Slingbox Driver for Control4 Wasn’t Easy

Control4 now has a Slingbox driver and it wasn't easy.

The driver was built by integration firm CytexOne, which runs c4forums.com.

"We have many clients that live in multiple homes, especially out of the country and they wanted a Slingbox so they could watch their cable box from overseas," says Cytex principal Dan Levine. "We wanted to kick it up a notch by giving them access to their entire system."

So what's so interesting about that?

Already you can access Control4 (and virtually any respectable home control system) from a remote location ... with this caveat: "You can remotely control the lighting, temperature, alarm and cameras," says Levine, "but not the A/V devices."

So why integrate Control4 with Slingbox? Why not just use Slingbox to access content remotely? That, after all, is the purpose of the box.

For starters, it's pretty handy that consumers can access their home -- lights, security and content -- remotely through a single familiar Control4 interface.

Furthermore, with Slingbox users can only access one or two devices.

"They may have five cable boxes," says Levine.

OK, so what's the big deal about another driver?

Slingbox is controlled via IR and Control4 doesn't do IR. They do ZigBee RF.

"Normally, you send them [Slingbox developer Sling Media] the remote and they copy the IR codes," Levine says. "Control4 doesn't put out any IR codes."

So Cytex converted the Control4 remote codes to hex and hounded Slingbox to implement them into the Slingbox products. Slingbox relented.

The Slingbox driver is free of charge via the Cytex Web site.