Control4 Smart Home OS 3 is designed to unify hundreds of connected devices within the home, control them all from a single platform, deliver the personalization homeowners want, and facilitate the professional support smart home technology needs. As the company explains, Control4 Smart Home OS 3 is the first Operating System that "can truly bridge mainstream by delivering familiar navigation, unprecedented functionality and modern iconography across all leading smart home devices to today’s homeowners."
The new version doesn’t abandon legacy systems but brings robust performance and new features and functions to the OS. This means that Control4 users can upgrade their systems today, but it also allows Control4 Dealers to offer a solution to every frustrated homeowner who walks in the door and complains they want to control their August Lock, My-Q garage door opener, RainBird sprinklers, Honeywell thermostat, Sony TV, Sonos music system, Lutron shades, or Vivint security system (just to name drop a few) all on the same platform.
Control4 OS 3 works with more than 13,500 devices and has another 7,500 products with Control4-SDDP software embedded. This means a local professional dealer can install an EA Controller and install Control4 OS 3 in an existing home with all these different devices – providing the user with a completely unified system.
Control4 Smart Home OS 3 was designed with a fluid, refined, and intuitive interface to provide one-touch control for favorite devices and scenes, at-a-glance views for security and lighting, one-touch music and video streaming, and more, all in a singular platform across Control4 and third-party products.
“The Control4 Smart Home OS is designed to remove complexity,” explains Control4 Senior Vice President of Products and Services Charlie Kindel. “Every home is a mix of products from a variety of companies, and Smart Home OS embraces this reality, providing broad choice rather than creating a collection of tiny walled gardens that limit homeowners.”
“For more than 15 years Control4 has held steadfast in the belief that meeting the expectation of a true smart home requires professional installation,” states Control4 Chairman and CEO Martin Plaehn. “We have relentlessly built a network of trained professionals, and today Control4 has more than 200 Control4 Certified Showrooms where consumers can walk in and experience OS 3. Control4 has nearly 6,000 Authorized Dealers, OS 3 leverages the talent and skill of tens of thousands of smart home pros around the world to install, update, and manage smart home technology for families.”
Among the Control4 Smart Home OS 3 highlights, users will now benefit from the possibility to define Favorites, a one-touch control to prioritize the devices for each room and the whole home. In a living room, the news station can be at the top of the app, where the over-island lights show up first in the kitchen view. Users can also assemble whole-home dashboards for at-a-glance views of the most vital devices from any room.
On the entertainment, OS 3 redefines multi-room control, making it easier to access the most popular streaming services with Active Media located at the top of the screen, and the all-new Sessions control that allows configuring any room and easily start a video stream. OS 3 also adds native support for streaming high-resolution audio in Control4 systems with the addition of MQA (Master Quality Audio). Now homeowners can stream better-than-CD quality music through TIDAL Masters and listen to their own MQA-encoded music collection.
The new OS 3 also expands the tools available for dealers and integrators, reducing repetitive tasks, and speed up deployment.
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