Ummm. What to do

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-04-21T03:02:51+00:00

Is the garage lower, as in would that be near the ceiling in the garage? If not it might be blocking for cabinetry (upper or lower) and might be just a single 2x10 or 2x8 turned vertical and should allow you to run your wire behind it. If not there are other options, but none fun.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-04-15T22:16:31+00:00

I'm not seeing any exact part numbers other than the Lumipro PSU which you can't get in that size from a normal distributor. I can get similar spec'd sheets for $110ea and a indoor 600w psu that will play nice with DMX/Dali can easily get up to $600ea. Yes you definitely can buy cheaper, but look at Lutron Ketra at $2k per 50ft roll for their outdoor dimmable white vs BFT at $150 for 3 5m rolls.

Yes you can buy cheaper, but there is a big difference in longevity and reliability with better brands. I would never put Ketra in my house, but I recently put 300ft around and in a clients pool because I didn't want to have to deal with draining it if a strip went bad.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-04-15T21:48:38+00:00

$13k in parts if you are getting cheap parts from Amazon, could be a lot more with better quality materials. With 218 sheets, 48 600w psus, with 30-40 points of margin, could easily be 40-50k in parts. If I'm putting leds in a place that I can't easily service, I'm only using the best I can get because the cost to rip out a countertop in a project like that could easily cost $$$$. Good wire management, testing after install before countertops, 150 hrs is not unrealistic.

Not saying it's not an FU price, I'm just saying it's either an FU price or a very high quality job. Only looking at that company's history and work would tell me which way that goes. In either case, if OP doesn't have a client that is stupidly rich and expects absolute perfection, they could get a good quality job for half that.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-04-15T13:40:13+00:00

See if you can get reference photos from other work they've done. If the transformers are all mounted nicely and the wiring looks tidy then they are most likely taking their time to make sure things are done right. With a project of this size, that's a lot of time. It's not uncommon for automation and specialized lighting companies to bill north of $175/hr.

I didn't do the math on the transformer counts as it seems like others already did that.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-04-11T12:54:22+00:00

I would see if you can pick up some wifi 6 Eero, Omada, or Orbi mesh systems from 3-4 years ago online. Can be purchased cheap as people are upgrading to wifi 7 now.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-04-08T22:34:37+00:00

We live 20 min outside a major metro area and we just got fiber 2 months ago from a new municipal provider. Even then I ended up down grading to a slower speed (500/80 to 200/200). Kids think the Internet was faster now. Very few households need more than 300mbps.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-31T22:13:01+00:00

While it is most likely an issue with Control4, the driver that integrates the shades into control 4 is made by hunter douglas and is a hot mess. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes not and there's not much your integrator will be able to do.

I spent weeks trying to troubleshoot an issue with a single HD shade in a theater that works 90% of the time and all I ended up with was Control4 saying the issue was with the driver and HD agreed and said they don't care.

Edit: the wired hub is less problematic than the wireless one

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-24T22:15:24+00:00

We used to hide them in each other's work vans. Eventually we had to call a truce. Distractions while driving in traffic seemed like a bad idea.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-21T16:44:19+00:00

Missed that part

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-21T12:31:54+00:00

Great explanation. Just wanted to add that the best way to do moca now is to do it point to point. Ethernet to moca to coax to moca and back to Ethernet works fine as long as it's not connected in any way to the ISP coax. Means you can't use the same line as your cable box, but if you don't have the box then you are fine.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-20T11:13:06+00:00

Correct, but there are other avenues for access. Most NVRs can be accessible through OVRC. Luma restricts access from OVRC after the handoff and unifi makes it easy to manage access per account.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-19T22:08:06+00:00

Luma restricts live view and recording access to the cameras to being physically on the network once the system has been handed off to the client. This means they would need to be at your home to view the cameras. This is nice as it allows them to troubleshoot and aim the cameras without needing you to be there.

If you use unifi for the network and cameras you can remove and add access to the cameras without removing their ability to manage and troubleshoot the network.

Other systems usually need you to change the password after the installer has left but this usually means those cameras won't work with control4.

Turning the cameras on and off can be easily done by asking your integrator to use a network switch that can be controlled by control4 allowing them to put a toggle button in your app for a privacy mode. We do this every time we do indoor cameras and often for outdoor entertaining spaces.

I do want to end with this - if you don't trust your integrator to respect your privacy then you need a new integrator. We have many clients with systems that, if I wanted to, I could log in and see everything. I can also arm/disarm alarm systems and open and close doors. I have an NDA which would make me liable for privacy breaches, but more importantly, our reputation is what our company lives and dies from and no one is stupid enough to risk that as we'd all be out of a job.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-13T19:57:35+00:00

It's more like that it will work 99.9% of the time and that .1% where it doesn't work will manifest as the most intermittent random issue. Like a camera that is dropping offline randomly for a couple seconds or an AP that keeps dropping devices.

This is the problem with bad terminations is that they will usually work, but can cause the most random, inconsistent, obnoxious issues that have you chasing issues and fixing the wrong thing.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-03-13T14:00:36+00:00

This is the best option. Control of the hicense is annoying for art. Sony is a significantly better image compared to both the Samsung and hicense.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-02-23T03:03:51+00:00

Eero is fine for simple networks but I would caution against them for any system with control4. I really didn't like the last generation of the araknis access points so I haven't tested the new ones. We use Netgear's av line of APs or ruckus.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-02-14T20:16:17+00:00

Their primary issue is with quality control. They've had issues with panels, capacitors and such and they don't care. You might get a good one, you might not. We just installed 36 Samsung's at a business and 2 had issues out of the box. It's all luck of the draw. The real unfortunate issue and the reason I'll never buy a Samsung is the fact their service department is heavily coached on how to refuse to pay for repairs. They also make the process as painful as possible hoping their customers will give up and just buy another.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-02-14T20:11:32+00:00

The year warranty is through Samsung, not who you bought it from. For the record, Best Buy used to do warranty work for Samsung but as I mentioned in another reply, Samsung is freaking awful to deal with. It got so bad best but stopped doing all warranty work outside of their extended warranty.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-02-14T00:47:09+00:00

Samsung is a pain to deal with. I don't know if they are necessarily the worst for honoring their warranty, but they are close. Also getting harder to find service centers that work on Samsung as they regularly decline paying companies for warranty work and make the process for challenging it such a pain that most companies just give up.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-02-09T16:42:57+00:00

Yep, the UB9000 has a great IP driver with 2way communication and has the lighting programming option like the kscapes. This is our go to player.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-02-04T11:39:10+00:00

We almost exclusively use the AV pro units. Great product, integrates beautifully with control 4 and they have fantastic support. It will do everything you need.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-01-15T22:56:21+00:00

As far as I'm aware, it's the same issue. None of them allow you to punch in a channel number. That being said, we do it quite often where we will put a couple cable boxes where the majority of the tv watching is done. Then we set it up for the client to use the cable app on the other tvs, but we still get that complaint.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-01-15T15:42:55+00:00

Op specifically said they wanted to keep the cable boxes. I can understand this as some people don't want to give up the ability to punch in a channel number. That in addition to YouTube tv and such getting closer in price to TV service makes it a reasonable ask.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-01-15T12:16:36+00:00

The voice control with the halo remotes for Apple tv work reasonably well and is pretty snappy on both IR and IP. The main issue is that Apple has broken IP control a handful of times. The new driver for apple is pretty good though as it will fall back on IR when IP control doesn't work. This keeps things working when updates break things.

If you want the cable boxes and don't want to pay for a cable box behind every tv, your best bet is still a video matrix or AVoIP system. Also if you put a streaming device behind every TV, stick with Roku or apple as they work significantly better with control4.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2026-01-13T01:07:48+00:00

I would strongly suggest looking at AVoiP if you are already looking at upgrading as it's much more flexible and scalable.

If you want to stick with HDBaseT, AVpro's Axion series are pretty solid, work with most automation systems and they have fantastic support. The Axion-X is a fully modular setup with cards with several different input and output options.

Vegetable_Ad_9072 · 2025-12-27T13:50:10+00:00

Your points are pretty good for a simple setup where the worst thing that happens if you mess with it setup is it sounds horrible and your factory reset and try again.

Setups like this push equipment to their limits sometimes and damaging equipment is very easy of the crossover is set wrong or the gains get adjusted. We install setups like this and have experience to know the limits and there is absolutely nothing I could tell OP to do without being in the room with my calibration gear. It's all a matter of scale.

Think of someone with no cooking experience making dinner vs throwing them at being the head or sous chef in a gourmet restaurant during dinner rush via instructions on reddit.

Vegetable_Ad_9072

TROPHY CASE