Indianapolis – Control4, the supplier of residential and light-commercial automation systems, has come to CEDIA Expo, here, with a new OS by the fourth quarter.
The new OS incorporates new lighting-control features, new features for light-commercial installs, and simpler programming and installation.
For lighting control, the Control4 OS 2.3 sports a new UI with visual refinements and new personalization capabilities, including the ability to easily edit and toggle between lighting scenes and the control of an individual light, the company said. A preference default function let a screen default to a consumer’s preferences.
Also for lighting control, dealers will be able to program more sophisticated lighting effects from Control4’s Composer system design software. A new programming tool simplifies programming with single-button on/off toggles for scenes, offers advanced scene ramping and fading, and supports complex scene sequencing, which creates delays between the ramp-up times of different lighting zones.
Like before, the UI will appear on TVs, Control4 touch screens, smart phones and tablets.
To simplify installation and programming, the OS adds Control4 Simple Device Discovery Protocol (SDDP), which automatically identifies and loads the correct driver for connected Control4-compatible devices and expands the roster of compatible third-party devices. The compatible devices will be automatically identified and will remain in contact with a Control4 system even if its IP address changes, the company noted.
Also to simplify installs, the new Control4 Driver Editor enables dealers and developers to test drivers that they’ve developed on their own for third-party products without having a full, working Control4 system up and running.
For light-commercial installs, OS 2.3 also adds a number of new capabilities. An enhanced Themes SDK, for example, lets dealers brands screens with themes geared toward a particular business. Installers can also limit unauthorized access through password protection and selective hiding certain functions. The new FieldServer driver adds support for commercial HVAC systems through the FieldServer Technologies’ QuickServer Gateway, which enables access to Delta Controls, GE, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Mitsubishi, Rockwell and other thermostats over device networks including BACnet, Lonworks, Modbus, and other brands via serial, bus or TCP/IP.
Also new is the ability to control the majority of teleconference systems through drivers for such systems as Polycom, ClearOne and Tandberg, the company said.
