Connect RS-232 device using URC's proprietary RS-232 cables. The smart-home manufacturer overtook longtime leader Crestron for the first time in 2015 and continues gaining market share (or at least mind share) among this group of highest-revenue specialists. I only mention this because I understand why URC, C4, and others do not want to provide software to general end-users but hopefully people with reasonable programming experience should hopefully be allowed to DIY. Honestly I prefer that way then having to do every little change or customization for them. While serviceable, it was frequently overkill for most audio distribution projects. Its also possible to control any of these smart home systems by voice alone. Log-In or Register to view pricing. For example, a Control4 EA controller can also automate the entire AV setup in a room and make it easy to control all your audio equipment. Im doing all of my Crestron/RTI-installations remotely. Total Control URC Home Automation Installation In Oxford. If you ask nearly any 3rd party who was first to integrate with them via IP drivers, it's invariably Control4. Ive gotten in the habit of turning lights and fans on/off via Alexa, and the voice remote did a great job handling these requests. For someone doing a fresh install, the price for TC vs C4 is so close that I would go C4. You control these bulbs using a Total Control remote, keypad, or a smartphone or tablet, and you can lower the lights or brighten the room as you please. Little bit of background. Play your favorite music anywhere in your home or business with URC's Total Control high resolution, distributed audio system. Composer Pro is available to dealers only and Composer HE is available for purchase. A forum community dedicated to home theater owners and enthusiasts. Little bit of background. The new lower priced and far superior AMS-8 solves this . you might be surprised at what you learn there from other dealers.Make friends have a few drinks, ask questions. Home / Blog / Smart Control / We Offer Control4 Offsite Programming. Three of the home automation brands with which our installers are thoroughly experienced are Control4, Crestron and URC. Really, really bad. These bulbs are designed to save energy and last an estimated 20 . For more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to our newsletter here. If there's one thing I've learned after talking to countless installers from every part of the country using every control system under the sun, it's that there is no perfect solution. I know this, thats why I said the above, just stating my own opinion. Anyway.. Control4 has been a really good systemand very stable. Things that are important to me: - Features and ease of use for the user. I have lived with, in my personal home, C4, Crestron, RTI and URC. Maybe they're just already really good at what they do and they don't need improvements, but IMHO, they needed something new and big and exciting to drive trafficat the show. About this app. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. Control4 has better integration when it comes to drivers and Rti is customisable. This isn't an overnight decision as you'll have to invest plenty of money and time so do your research. Along the way, we offered other single-room, remote-only solutions for customers not needing whole-house integration, and one of the brands weve supported for many years is Universal Remote Control, aka URC. Through these partnerships, we have co-developed drivers that will allow integration professionals to easily enable control of Russound . Since this is a Control4 forum, I will point out that the last couple of CEDIAs (live ones, that is), that RTI's booth was like a ghost town, you could almost feel the tumbleweeds blowing through. HomeKit, A Platform Designed by apple to control Smart Home devices through the Home app and Siri voice assistant. Remotes are URC, security is Hikvision, etc. Connecting RS-232 (serial): The MRX-5 can operate equipment via RS-232 communication. Find help, tips, tricks and advice from our users! One of the things URC is most known for is handheld remote controls; I mean, its literally right there in the name. For most users this isn't a problem, but I am hoping to find a system that can send button presses nearly as fast as a keyboard (~16ms). home.. All Rights Reserved. Their wifi remote is expensive, has terrible battery life and we just cant get it to connect to our wifi network reliably. For other products like your Home Audio, your TVs, your Lighting Control, etc, both Savant and Control4 integrate well. All Control4 systems also include native support for various music services, including Spotify, Pandora, Deezer and Tidal. This requires a small bit of work to activate along with the homeowner providing consent and you have to be onsite to enable it for the first time. Everything works inall interfaces and that is nice. It's refreshing to read a response that doesn't begin or conclude with an insult. Avid Stamp Collector - I really love 39 Cent Stamps. womble123October 25, 2020 in General Control4 Discussion. Your mileage may vary I guess. We happened to be looking at redoing a multi-display system in a country club; something URCs flexible programming architecture handles especially well, and he suggested I bring a Total Control system in for review. There is also security system integration support for HAI, Honeywell, DSC, and HouseLogix, along with multiple IP cameras and NVRs. Yes, it takes a separate video input (expensive if you are using an HDMI matrix switch and need to buy a bigger model to accommodate) and yes, you need to wait for your display device to fully power up before you can do ANYTHING. I would probably recommend Logitech Harmony ;). Results of the CE Pro 100 annual Brand Analysis for 2019 (from data collected in 2018) show Control4 at 68%, followed by Crestron (45%), Savant (42% . Have any questions about Crestron, Control4 or URC not addressed in this article? What most people dont realize is how many buttons you need to press to get to see, hear or control what you want. For these reasons, choosing a control system partner is almost like getting married; you go in planning for the long haul, and if you decide to get out, it can be painful and expensive. After selecting their location and provider, the remote will then display a small bit of live guide information, letting you preview what is playing on a favorite channel before actually turning to it. The RTI and URC product lines include a several remote controls that combine all the functionality of each separate remote control, but don't add anything else to the picture. If your installations are getting to a size where its demanding of a control system, my advice to you would be to give your business to the control company that will help you grow your business and offer the support you need to succeed. Hence, you cant afford to overlook the user interfaces importance. Control4 Home Control: Best home automation integrated system. Hardware reliability? Its a real pet peeve of mine when a remotes display is too dim to read in a darkened environment (sadly, a problem thats only getting worse as I get older), and the TRC-1480 totally aces this test, with a nice tilt sensor that wakes the screen and backlit buttons when you grab it. Recently URC as a company has been giving me a fit, and I am considering going back to RTI, its a shame, I'm very comfortable with their product but a few issues with my past few RMAs has me thinking I'll give RTI a chance again. The 9100 was especially great for using the third-party Kaleidescape driver I installed from Chowmain (chowmainsoft.com). "When I eat, it is the food that is scared." While the system doesnt have any built-in streaming services, it works with a variety of popular hardware solutions such as Fusion, HEOS, Sonos, and Autonomic, allowing you (the integrator) to use your preferred solution. If you have never previously used a home automation platform for controlling more than a few devices, we would certainly encourage you to look at Control4, as its user interface has been exhaustively stripped down to make it easy and simple to use. I install both URC & C4 by the way. I was a URC dealer and left for C4. In our family, we probably have 7 of these devices. A couple of years ago, they were right next door to Control4's booth. Designed to control up to 32 zones . Ive added them to our portfolio, since were mainly doing home cinema setups, and people prefer to have a (touch)remote controlling them. I hope whatever your company uses, it works out well for you, but I personally don't think SnapAV/Control4 can be beat. For most families, multiple iOS or Android devices are the norm. To help alleviate the cost of bringing in a demo system, URC has a provision where a dealer can earn their demo kit by selling two systems during a specified period. The alarm systems motion sensors and contact sensors are very useful input for a home automation system and they are much cheaper than the native control4 motions and contacts. In my opinion, I think they probably have some nice touchpanels, decentremotes, and you can probably do fine small systems with it, but it has nowhere near the device support or native streaming services or intercom/doorstationsupport or lighting options as Control4. The Total Audio/Video Package . Search the forum for more info. Nice! It is subjective to the people selling it, installing it, programming it, and ultimately, using it. . It takes very little time to program and the whole thing just works. Huh?). Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Showroom (By Appointment Only)8097 Roswell Rd, Building ASandy Springs, GA 30350, T: 678.679.3406 The following page was printed from RemoteCentral.com: This thread has 37 replies. This Siri Voice Module Driver Integrate Devices which are configured in Control4 with HomeKit, So you can control all Control4 devices via . Bad experience - dont trust it anymore. Can anybody give me some comparisons between the two systems? Back in 2010, URC branched out beyond the one-room Complete Control system and into a whole-house solution called Total Control. I agree with you, honesty weve been doing a lot more control4 since os3, rti is kind of disappearing. (Which is also how Im used to using my Control4 system.) It's also Control4's greatest strength for whole home automation setups. It is worth noting that using this functionality requires connecting devices to an AVB-compliant switch, such as URCs HDASW5. Control4 has a built in media player but for music only. Thats 5 button presses navigating via a tiny screen that will confuse the old and young alike just to turn on the tv to BluRay and we havent even begun to navigate the BluRay interface itself on the TV (counter intuitively using the same buttons that operate the text menu on the remote itself. Sony PlayStation 3 Advanced Control Roundup, Universal Remote Control Inc. Digital R50. For comparison, our Crestron systems generally start at about $2000 for a control processor, remote control and iOS or Android control, plus programming, so initially we thought perhaps we may find something that would fit our clients needs. RadioRA 3 connects with Control4, Crestron, Elan, RTI, Savant, URC, and other major control systems. Alternatively, use the MediaSwitcher software available for PC, Linux and Mac. Sony, Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Nest, etc. Crestron is another smart home brand that can help you to merge both the hardware and software of your home automation system into a single, cohesive whole. Allows viewing of UniFi NVR Cameras on the Control4 Navigator; Control4 OS 2.5.3 and higher; UniFi NVR Firmware version 3.2 or later *KP-900/MX-900 Editor will work only if . Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one. I connected my HEOS Link to the HDA-8100 and installed the two-way module, which provided full access to all of my HEOS functions and services, including album artwork on all of the interfaces. Most importantly, the system retains URCs ability to customize button layouts and programming, adding greater flexibility for the end-user, and making the system especially adept at handling things like multiple screen control, with the Accelerator software helping alleviate some of the programming. It's annoying to program, it's costly, and it's a pain in the ass to use. Total Control far out does any system available for it's market. If youve ever poked around URCs database, youll know it is packed with thousands of IR drivers supporting a huge array of equipment going back many years. Back to the operation of the remotes: We can dismiss the cheaper remote out of hand because it ONLY operates an on-screen display. Right in the sweet spot. Audio plus Novi Sad, Strailovska 23 tel:021/66-11-302. We Offer Control4 Offsite Programming Jan 20, 2020 . If you ask nearly any 3rd party who was first to integrate with them via IP drivers, it's invariably Control4. Control System Integration Our engineers have written drivers for the industry's leading control systems, including Control4, Crestron, ELAN, URC and more - so controlling the system has a familiar feel. These small (roughly the size of a deck of cards) devices include four IR outputs as well as a blaster, and are a fantastic and economical way to integrate and control those small cable box/streamer/TV systems around the home. Come join the discussion about home audio/video, TVs, projectors, screens, receivers, speakers, projects, DIYs, product reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more! Control4 vs Crestron vs URC - Updated Guide 2021. RA3 comes with Lutron's LEAP API which embeds system programming directly in the top control brands' design software, saving hours of programming time. My point is just that your statement wasa bit to general IMHO, suggesting that RTI is technically not able to be updated remotely -which is not the case. Your smart home could comprise a staggeringly wide range of devices and appliances from, Have any questions about Crestron, Control4 or URC not addressed in this article? Ability for complete customization has always been Control4's weakest point, and that definitely remains the case. I wasnt a huge fan of the way the software rebuilt the source routing macros for all sources when you add a source since the building of the macros need you to go back through them and tweak. If you would like a Sonos-like setup where you can play multiple music steams in different rooms of your home at the same time, rest assured that Control4, Crestron and URC all enable this. I'm going to toss some fun on this fire. Neither remote has any facility for one-touch operation (in fairness, a newly announced version has 3 one-touch keys, but they are stupidly labeled <.> <..> and <>). We found lots of sub $1200 systems comprised of a central processor and remote control. While URC offer its own Z-Wave lighting hardware, the system also integrates with a variety of other popular subsystems like Lutron and Vantage, which worked perfectly since my house is kitted out with Radio RA2 lighting and thermostats. Since I don't have extensive experience with programming a control 4 or RTI system. <---Thanks Ernie ;). Bottom line is URC should stick with making great remotes. To get a good idea of a representative whole-house control and audio system, URC sent me a variety of hardware including the MRX-15 advanced processor, TRC-1480 handheld remote with voice control, TDC-9100 10-inch tabletop touchscreen controller, HDA-8100 multi-zone amplifier, and MRX-4IR auxiliary base stations. And of course im totally fine with that. Control4 has since added the AMS-8 audio matrix switch and AMP-8 8-zone power amplifier to its line, which are reviewed here. Aquatel D110 Wireless Tank Fluid Monitor Driver for Control4. Want to change one button on an Rti screen = Truck roll out. In this area, Savant is improving, but Control4 definitely has the upper hand. Which isnt a bad thing; it just highlights that this is a new company just getting on their feet. I personally loved the graphics, the mobile app, the way the amps share sources via the network without worrying about audio delay, the equipment looks beautiful in the rack and IMHO URC makes the best remote controls (TRC-1080 is the best ever), but you need an extremely solid network for all to work well. To facilitate controlling equipment in other rooms, URC sent me two MRX-4IR network (wired or Wi-Fi) auxiliary base stations. I will first ask, are you going to Cedia this year? is probably the nearest alternative. I wish they would bring Yeungling into Texas. Simply order the Neeo remote from your Pro and, once it arrives, connect it to your home's Wi-Fi and select the primary room where it will be used. We install Control4 systems like this all the time. also Rti need to sort out their zigbee, but were not going to start a rant here. On 10/25/2020 at 6:39 PM, Matt Lowe said: 5 minutes ago, Khler Medientechnik said: 7 minutes ago, Khler Medientechnik said: This thread is quite old. While I didnt utilize the AVB functionality, it can be really beneficial for linking remote zones, or for being able to get remote sources like TV audio back into the system for distribution. Interface flexibility? All rights reserved. Just wondering if there is any RTI dealers here and what they think about the system compared to Control4. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.