I'll separate this into three basic parts: Control4 in general, Control4 with KScape, and my experience with Magnolia.
Control4 in general:
We recently completed the build and moved into our new house. I knew that I wanted to go all-in with whole-home media and home automation with this house. I had extensive pre-wiring done by the builder, however installation of any kind of systems was left to be done after the fact due to incredibly high markup by my builder's low-voltage partner. My background is in IT systems engineering, so I enjoy working on challenges like "build a home media and automation system." I looked very heavily into building my own solution - sourcing speakers, audio/video matrices, sources, A/V control, lighting control, lock and security integration, etc. I found that every open source or DIY commercial solution was lacking in one way or another. So I considered building my own "control plane" to integrate hubs, standalone devices, inputs, outputs, etc.
I put a lot of effort into researching and planning what would be required to pull it off. It got to the point where I realized the amount of time it would take to build and implement such a solution was prohibitive. The alternative is something like Control4, RTI, Savant, Crestron, etc. I hated the idea of being dependent on a dealer to update my system. If I decided I wanted the theater lights at 40% during intermission, rather than 60%, I wanted to be able to make that change myself. If I buy a new XBox for my man cave, I don't want to have to wait for someone to roll a truck to install it - I want to plug in the HDMI cable and start playing!
Control4 is the best possible compromise. They are unique in making available the "home edition" of their programming software. It's the same software that dealers use to program your system, with a few things removed: you can't add or remove devices from the project, and you can't add or remove the physical connections that the system is aware of between devices. There are a few other small things, but that's the majority of the limits. With ComposerHE, I have been able to program my own lighting scenes, create macros to be run when a wall switch is tapped, add custom buttons to the navigators to run my macros, etc. So if you are like me, a technology enthusiast who wants as much access to the system as possible, Control4 is the best by far of any of the commercially available systems.
As far as the hardware goes, it has been rock solid since the system was installed about 4 months ago. It has a very high wife acceptance factor. I am very happy with my decision.
Control4 with Kscape:
Control4 uses "drivers" to define how to control devices throughout the home. There are two drivers available for Kaleidescape in the Control4 ecosystem. One is a free driver provided by Control4 itself. This driver allows you to use the Control4 remote controls as a universal remote with your K-player, and to do basic-to-moderate automation. Dim the lights when you press play, that kind of thing. (I can post a full list of hooks if you care.)
There is a third-party driver, for which there is an additional charge, that really opens up a ton of options. It pulls your full movie list into the Control4 ecosystem, so the same remote/tablet/OSD has a full list of the movies in your K, and you can play directly from them without any fuss. It exposes a ton of additional events you can program off of. So now, my theater works like this:
Magnolia:
The Magnolia experience has been quite good, though not perfect. I interviewed 2 other dealers before selecting Magnolia. In a nutshell, the people doing the work are incredible. The consultant I work with directly is very helpful, though he often needs to get approval or coordinate with other elements in Magnolia (managers, technicians, etc.) and that is sometimes problematic - I have to stay on top of that or else things fall through the cracks. The pricing was kind of opaque. They charged me exactly what my budget was. Am I happy with the result? Absolutely. Could I have paid less for the exact same amount of kit by going through another dealer? I don't really know. The experience is very much oriented to non-technical people who expect to contract for a service. The service costs a fixed price, and how much of that they spend on materials vs. labor vs. profit is none of your concern.
A good analogy is this: If you go to buy a car you see the sticker and you know the base price, and how much each option is, and you can total it up to get the MSRP. Imagine instead, you walk into the dealership and the salesman says "how much do you want to spend?" You tell him a price, and some basic requirements (4 doors, safe, large cargo space, leather seats) and he says "ah, here's the car for you." On the window is a price tag, not itemized, but just the price. It's exactly what you intended to spend. You test drive the car, it's great, you're happy... but did you get a good deal?
Magnolia did the installation of 17 zones of speakers (mostly in-ceiling, some in-wall or free-standing), 8 video zones, all the Control4 gear, integrated my DirecTV and AppleTV boxes, set up two home theaters, and programmed everything including about 25 light switches, without me lifting a finger. A Control4 system is only as good as the programming, and mine is complex. I'm happy I had experienced and skilled Control4 programmers to set everything up. And the few times that something has gone wonky it's been nice to send an email and not even try to troubleshoot it myself. It's very different for me to go hands-off, but it's refreshing.
Wow... that was probably 1000% more information than you expected. Let me know if there's anything you'd like more detail on.
Control4 in general:
We recently completed the build and moved into our new house. I knew that I wanted to go all-in with whole-home media and home automation with this house. I had extensive pre-wiring done by the builder, however installation of any kind of systems was left to be done after the fact due to incredibly high markup by my builder's low-voltage partner. My background is in IT systems engineering, so I enjoy working on challenges like "build a home media and automation system." I looked very heavily into building my own solution - sourcing speakers, audio/video matrices, sources, A/V control, lighting control, lock and security integration, etc. I found that every open source or DIY commercial solution was lacking in one way or another. So I considered building my own "control plane" to integrate hubs, standalone devices, inputs, outputs, etc.
I put a lot of effort into researching and planning what would be required to pull it off. It got to the point where I realized the amount of time it would take to build and implement such a solution was prohibitive. The alternative is something like Control4, RTI, Savant, Crestron, etc. I hated the idea of being dependent on a dealer to update my system. If I decided I wanted the theater lights at 40% during intermission, rather than 60%, I wanted to be able to make that change myself. If I buy a new XBox for my man cave, I don't want to have to wait for someone to roll a truck to install it - I want to plug in the HDMI cable and start playing!
Control4 is the best possible compromise. They are unique in making available the "home edition" of their programming software. It's the same software that dealers use to program your system, with a few things removed: you can't add or remove devices from the project, and you can't add or remove the physical connections that the system is aware of between devices. There are a few other small things, but that's the majority of the limits. With ComposerHE, I have been able to program my own lighting scenes, create macros to be run when a wall switch is tapped, add custom buttons to the navigators to run my macros, etc. So if you are like me, a technology enthusiast who wants as much access to the system as possible, Control4 is the best by far of any of the commercially available systems.
As far as the hardware goes, it has been rock solid since the system was installed about 4 months ago. It has a very high wife acceptance factor. I am very happy with my decision.
Control4 with Kscape:
Control4 uses "drivers" to define how to control devices throughout the home. There are two drivers available for Kaleidescape in the Control4 ecosystem. One is a free driver provided by Control4 itself. This driver allows you to use the Control4 remote controls as a universal remote with your K-player, and to do basic-to-moderate automation. Dim the lights when you press play, that kind of thing. (I can post a full list of hooks if you care.)
There is a third-party driver, for which there is an additional charge, that really opens up a ton of options. It pulls your full movie list into the Control4 ecosystem, so the same remote/tablet/OSD has a full list of the movies in your K, and you can play directly from them without any fuss. It exposes a ton of additional events you can program off of. So now, my theater works like this:
- When I walk into the theater I 'double tap' the top of the first light switch in the hallway. This tells Control4 to run a macro that sets all the lights in the theater (4 distinct circuits) to the "seating time" levels.
- I'll sit down in my chair and use the Control4 app on a tablet to browse the list of movies on my K and pick one. I tap the movie.
- Control4 turns on my projector, AVR, and Strato. The movie automatically begins playing.
- The Strato tells Control4 what the aspect ratio of the film it is playing is. Control4 then executes a series of commands to zoom the projector to a preset and mask the screen to meet the movie format. (I have a Scope screen).
- Control4 listens for a "opening credits" event that the Strato sends, and once it gets it the lights dim to the "take your seats" level. (This usually happens 5-10 seconds into the opening credits)
- Control4 listens for a "main feature" event and then turns off the lights the rest of the way.
- My Control4 remote has a button mapped to intermission mode, when I push it Control4 sets the Strato into intermission mode, and slowly ramps up the main theater lights to about 40%.
- When the movie is over, the Strato sends an "end credits" event to Control4, which then sets the lights (except the lights that are right in front of the screen) to 80% over 120 seconds. (This usually fires about 10-15 seconds after the movie fades to black and the credits start rolling.)
- When the movie is over-over, the Strato natively exits out to the cover art OSD, and Control4 sees this happens and turns all the lights on to 100%.
Magnolia:
The Magnolia experience has been quite good, though not perfect. I interviewed 2 other dealers before selecting Magnolia. In a nutshell, the people doing the work are incredible. The consultant I work with directly is very helpful, though he often needs to get approval or coordinate with other elements in Magnolia (managers, technicians, etc.) and that is sometimes problematic - I have to stay on top of that or else things fall through the cracks. The pricing was kind of opaque. They charged me exactly what my budget was. Am I happy with the result? Absolutely. Could I have paid less for the exact same amount of kit by going through another dealer? I don't really know. The experience is very much oriented to non-technical people who expect to contract for a service. The service costs a fixed price, and how much of that they spend on materials vs. labor vs. profit is none of your concern.
A good analogy is this: If you go to buy a car you see the sticker and you know the base price, and how much each option is, and you can total it up to get the MSRP. Imagine instead, you walk into the dealership and the salesman says "how much do you want to spend?" You tell him a price, and some basic requirements (4 doors, safe, large cargo space, leather seats) and he says "ah, here's the car for you." On the window is a price tag, not itemized, but just the price. It's exactly what you intended to spend. You test drive the car, it's great, you're happy... but did you get a good deal?
Magnolia did the installation of 17 zones of speakers (mostly in-ceiling, some in-wall or free-standing), 8 video zones, all the Control4 gear, integrated my DirecTV and AppleTV boxes, set up two home theaters, and programmed everything including about 25 light switches, without me lifting a finger. A Control4 system is only as good as the programming, and mine is complex. I'm happy I had experienced and skilled Control4 programmers to set everything up. And the few times that something has gone wonky it's been nice to send an email and not even try to troubleshoot it myself. It's very different for me to go hands-off, but it's refreshing.
Wow... that was probably 1000% more information than you expected. Let me know if there's anything you'd like more detail on.