Control4, a popular home automation system, can be used to control CasaTunes whole house music systems and streamers.
CasaTunes provides out-of--thebox support for Control4, including support for SDDP discovery and support for the latest Media Server Proxy (MSP) protocol.
The CasaTunes drivers for Control4 support all CasaTunes CT systems, legacy CasaTunes XLi/e based systems, and CasaTunes systems configured for use with third party audio matrix switches, like those from Audio Authority, ChannelVision, HAI/Leviton, Nuvo, Russound, RTI, and SpeakerCraft.
In addition, you can configure your CasaTunes CT music server to operate as a multistream music player. In this mode, you can use your CasaTunes streamer with any other Control4 supported AV switches, whether these are from Control4, or from other vendors whose switches are supported by Control4.
This approach provides installers with maximum flexibility, allowing installers to install a complete CasaTunes solution, or if working in a retrofit situation, it allows installers to add the powerful CasaTunes multistream music player to existing installations.
Integration is provided via several Control4 drivers. The CasaTunes AV Switch driver (CT_AVSwitch.c4i) controls the CasaTunes software or hardware matrix switch (depending on the CasaTunes hardware installed), allows switching any input to any output, powering a room on or off, and controlling the room volume.
The CasaTunes MSP Player driver (CTMSPPlayerX.c4z) allows you to stream disc based music, Internet radio and other Internet based music services. You can configure as many CasaTunes MSP Players as you have CasaTunes Media Player sources (as shown in CasaSetup in the Sources tab). For example, a CT-Plus-2/3/4/5/6 music server offers 2/3/4/5/6 streams respectively. The CasaTunes MSP Player driver implements the latest Control4 MSP Proxy.
The CasaTunes solution for Control4 adds many significant new capabilities to a Control4 installation, including:
These steps assume you have already installed your CasaTunes system and it is properly configured and running stand alone.
Download the CasaTunes drivers for Control4 on to the same PC you use to run Composer Pro to configure your Control4 project. The Control4 drivers for CasaTunes are available from the downloads page on the CasaTunes web site. This page can be found at:
https://www.casatunes.com/downloads
Unzip and copy the drivers in to your Control4 Drivers folder. Start Composer Pro, and if you installed the drivers correctly, Composer Pro will automatically discover the installed CasaTunes components using SDDP.
CasaTunes supports the Control4 SDDP protocol, simplifying the setup and configuration of your CasaTunes components in Control4. Using SDDP, all CasaTunes devices are automatically discovered and their IP network address are automatically resolved and configured. SDDP automatically downloads the CasaTunes drivers from the Control4 online driver database.
To use the SDDP capability, select the Discovered tab in the Control4 Composer Pro application. The Discovered tab displays all the discovered CasaTunes components available. There will be an entry for the CasaTunes AV Switch as well as an entry for each CasaTunes MSP Player.
In Composer, select the room where you would like to install the CasaTunes AV switch and double click on the discovered CasaTunes AV Switch. It will automatically add the AV switch to the selected room. You can rename the switch if desired.
Now add each CasaTunes MSP Player (Type: Media Service) to the project.
Once you have added the CasaTunes AV switch and players, the Properties tab for each driver will be updated with the IP address of your CasaTunes music server, and the CasaTunes Status should now reflect the driver is successfully connected
The CasaTunes AV Switch driver requires a CasaTunes music server to function. Control of all CasaTunes and third party matrices (or audio distribution systems), as well as SDDP discovery, is provided by the CasaTunes music server.
In Composer, select System Design and select the player to configure. The Source ID property specifies the number of the Audio In connection on the AV Switch you should connect this player to.
Now switch to the Connections and for each Player connect the AUDIO_OUT for the player to the appropriate input on the AV Switch.
You can configure your CasaTunes music server as a streamer which allows it to work with other 3rd party AV switches that are supported by Control4.
To configure your CasaTunes music server as a streamer:
If you are using a CasaTunes Music Server and the Matrix Amplifier settings is configured as a CasaTunes CT matrix (where the matrix switching is performed internally in the music server), then you can connect other third party audio or music source components using External Inputs (if available).
First make sure you have configured these external input sources for your CasaTunes CT matrix using the CasaTunesX App, by navigating to MENU > Settings > System Setup > Sources, and configuring each External Input Source. Typically, you will configure the Source Type for these sources as an Unsupported Source.
Next, configure the external inputs for the AV Switch in Composer Pro.
For example, suppose you wanted to feed the audio output of your Control4 Home Controller into a CasaTunes CT matrix external input source. To configure this, follow these steps:
Now when you select to listen to music in a room from your Control4 Home Controller in a CasaTunes room, it will automatically switch the room to the associated external input source.
The CasaTunes AV Switch includes several Var Audio Out x and Var Room x connections to support playing to wireless speakers and CasaTunes room groups. These Variable Audio Out/Rooms require you configure the connection as well as the "Var Room x Name" Property in Composer Pro.
Example: Suppose you want to add a wireless speaker called WIRELESS1 in the CasaTunesX App to the area called Pool in your Composer Pro Project. To configure this:
You can program CasaTunes commands using the Macro and Scheduler Agents in Control4.
You can schedule Control4 to wake up to music, by scheduling to play a CasaTunes Featured Item, CasaTunes Playlist or a playlist from a specific Music Service.
In this example, we will create a Daily scheduler event that will play the Easy Listening CasaTunes playlist using Player1 every morning in the Master Bedroom at 8:00 am.
We start by creating a Scheduler Event:
Next, configure the Playlist to play on Player1:
The final step is to select the room where you want to play the Playlist using Player1:
A CasaTunes Smart Task is a task that contains one or more actions. Actions include; playing music, controlling rooms, controlling music, playing chimes, converting text messages into playable audio, and adding a timed or scheduled delay. Using these basic building blocks, one can construct some very sophisticated tasks.
The first step is to create your CasaTunes Smart Tasks using the CasaTunesX App. Note: You can only run unattended tasks (or tasks that do not require user input) from Control4.
For this example, let us assume you created a TTS (text-to-speech) notification task, called "Back Door Opened" that is run to notify you when the back door has been opened. Now let's create a Macro to invoke this task. You can then trigger to run this macro when you get a security event.
Let's start by creating a Macro:
Next, configure the Task to run:
Now to execute the CasaTunes Smart Task just execute the associated Control4 macro.
You can select any CasaTunes MSP player to run a task. The CasaTunes Task specifies the actual player to use (if any).
The following properties are displayed in Composer Pro in the Properties tab for the CT_AVSwitch.c4i driver:
The following properties are displayed in Composer in the Properties tab for the CTMSPPlayerXX.c4z drivers:
