New name in the market; Control4 at Domotics Point

logo control4 New name in the market; Control4 Today I learned a new name in our market of home-automation. I don’t exactly understand why; because browsing trough their website I understand they already exist since 2004. Control4 is the name of this company and products. And this name was given to me today by a potential customer, go figure.

The products have the potential of radically cheaper hardware compared to for example AMX Control4 was formed by AMX’s original founders. Control4’s basic home entertainment and automation system starts from around $7,000 (as with AMX, you have to buy your own TVs, speakers and anything else used for playing content).

All home entertainment systems are now based, to some degree, on ‘open standards’ or technologies that any manufacturer can access.
One is the internet, allowing you to do cool stuff like turn on your heating before you leave work, remotely accessing your home’s controls via any web browser. It also means that if anything goes wrong, your installer could access your home’s set-up over the internet and, hopefully, remotely fix the glitch. If they can’t, they can call on the Control4 system’s designers in the US, who can also directly access your home’s server. All of course through a secure firewall.

Another key open standard is wi-fi, the wireless originally made popular in the PC world. Wifi means a Control4 system can be installed without the need to rewire a house. The cmopany claims that any Control4 system can be programmed in a day, rather than the working-week stretch needed for a team to work on a system that used more proprietary technology.

A simple Windows interface does the trick. Any home owner can use the system by dragging and dropping icons in a straightforward-looking PC display. Of course, even $7,000 will make many people go hmmm… But if your ambitions only stretch to one room, it is possible from $1,500.

Source: Control4

Technorati Tags: home-automation, Control4, AMX, home entertainment, wi-fi

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