Control4 InfinityEdge Priced, Designed Like iPad

C’mon Julie - you must be getting tired and looking forward to retirement so you can play Frisbee all day.

There was a day when your review of a new product would strike fear into the hearts of a manufacturer…now, you’re a softball reviewer…

While its great to see mfg’s pumping out new products in this market, its a shame that Cedia mfg’s still see’s themselves from the standpoint of “can it be wall mounted or sit on the coffee table”! The CEDIA mfg mentality has to change!

Why are you throwing slow pitch, when you need to be throwin heaters at the industry?

I get it that you’re writing to custom installers who thrive on shoving stuff into the wall - has anyone looked around at how many open walls are still available? - is anyone paying attention to what’s driving the new “millennial” consumer and what they are consuming millions of and how they’re doing it?

ur lozin ur mojo my friend :(

Hey, I was never a terribly harsh reviewer ... until a company went out of business and then I spilled everything!

But I don’t really see what’s to criticize here. If I see the screen at CEDIA and it feels like a cheap plastic toy, then I’ll let it rip.

But for now, it’s a good example of where we can expect the price and design of touchscreens to go.

Think it should be called onwall not in-wall! but good try c4. especially with the intercom feature.

[comment deleted at the request of poster]

@dan

What the heck are you talking about? The HC1000 doesn’t run the flash based navigator. It doesn’t even have a video output you can use. And if anything they’ve made it faster in 2.0 with media database optimizations.

Nice try.

Julie,

Can you explain what “And, by the way, the intercom functionality is one of the reasons that the touchscreens aren’t recessed into the wall.” means?

Jim ... the way I understand it is that the speaker and/or mic is located around the rim.

Well… I was all ready to say “GREAT job C4” but then i read the part about $499 for the intercom portion of the panel. I have grown very tired of the nickle and diming hidden pricing crap. Price the damn thing at $1500 or whatever and be done with it. Its like paying for luggage at the airport “oh.. did you want to bring luggage? we had no idea.. that will be an extra $50”. Or “which of the 130 versions of windows do you want?” What i want is for you guys to just make 1 GOOD version of windows instead of a bunch of “okay” versions. So for now its just a “good job C4”.

As for it sticking off the wall a little.. Im sure they could have solved this but IMO its not that bad. It will HANDS DOWN be sleeker than any iPad dock in the wall because their is no 2” bezel and i think they did an awesome job mimicking the iPad.

Put these in the walls and the iPads in the rooms and you have a very consistent look all around the house.

I wish someone would create an in-wall dock that let you mount an iPad and have it look this clean.

nmsmartone, are you saying that an in-wall touchpanel is a thing of the past or some CI mistake?

When you walk in the door do you want to walk all the way into the family room to get the iPad to turn off the alarm and set the lighting scene?

When you are about to jump in the shower do you want to fumble around with a remote?

On your way out to the pool? Would you rather hit the pandora button on the conveniently located in-wall touchpanel or search around for the water proof remote?

The iPad is a direct replacement for wi-fi touchpanels. But wi-fi/portable touchpanels are but 1 of 5 user interface types required for a typical system.

#1.Keypad
Great for lighting scenes. They can be put at the entrance of every room. You wont ever touch a dimmer if you have keypads everywhere.

#2.Hand Held Remote
TV Clicker.

#3.Portable touchscreen (iPad)
TV Clicker / Additional features. This will usually be found in a theater/media room. It can have about 80% of the possible features of a fully functional wired touchpanel.

#4.Wired In-Wall
Great for intercom/Camera viewing and control of the home at areas like the front or rear exits or rooms where standing is common like a gym, bath, kitchen.

#5.Wired table top
The works. High quality camera and video source viewing, no range or battery or “where is the remote” issues.

I like a hand held remote in any room with a TV. Then either a wired table top touchpanel or a wi-fi panel or an in-wall panel for full system control in that room. The in-wall would be for an area like a gym.

I like a large wired panel in the kitchen. This room is usually the first and last room visited when someone is entering or leaving the home. Plus they can double as a counter top TV.

$499 to enable intercom for the entire house, not per panel. Not sure I see that as nickel and diming.

Hey 39centstamp, good stuff…let me share some thinking with you…no right or wrong here…

its mostly a legacy issue for me. If you consider the current state of green field projects, number of new starts, the new consumers who are entering into the market - the rapid evolution of communication technologies, FCC reg’s, you begin to see a picture that says that mobile devices, open source, social networking, mp3 is good enough, streaming anything to anything, applets, and widgets and 6 streams of IP to the home… all spell changes to the market.

the new buyers are younger, huge bandwidth munchers, more techy yet want to control their entire user experience (cedia mfg’s dont like this so much)-  they will have become use to having things their way via their smartphones and myspace/FB/Twitter/Google apps. (very thing is personal to them)

what little old school dna (get off the couch) they have left in them, will pretty much be centered around turning on and off a light switch. why is lighting control so expensive? they dont even know how a thermostat works…boomer parents sure understand that part..they paid the bills…

...millienums will surf the net, video conference from their cars, they will step out of their new Fords and wonder why their homes are so dumb and can’t be reconfigured to match the UI on their phone, on their TV or from their car’s in-dash console…

CEDIA has historically and classically relied on new construction and heavy lifting to get jobs done. the more wire the better, the more complex the better, the bigger the project the better…there are just not enough of these boomers to go around anymore and ignoring the millieum generation will spell doom for some.

Years ago, CE PRO wrote about the impending arrival of the PC guys - well, they are more than here. new av/media start-ups bringing a bunch of network centric gear to the market is pushing the envelop…still, tried and tru Cedia ways die hard..

Apple has sniffed this market for the past 15 years or more. Microsoft has never gotten it right yet, hell, I remember meeting a GM guy talking home control in 1994. what year did GE bring Homeminder to the market??? julie, any memory cells left?

Clearly, the Ipad has been a disruptive technology and has sent a loud and clear message to the industry that rapid change is coming for how information, media and control is consummed and used.

The Iphone/Ipad really got it going,

with Android, its the next step.

with LTE, it will be the next quantum leap in distruptive technologies that will have an ever lasting impact on automation and control. 2012 may just finally be the Year of Home Automation..

and with LTE, finally the service provider will want to offer control of your home as a feature to a new service plan…100m homes passed by end of year…

forget about Zigbee/Zwave. they’re dead men walking…

forget about distributing video around the house via coax, ethernet

forget about Wireless HD

forget about anything that needs “line of sight”..

wifi is in trouble, but may live on for a while…

forget about making me get up and go to the wall to make something happen, and forget about remote controls that arent open sourced and dont ask me to point your remote at my Ipad stuck in the wall..

...think, mobility and end-user experience…and you seen International IPTV, its coming to America…not good for U-Verse…seen new FCC reg’s for broadband to the home, again, not good for the broadband cable incumbents..how much bandwidth do I need to have 2 IPTV’s shows going on in the home, surf the net, play X-Box Live, make a Voip call and have my home talking to the internet mtm with no issues…any guesses?

think, service provider straight through to the device with you as the glue that binds…if the service provider can’t talk to the device directly and natively, it won’t fly…

now, all Cedia (mfg/dealers) have to master, is learn how to sell your products/expertise to the guy across the street in your neighborhood and you have no worries…

I love Cedia integrators- you are the future of tech in the home, its your cedia mfg that are pooching things up…btw- how big is this market any how? seems rather small these days…

Intercom,
The article is not specific. It says “The intercom module is sold separately for $499.”

So does that mean $499 per touchscreen? Thats how i interpreted it. Or does it mean an unlimited number of panels can have the intercom feature for $499? Does it mean 4 touchscreens per module?

As i stated before while assuming its $499 per panel.. its blatant nickle and diming just like having to pay extra for anti-lock brakes or air bags. Why would a manufacturer want to remove a feature to create an imaginary lower price point? Make it the best product and put the real price tag on it.

If the “module” is not per panel then chalk it up as me assuming incorrectly but IMO it was an easy mistake to make.

39
One time $499 for intercom regardless of the number of panels.  It was easy to read it as you did.

I hear this a lot “the new buyers are younger”. This is simply not true. Yes, younger people are wanting to automate their home but these are new customers..not a replacement. I cant think of a single client under 45 that has spent $250k+ (our typical project). What you are seeing thats causing the confusion is the influx of less expensive technology. So now a 20 year old can pick up an iPod touch and a bose dock and have an awesome stereo system for a fraction of what it cost 10 and even 5 years ago. I wont get into the quality of mp3’s vs CD’s issue because IMO i prefer iTunes for convenience and feedback to my touchpanel over a CD player. I rent movies with iTunes and i watch TV @ hulu. IMO the sound isnt that much different and you get so much more with the iPod so the trade off is worth it.

Just because a new market of less expensive CE hardware now exists doesn’t mean that high-end has vanished. What it means is that for your iPod we have Crestron ADMS. Im not saying you have to have ADMS. What im saying is that the clients spending $1mil on AV for their mansion will have ADMS.

Customization is fine.. i get wanting things “your way”. But i also know that its a very small percentage of the population who cares about having complete control of anything. They want the CI to customize it for them so they dont have to. 80% of personal comptuter users cant install a piece of software. When you go to tech crunch and engadget and read the responses you are hearing from that 5% of the population who knows what jail breaking an iPhone is. Handing my typical client an iPad and expecting them to get any use out of an app for the surround receiver is crazy. They want a button that says DVD. When they press it everything comes on and changes inputs and the movie starts to play. And what you will find is that even though your happy to use your imac and the remote app to watch a movie.. once you sit down with a truly integrated remote control.. your Opinion will change. Without fail.. every time we release any of the decision making to the clients it ends badly. To clarify that statement im talking about lighting scenes and surround receiver and projector settings. We know how the lighting system should be used so let us handle it. If you think were talking about ON/OFF from the sofa then you have a long way to go. Im talking about 11 lighting loads in the master bedroom. I dont want my client trying to choose 1 of 11 switches on the wall. I want him to choose one of 5 buttons like “good morning” or “good night” or whatever. No one wants to be able to control those 11 lights individually. They want to set all those lights to come on at a specific level with the press of a single button.

I dont really care to discuss CEDIA. I am not an active participant and to be quite honest i dont really know what its all about. When i did go every year it was to take installation classes and learn about new products hands on. I know that you are grouping all CI’s in the CEDIA box to keep things simple but its like saying all Christians are the same. Lighting control is expensive because the market is small. Fewer sales means higher price. Lutron needs as many people working in the factories as Apple does so costs dont change much. But if your not selling millions ofa new product on opening day and every day after that.. you cant really lower pricing on something. There are low cost lighting options like X-10. I can remember when X-10 was considered expensive. Today its the exact same product IMO and costs about what it did then. But now as more and more enter the “i want a smart house” world the price has become acceptable. The problem with trying to make lighting control a cheap consumer product is that none of it works like the manual says it will out of the box. You might be able to get Lutron Homeworks online and a copy of the software but trying to have average joe or even internet savvy jim install it and program it is an efort in futility 99% of the time. You are not paying $150 for a light switch because the parts are worth $150. Your spending that much on a light switch because thats what it costs if you want it. Do you think that mcdonalds isnt marking up their burgers?

Cars & cell phones can be high-tech at a lower price because you dont get to customize anything. You get what they give you. You get an mp3 player, HD radio with a CD changer and an iPod dock. Go ahead and try and put a record player in there and have control of it from the knobs in the dash. People will adapt to a car or a phone and in some cases even their home. Control4 has built their business on a boxed set of features but even they understand the need for customization. I cant argue why someone would want to spend $1mil on a smarthouse. All i can say is that for $1mil your going to get a knock your socks off system from the company i work for. If you have the money why not spend it on something your going to enjoy?

The reason more wire is better is because wireless stuff works most of the time and wired stuff works all of the time. I have literally been hearing “its all going wireless” for 17 years now and what i can tell you is that 100% of the time a wired solution is better. There is no room for opinion here. In 17 years i havent had a single problem with a wired solution and probably 500+ problems with wireless products.

I think your assumption that the vanishing baby boomers spells the end of our industry is wrong but i agree that it will spell the end of the old hang and bang heres $500k worth of touchpanels. Those days of living on hardware sales are gone. But what everyone will soon realize is that the days of CI’s giving away labor in the form of system planning and programming and project managment are also over. So a $500 touchpanel doesnt mean your saving the client any money. What it means is that the CI now doesnt have to rely on hardware margin to stay in business.

I know all about the PC guys.. They are the ones who are having their clients kids accidentally uninstall the automation software. They are the ones eating thousands in labor gambling with an untested product. Heres the deal.. Things cost what they cost period. Im not talking about the DIY tech geek genius who programs his own system and builds his own speakers. Im talking about the general public.. the consumers. What im saying that from a business standpoint..you have to charge what things cost. And more importantly.. people spend what they spend. Just because a touchpanel is now $500 instead of $5000 doesnt mean $4500 stays in the bank. It means they go ahead and addin control of the shades and choose better speaker.

The iPad is a welcome piece of technology as far as im concerned. If it were $5000 i would still prefer it over a control system touchpanel. But its just a touchpanel in an integrated home with a distributed AV system. If your argument is that you dont need to watch all of your sources in all of your rooms thats fine. But that doesnt mean that someone else doesnt need/want that.

As far android.. I will admit it if i am ever proven wrong but IMO.. Android to mobile devices is Linux to the PC.. I dont care how powerful people think it is..or it actuall is.. It will join firewire in 5 years and be forgotten about. The ipod/iphone/ipad works because its locked down. Having a bunch if developers for software and hardware is why windows and the BSOD will be a running joke forever.

Your assuming all these technologies will go away and eveyrone will use one thing. Then how do you explain all of the different manufacturers/models/colors/options of cars and phones and TV’s? I understand where your assumptions are coming from. I remember when the palm pilot was going to put CEDIA out of business. I used to joke about the abandoned forum at remote central but now i cant because the forum isnt even there now. Right now it may seem like the CE products you have are all you need.. just wait 10 or 20 years when you have more money than time. Wait until your wife is tired of selecting 5 apps to get the TV on. Wait until your baby sitter forgets to leave iTunes running on the iMac. What CI’s do is integrate whatever you want so that it can all be controlled from one device. No 2 jobs are the same. Apple and Google cant survive in that space. If it could be done Best Buy would own the market. Their business model cant work in our industry and i dont see them trading their box moving business for spending christmas eve trying to finish the theater on a yacht in Europe so they can collect a check.

Why is there a battery gauge on the interface? Is this battery powered?