New look & feel, more personalization, better long term stability
Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter. Thank you on behalf of the entire VHT staff for your support over the years. We're happy that the fires are over, and to report that we had very few systems issues as a result of the outages. The holidays are upon us and we hope you all are looking forward to spending time with your families. Most of you are probably aware that Control4 has released a new Operating System, OS3 and we've installed it for some of you already. It's a big enough release that we thought we’d feature it in our latest newsletter. OS3 is Control4's most significant update and has a much different and more intuitive UI that allows you to:
• Put your most frequently used items on the main “dashboard” screen
• Configure different menus for each room in the house
• Set up background wallpaper with an actual picture of the room or any other image (very cool)
• Use icons for commonly used functions so they’re front & center on your phone or touch screen
• Hold-and-drag to add, arrange, remove your most used devices
• Set streaming or scenes as ‘favorites’
You can also consolidate devices from across your house into a single screen to view the status of your security, smart locks, shades or lights. OS3 icons represent individual states for devices, so you can instantly see if a door is locked, the fan is on, or the garage is open. See more at https://www.control4.com/os3/
And “Customizing room screens”: https://www.control4.com/os3/getting-the-most-out-of-os3/

Control4's OS3 release is pretty impressive. There are so many improvements to the look, control and access that the user experience has really been transformed.  Also the underlying code is more efficient so we expect it will be a more stable and better performing OS overall.  

Whether you are using an iPhone or a touchscreen, the new style is wonderful. You can put in your own background images for each screen at the touch of a button making navigating your smart home easier and more intuitive. It has bigger icons, more natural scrolling and logical screen setups for the handheld remote. 

We wanted to give OS3 some time to field-test and we’ve now had enough experience with it that we’re comfortable recommending it to most customers on a case by case basis.    

Upgrading to OS3 requires a system review to verify compatibility for the upgrade. Some older controllers, touch screens and other devices will need to be upgraded to support OS3. In some cases we can do the review over the phone and for more complex systems we’ll do a remote scan to view devices on your network and identify any hardware that may need to be upgraded.

The scan can be performed remotely but the actual OS3 update requires a technician site visit. For simple system updates the cost to upgrade starts at $399 including install and basic personalization.  

For folks who decide to upgrade to OS3, Control4 is offering a 15% discount on any Control4 products purchased for the upgrade. If you have older controllers that need to be upgraded or if you are considering adding any new devices to your system such as lighting control, thermostats or touch screens, now would be a great time to consider enhancing your system. Please call us if you'd like to plan your upgrade!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

The VHT team

New Control4 Neeo Remote

Next week we'll be doing an internal review of the new Control4 Neeo remote. Control4 has been overdue for a new remote and we've been waiting for a touch-screen version. That's what they've done and so far it looks great!

At a glance the Neeo has: 

• 3" high-resolution touch screen
• Prominently displays music streaming or TV source on touch screen
• Supports favorites through the OS3 interface
• Allows you to control most functions through the touch screen such as locking doors, turning on or off individual lights, activate lighting scenes
• Nice aluminum construction, silver or black finish
• Control4 claims easy install

As always, we want to test the remote before recommending it.  We've received some test units and will have more feedback shortly, stay tuned!

Control4 OS3 updates now available. If you’re interested in upgrading to OS3 please contact us at 925-828-8741 ext 2.