I am about to have a multi zone Audio/Video and home automation system built around a Control 4 system, this includes a dedicated home Theater (which I have extensive experience with), 4-6 other AV zones, 8-10 zones for lighting and fan controls and HVAC integration all accessible through ipad/iphone devices.

Anyone have any experiences or recommendations before I sign and put a deposit down?

I greatly appreciate everyones input

//Anders

 

My company is very experienced with c4. It is an excellent system when designed correctly. Feel free to ask more questions.

 

C4 is a quality budget control system. Your final experience will depend completely on the programming and communication skills of the company you hire to complete the system. Do research on the company and make sure they know what they are doing before co
Muting to them.

 

Committing to them...damn iPhone post.

 

Ray (club411) installed a very expensive C4 in his loft and needless to say its no longer there. Most I speak to say its very limited especially considering the price. Check out Clarehome, cloud based and extremely user friendly. Spent 2 hours with them today working on a system for the house we are building.

 

It's not that simple unfortunately. C4 can be limited since its graphical user interface (GUI) is not customizable BUT this only applies to my experience for maybe about 5% of the resi automation projects - for the other 95% it can be perfect. I am not biased towards C4 at all, we also do Crestron and occasionally AMX. Now comparing Clarhome (slightly familiar with it) with C4 does not make sense - Clarahome has been in the market for a year or so, has a very small product range or even no products and will need many years to prove it self in order to be considered a real automation brand. C4 has done this and AMX and Crestron even much more.

I am not trying to be negative against new alternative suggestions or just supporting the old established systems, I am giving the perspective of an integrator that has done many systems (ranging from 5k to 2m jobs) and the only thing I care about is providing value for money for the customer, reliability and customer satisfaction. I can guarantee you that C4 (if designed correctly) can achieve these things at a good price.

 

If you want more detailed comments please post the equipment list here (without prices) and possibly I will understand the design scheme and be able to offer advice. From what I know (but I am not updated on this) C4 did not have a fan control in the past but maybe this has changed.

Also 8-10 zones of lighting means just a few rooms? I would try to go full house if the budget allows and if possible with a wired system with its own processor e.g Lutron or Crestron

 

This is the most important thing. Choose the integrator and then the system.

At the end of the day the top 3 (Crestron, AMX and C4) just sell black boxes, it is the integrator that will do all the magic and unfortunately he can also mess it up. Compared to the other 2 big players, C4 makes it much easier for the integrator and especially small or inexperienced integrators to provide a fast and satisfactory result.

 

Do you know for what system Club411 trade his C4?

 

He went with Redeye pro offered by thinkflood... Not sure all the details, but Ray is one of the "techiest" guys I know and if you see his setup you know he don't spare any expense. I spoke to a group today that sells C4 as well as others and had the same feedback about C4. They told me to look into a company called NuVo.