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Control
5 Things You Need to Know
About Control4 OS 3 Smart Home Operating System Upgrade Provides Fresh Look and User-Friendly Controls
By Dennis Burger and Jeremy Glowacki
It’s somewhat easy to look at the new Control4
Smart Home OS 3 and summarize it as a largely
cosmetic overhaul – at least at first glance. The
bold new look is, after all, the first thing that
catches your eye. For the first time since this
advanced home control and automation
platform hit the market a decade-and-a-half ago,
its user interface looks truly modern – forwardthinking,
even.
Honestly, if this sort of cosmetic coat of paint
was the beginning and end of Smart Home OS 3,
it would be a worthwhile (and long-needed)
redesign for Control4. But this fresh new look
and sexy new layout is literally just the surface of
what turns out to be a pretty massive re-jiggering
of how Control4 works – or at least of how the
homeowner interacts with the system.
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.
Here are the five most important things you
should know about Control4 Smart Home OS 3:
22 Residential Tech Today | July/August 2019
1) “Favorites” provide homeowners the
flexibility to prioritize the devices for each
room. When a device is Favorited, the
homeowner can bring virtually everything in the
home to the top of the room page in the mobile
app, touchscreen, and TV. Favorites provides
one-touch control, and homeowners can now see
whether the home is secure or lights are on
anywhere in the home without tapping. 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. Simply press and hold to
Favorite a device, service, scene, or playlist in any
room. Drag icons to reorganize or delete them
from the screen with a simple tap.
2) Homeowners can personalize their
system. 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. The system, however, can
be tailored by the end-user by editing or creating
smart home scenes, setting schedules to automate
devices, and modifying how devices interact.
Users can even set a different “wallpaper”
background for every room screen.
3) OS 3 reimagines multi-room
entertainment. With OS 3, you can share your
music throughout the home with the ease of onetouch
access to the most popular streaming
services. Music and video take a prominent
position with Active Media located at the top of
the screen, showing music controls, and track
details right at the front. The all-new Sessions
feature allows a homeowner to easily add or
remove rooms and adjust the volume everywhere
or within a single room. OS 3 also adds native
support for streaming high-resolution audio in
Control4 systems with the addition of MQA
(Master Quality Authenticated).
4) Advanced security system management.
With unified lock management, lock users and
PINs are now easily managed through OS 3 for
all locks (with no need to create and edit users for
each lock). Create a user, assign a PIN and a
schedule, and apply the changes to all locks
installed in the home.
5) Coordinated shade control. New blinds
and shade options include more than 350 new
icons that represent the wide variety of ways
window coverings operate, letting users easily see
all shades that are open and, with one button
press, close them across the house. x
(Above) Control4 Smart Home OS 3 now allows a user
to arrange and remove favorites. (Center Top) This is
how OS 3 scales to the TV screen. (Center Bottom) A
Family Room view on this touch screen showcases
one of the new custom background options. (Right)
The Music Sessions view on a mobile device.