that Plex is bad but just saying that most dealers i know of have had more problems setting it up due to lack of experience and knowledge of Plex. They usually just want something that is easy and quick to install. We have a Zappiti 4K Mini in our office. You can install 2 x 8TB drives into that particular model which should be plenty of storage for most people. If it isn't enough then as mentioned you can mount network shares from a NAS (or utilise USB attached storage on the read of the Zappiti unit). Yes the Zappiti NAS RIP is an awesome piece of kit. Just drop it in and it will rip the disc and the Player will automatically import it into the library. Due to the way it does things it is not legal in certain countries due to copyright law. In such countries we recommend Kaleidescape.

It should. I’ve never tried. Sales for our Plex driver have pretty much dried up since we launched Zappiti. People love the simplicity of Zappiti. It’s basically similar to a dune but has library support. As such you don’t need a powerful NAS to run a server as everything is handled by the player. Also Zappiti players are so cheap.

If you are looking at upgrading your media player experience i would recommend either Zappiti or Kaleidescape. If you have ripped your own collection (which it sounds like you have) then Zappiti is the way to go. Here are some screenshots of both solutions on Control4.

This is the reason why our Kodi Full driver always relaunches Kodi on room off. So that you can browse movies when its in an off state. If you try to browse movies and Kodi is not running it will show an error message telling you Kodi is not running and will launch Kodi.

This is probably the most straight forward and affordable solution. You just utilise the existing somfy rts remotes to learn into the Bond Bridge before integration to Control4. The Bond app for iOS or Android will walk you through how to pair the blinds. As such you don't need to touch the physical blinds at all ever. Bond Bridge is Wifi and usb powered so just throw them around the house. Most houses can live off of 1 or 2 Bond Bridges (1 per floor). I have yet to see a house use 3 Bond Bridges.

If you want to dim lamps change the bulbs to smart bulbs. TP-Link and Yeelight are my picks as they both work well have dimming, color temp and RGBW variants. I have a mix of both at my place and they work great.

Yes that is correct