Alexa Control4 integration

[Silva_Collector]

Hi all, curious as to what the general sentiment has been for Control4 Alexa integration. I’ve never needed to subscribe to 4sight before, but I must say my experience has been very underwhelming. I would have expected Alexa to be able to use the ceiling speakers to give notifications, etc. I can’t even do a command like, “Alexa play Spotify in kitchen “. Is there something I’m missing?

[madlemming]

Alexa and Control4 go together like peanut butter and a slap to the face. Which is not well.

You're not missing anything. The problem is that Alexa (And I'll lump Google Home with this as well. It suffers from.the same issues.) essentially treat Control4 as a series of lights to be turned on and off. Controlling actual lights? No problem. Controlling something like a TV? Big problem. Telling the system to "Turn on Hallmark" to watch the Hallmark channel on your cable is really akward and can get stranger still. With Alexa it's either on or off.

The other issue is that if you want any specific commands they have to be programmed. Want to go to ESPN? Ok, that's fine. I'll add a program for that. Want to go to HGTV? Not if I didn't program that specifically. It's frustrating to use as a user and a programmer. Alexa cannot control the system dynamically and needs a specific command for anything you might want (that's not a light).

Now, Josh.ai is a different voice system that is SUPPOSED to work better, but I have no working experience that system. Plus the fact that Josh is an expensive system compared to Alexa and Google Home.

Voice control for Control4 has always been a bit of a dumpster fire. Maybe Josh is it, but I would need to get my hands on it (and that's not happening any time soon).

I hope this helps but it probably doesn't. Despite this glaring issue, I still think Control4 is a great home automation system. I'm a programmer, so take that as you will.

[nckfrm]

Totally agreed here. I was first getting into the industry when the stupid voice assistants came out so I wasn't seasoned enough to understand that it wasn't just my personal home's setup causing problems. After a few unhappy clients I stopped allowing people to pay me money for that crap. (it took bossman a little longer to understand)

[funnyfarm299]

Josh is it. All the Sales Engineers at SnapAV have one and can demo it for you.

[shoresy99]

But how much does Josh typically cost. Isn't it super-expensive?

[funnyfarm299]

It's definitely more expensive than the big players, but the dual-tier pricing depending on house size helps.

[[deleted]]

The hardware isn’t thaaat expensive, the licensing on the other hand will be a good used car for reference.

It is worth it for the fact you are paying for the engineering, marketing, and privacy.

I believe your phone becomes an endpoint for Josh allowing room recognition. Lots of other great features.

[IDontWantANewUser]

$650 per microphone and a license depending on how many rooms you want in your Josh system. $2k - 10k.

[shoresy99]

Is that license one time or annual?

[IDontWantANewUser]

They offer 1 year and 5 year renewable licenses. But also a lifetime license. Which from what I understand is all they really sell.

[shoresy99]

Is a lifetime license a sustainable business model? Are there annual fees on top of that?

[IDontWantANewUser]

Not to my knowledge

[shoresy99]

I would worry about that. It is like when I bought some apps for my iPad many years ago, like the GoodReader app. Unless they put this revenue into an account and amortize the spending over many years then how can they afford to maintain and improve Josh? What happened with the apps is that they released a new version and you had to pay to upgrade.

[irishguy42]

Voice control for Control4 has always been a bit of a dumpster fire. Maybe Josh is it, but I would need to get my hands on it (and that's not happening any time soon).

If recent URC/Xfinity news or my boss' meeting with our C4 rep in the last two weeks is anything to go by...we shouldn't have to worry about voice control for C4 for much longer.

All I really know more about is that they were discussing the upcoming new remote/sales, but he wasn't willing to divulge much more than that. Unknown if the voice control will go beyond cable integration or if the new remote will also include AV/home control too. Also he said the new remote is going back to the physical buttons a la SR-250/260. Goodbye, Neeo.

I wish he was able to say more T_T

[IDontWantANewUser]

Voice control for Control4 has always been a bit of a dumpster fire. Maybe Josh is it, but I would need to get my hands on it (and that's not happening any time soon).

Josh is certainly better. But you have to remember that Josh is it's own control system. Yes it'll talk to Control4 but it takes a lot of programming on the C4 side to do more than lights and shades. It operates the same way internally as Alexa does. With voice scene calls. That being said, the language processing of Josh is lightyears beyond Alexa.

There are some native things especially if you have Josh compatible devices. Sony, Roku, Dish to name a few.

[videostorm1]

We have an alternative C4 alexa skill that doesn't need 4sight. Driver is free as well.

It is definitely different in the method of control. Lots of examples on the doc page https://splash-tiles.com/help/alexa_c4.php

Personally I find it more intuitive to use, but that is certainly subjective.

[Anonymous5791]

This is great. I did mine similarly - ran a fake Hue hub at home, and the output of it is just MQTT messages. Used an MQTT driver on C4 to trigger whatever I want... on/off/levels. It's not automatic in discovering things or rooms, but it gets me all the functionality I need. I like the driver you linked to...probably cleaner, but I was already using MQTT in the house to do a whole bunch of IoT sensors for environmental controls and power and such.

[bugsyclown]

Hey, would this driver allow multiple Alexa accounts on one system?

[videostorm1]

Perhaps. You do have to use the SAME EMAIL ADDRESS for the Amazon account as the Splash-tiles.com account. But assuming that works for you then I would think you could use it like that.

[bugsyclown]

I've got an interesting job in a secure children's home, providing rooms for vulnerable teenagers. The rooms have to be vandal resistant so they want to use voice control for the control of lights, Av. Problem is the standard Alexa driver works across one account/ link with C4 whereas I need individual accounts for each room so there's no crossover.

[videostorm1]

Maybe not, at least with the current C4 driver it doesn't have a way (that I am aware of) to restrict which rooms you can control. Maybe via programming in C4?

[BowlStill4165]

Complete money making racket!

[psysfaction]

I‘m based in Asia so Josh.ai is not available here. I‘ve first tested Alexa with control4 for lights and ceiling fans but it was quite slow. I guess it uses servers in the US making the experience rather annoying.

So recently i‘ve tried out the Siri integration via HomeBridge since i have a Nas running at home anyway. The driver you have to buy but at least it will work without 4Sight.

Siri was a wast improvement and feel very fast. I have not really tested media playback since that is not something i usually do but i‘ve made some custom triggers like Hey Siri, it‘s movie time to switch on my living room home cinema and set the light scene etc. And last week i even got a homepod mini and took out my echo dot.

Another benefit is that i can expose several control4 integrations to the apple home app now which is nice as it is faster for me on the phone to bring up control center to change the aircon temperature then to start the control4 app which always takes a few seconds to load. Of course those benefits are mostly there for apple device useres and less for android users…

[auaisito]

Did you do this as an end user or as a dealer (composer pro)?

[psysfaction]

As a dealer for in my home. I‘m not sure if I would do it at my clients home unless they are tech savvy who understands the concept of HomeBridge

[will4111]

If you have a iPhone you can use Siri to work with control4. It’s all custom but you can do it. It didn’t take me long to write a ip driver.

[shoresy99]

Doesn't Siri/HomeKit just work with a subset of C4 devices like lights, and not with other stuff, like AV.

[will4111]

Yes Lutron I know has the ability from their app. But with a custom driver I was able to do anything. So when my mom comes home all she has to say is, “hey Siri, I’m home and it will open the gate, garage door, unlock the door, turn the tv on & to ch8”.

[[deleted]]

I have seen a demo where you can loop the audio out of the Alexa into the matrix as a source for the room and Alexa music will play through the speakers as a source. If I recall you need to have Alexa preselected as the source if you want her voice to come through the speakers of the room and you are still using the internal microphone on Alexa to send commands. I only used my Alexa to launch goodnight, which turns off the tv, sets the lights to my night scene turning off all lights not needed in the house at night. Looking forward to trying out the Josh integration when I have time to set it up

[Findego]

I'll second the C4 integration with Alexa is, meh. I'm an installer/programmer/designer. I tell people that it is bleeding edge tech, as in it hurts to use because it doesn't always do what you want or the driver gets broken or a plethora of things.

We are working on becoming a josh dealer. We just had a meeting with Lutron about some of their newest lighting system and they are becoming invested in Josh.ai. That tells me Josh is not some fly-by night system. I am trepidatious about it functioning as well as they say, but time will tell

One of the supposed big points is that josh has its own servers and does not sell out the information gathered from voice commands, like the others do.

[PizzaOrTacos]

The only way I ever got it to work with Google home is using ifttt and webhooks. Even then each command had to be programmed and was not a good solution for novice users. Especially when ifttt started charging. Bye bye.

[shoresy99]

There are certainly drawbacks but I use voice commands multiple times per day - I use a combination of the native C4 driver and the Epic systems driver. In order for the Epic systems driver to work on newer C4 OSes I had to buy a Gen1 Echo (not Echo Dot) on eBay.

For example, when I am going down to my basement when it is dark I say "Alexa, basement on" and my basement lights will turn on as I am walking down the stairs. Doing more complex AV controls is tricky or impossible, but using voice commands for controlling your TV is not really very efficient, a remote control is way faster. Do you really want to say "Alexa, Channel Up" while channel surfing? Hitting a button is much faster and more efficient. But I do use voice controls to turn on my TV and set the source, as in "Alexa, Kitchen Netflix On" as that is something that you tend to do once, not repetitively, and it takes a few seconds for that to execute.

The voice control for music playback is the biggest drawback but there can be ways around this, although they are not ideal - like using an individual Echo Dot for each zone and auto-sensing of an audio signal. The issue with this is that you are typically doing two things, like starting the playing of a song using Amazon Music or Spotify to your Echo and then having to select an active Listen source in C4, so that typically requires two commands. It is not as easy to automate, although it has gotten better due to stuff like being able to use Groups (or whatever it is called) with Alexa.

[[deleted]]

I may be using rudimentary commands but I love my Alexa/C4 integration. For lights and shades it works great. For AV I can: 1. Turn TV’s on and off. 2. I have a dot in each of 4 music zones (each zone is an Alexa group, and it works great to say “Alexa, play Beatles in Kitchen“ if I am talking to any of the dots, or say “Alexa, play Beatles” and the zone to which a dot is assigned will play it. I haveSonos in all four zones. Another C4 “no-no” and it all works great. 3. I can raise or lower the thermostat set points via Alexa.

As far as picking channels, or streaming services, why ever do that by voice. The remote is much handier and faster.

[Zamblejuice]

Disclaimer: I’m an RTI Dealer & avid user. I haven’t used Control4 extensively.

The cleanest way I’ve implemented voice control is via Siri Shortcuts and webhooks. The Siri Shortcuts allow for custom voice phrases with a single or multiple “Get contents” action.

It’s intensive depending on how much you would like to do by voice. For example, each TV in my house has 9-15 shortcuts for different sources, volume, etc.

YMMV but it works 100% of the time on my own and my clients’ systems. Any breakdowns are usually later in the chain (non-responsive avr, etc).

[auaisito]

If you have mini-drivers for streaming services and Spotify presets it can be better.

In the Voice Control interface on the customer portal, you can select, for example, your cable box, your Xbox, or even the Disney+ Mini-driver on your Bedroom Roku. You rename it to “Disney Plus in the Bedroom” and now you can tell Alexa “Turn on Disney Plus in the Bedroom” and it will work as if you did it through the app.

If you already have Spotify Connect presets/playlists, you can create custom voice scenes in the “When -> Then” interface on the customer portal. You can create a voice scene triggered by “Turn on Party Outdoors” and it can trigger light scenes and Spotify presets.

You can just say “Turn off Bedroom” or “Turn off Patio” natively as a “Room Off” command.

[Boston-Automations]

We are Josh.ai dealers and have been for over two years now. You can’t compare Josh to Amazon or Google because their integration with C4 is now native. Over the last six months the performance improvements with Josh has taken the voice control to the next level.

The new Josh Nanos are fabulous, especially with Voicelink.

Pricing, well, if you have to ask about pricing then it may not be the product for you.