• Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum

    This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.

    It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.

    This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
    For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com

  • You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.

    The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....

    ... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.

    Benefits of registering for a full account:

    • Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
    • Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
    • Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
    • You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

Josh.ai

Its still in testing but could be working on your system
let me know if you have any issues. It is not officially released yet
 
Congrats Bauer, you might be the first to experience Josh deep linking Kaleidescape! It worked here also. I understand meta data is coming soon. Would be super cool to see the video in the app when you press "video" But for now lets be happy with cover art and meta data
 
I am thinking about trying this in one room.

My use case is simply to control K, Apple TV, Roon, Lutron Lights & Hunter Douglas Shades in one room. I have Control 4 for this room and want to add spice capability.

What would be the approximate cost for one room?
 
If only wish to use for one room only would be likely $500 for the unit and then the dealer can provide you with the licensing information for costing. My info is dated for my install (2 years ago) and have a 5 year license for 20 zones and 6 Josh end devices so wouldn't want to approximate a guess for a single room.
 
Eventually I will need this in 5 rooms but want to test waters with one room. Thanks for the feedback.
good deal - did same for master bedroom and then quickly expanded. Ended up removing and selling 5 of my 6 Control4 T3 Touchscreens since I barely used them and was using Josh commands dozens of times per day.
 
Very cool demo with Josh.ai and Kaleidescape using voice on the remotes from CEDIA Demo this morning. It's about 3-4 minutes in on their IG page

 
Anyone have Josh Core in their setup? I am using a few Micros combined with a Control4 setup around my apartment. Sometimes it is instant fast but sometimes there is a second or two delay in executing commands. I believe the processing happens in a remote server and the reaction times vary based on the latency and busyness in the internet (potentially on their servers too). They don’t say much about Josh Core other than it has faster processing power and it is a centralized controller for Nanos. Does it also relay speeches to Josh.Ai servers and wait for a response to execute commands or it has the ability to process speech internally? Anyone used Micros alone and then combined with Core+Micro (or Nano)? Was there any speed or capability difference?
 
With my Control4 system, I started off with just the Micros for about a year (3 total) and then added 2 Nano's to my home. In my installation the speed and action is immediate on about 90% of the commands. The other 10% is split between Josh system not recognizing my voice commands (guess it's my accent!) and the others when the system locks up. The latter has happened 3 times in approximately 14 months. Each time I just perform a restart thru the portal and it takes about 30 seconds for the units to come online. Two of the cases were issues with my network switch. The other was uncertain but did provide the info to support (which responds within 10-15 minutes maximum in my experience) to troubleshoot and the integrator made some adjustments that resolved the issue. I'm not sure if I've noticed a much faster response time, but on vary rare occasions I've had a latency issue; none of which warranted further investigating
 
With my Control4 system, I started off with just the Micros for about a year (3 total) and then added 2 Nano's to my home. In my installation the speed and action is immediate on about 90% of the commands. The other 10% is split between Josh system not recognizing my voice commands (guess it's my accent!) and the others when the system locks up. The latter has happened 3 times in approximately 14 months. Each time I just perform a restart thru the portal and it takes about 30 seconds for the units to come online. Two of the cases were issues with my network switch. The other was uncertain but did provide the info to support (which responds within 10-15 minutes maximum in my experience) to troubleshoot and the integrator made some adjustments that resolved the issue. I'm not sure if I've noticed a much faster response time, but on vary rare occasions I've had a latency issue; none of which warranted further investigating
This is great feedback. I would say I have about the same statistics with my similar to yours system. I realized I was not very clear on my post. I wanted to know about the reaction time between from when Josh acknowledges your speech and the command action occurs. For example, I say “OK, Josh, turn on the lamp”, Josh replies “ done” then it takes sometimes less than a second for the lamp to turn on but sometimes there is a delay of up to 3 seconds.

If I execute the exact same command on Control4 app on my iPhone or Touch Screen Tablet, the action occurs instantly so I know it is not Control4 Core 5 controller delaying the process.

I have a rock solid fiber internet with 2.5G up/down speeds on my Unifi setup with 10/20G trunk between 2.5G/10G L2/L3 switches. I even applied some networking tricks to bypass the AT&T modem. The latency is less than 3ms to most sites.

I tried some experiments with my Josh Micro. I purposely blocked its IP address for external communnications to see what it can do without the internet although it is still connected to my Control4 system. My point was if it had any internal speech and control processing capabilities, it shouldn’t need the internet to execute a simple command like switching the lights on in a given room. Unsurprisingly, Josh Micro would respond to the wake up word (Hey, Josh or Ok, Josh) but then complain that there is no internet connectivity to understand and execute my commands.

This makes sense. They wanted the Micro to acknowledge the wake word without any delay so this happens locally on the Micro’s controller but anything beyond needs to go out to the Josh.Ai server (in who knows where) to process and come back as executable commands for the Control4 controller. This is pretty much how I would design it too. This way Micros/Nanos are small, cheap and energy efficient.

Nevertheless, I am curious about Josh Core and where it stands. Does it give any performance increases or it simply adds audio outputs to Nanos (Mic only) through a central matrix switch?.
 
My reaction time has been instant for the vast majority of time for the action command to carry out.

For the Micro's their response verbally of confirming the action I just saw has also been instantaneous the vast majority of time. So for specifics if I say turn off lights in my kitchen thru the Micro action (turning off the lights) happens immediately and the voice response happens about 1 second after that - assuming time taken for speaking back the action.

For the Nano's, it has been the same mostly. We have not noticed a noticeable speed difference in the action (turning of lights) but have on occasion had delays in the voice response from the command action coming thru the speakers in the room. First there was a delay we removed in Control4 Composer and then we were advised by Josh to turn off the wake beep for the Nano's. This change was made because when I'd say a command it would take 1-2 seconds for the beep to happen and it would jumble up what I was saying while beeping. We then turned off the beep and that problem completely went away. We didn't have the wake beep enabled on the Micros so following suit with the Nano's resolved.

In both cases the acknowledge indicator light ring has always lit up as soon as I've said a command. There are a few zones where we don't have the duck feature enabled (ones with video and audio) so it may not hear it initially or unless I'm within 8-10 feet of the device. For rooms with just audio, the light ring comes on immediately, duck takes place, and response is immediate.

I'm sure Josh would advertise the speed of the processor in the Core aiding a faster response time but since we've done the above items we don't notice the difference. If you have a local integrator it may be useful to see if they have a demo unit to run some time studies to compare. In our use case we just wanted to get more use since we had C4 T3 touchscreens that seldom were used. We use Josh verbal commands at least 40-5 times per day.
 
Curious, what is your delay when using the Josh App to control a C4 light?
 
My reaction time has been instant for the vast majority of time for the action command to carry out.

For the Micro's their response verbally of confirming the action I just saw has also been instantaneous the vast majority of time. So for specifics if I say turn off lights in my kitchen thru the Micro action (turning off the lights) happens immediately and the voice response happens about 1 second after that - assuming time taken for speaking back the action.

For the Nano's, it has been the same mostly. We have not noticed a noticeable speed difference in the action (turning of lights) but have on occasion had delays in the voice response from the command action coming thru the speakers in the room. First there was a delay we removed in Control4 Composer and then we were advised by Josh to turn off the wake beep for the Nano's. This change was made because when I'd say a command it would take 1-2 seconds for the beep to happen and it would jumble up what I was saying while beeping. We then turned off the beep and that problem completely went away. We didn't have the wake beep enabled on the Micros so following suit with the Nano's resolved.

In both cases the acknowledge indicator light ring has always lit up as soon as I've said a command. There are a few zones where we don't have the duck feature enabled (ones with video and audio) so it may not hear it initially or unless I'm within 8-10 feet of the device. For rooms with just audio, the light ring comes on immediately, duck takes place, and response is immediate.

I'm sure Josh would advertise the speed of the processor in the Core aiding a faster response time but since we've done the above items we don't notice the difference. If you have a local integrator it may be useful to see if they have a demo unit to run some time studies to compare. In our use case we just wanted to get more use since we had C4 T3 touchscreens that seldom were used. We use Josh verbal commands at least 40-5 times per day.
Again, very valuable feedback. Thank you. We don’t use the Touch Controllers and even the light switches anymore either. We almost bought Control4 Halo remotes for some rooms but since Josh there is no need.
 
Curious, what is your delay when using the Josh App to control a C4 light?
I will try this next time Josh is slow. Like I said most times it is instant.

I would say these delays occurs in prime times in the evening when the internet is busy. I live near Los Angeles. Although my local network setup and my ISP on paper is solid, the internet traffic here could be congested in those hours.
 
i bought 3 Halo non-touch units to replace the crappy NEEO units. So far really enjoying them as well. Use almost solely for channel surfing on DirecTV and streaming. May get the Halo Touch for guest rooms to replace those burned out NEEO units since those just need a remote for streaming and guests are used to remotes. Loved the SR260's but mine are very old (8 years) and only have 1 functioning unit left
 
Curious, what is your delay when using the Josh App to control a C4 light?
no physical delay in turning off the light. just sometimes (almost only thru the Nano) the response to state that the light is turned off is sometimes delayed but speaking in terms of maybe 3 seconds later as opposed to 1 second after i'm done speaking my command. I'm super nitpicking at this point!
 
I am far from a Josh expert, but I thought part of the appeal of a Josh.ai system is that it was supposed to locally process everything and not communicate with the cloud. Maybe that is a delta in the offerings that are being discussed above. I had always heard Josh was the privacy focused home assistant solution.
 
I am far from a Josh expert, but I thought part of the appeal of a Josh.ai system is that it was supposed to locally process everything and not communicate with the cloud. Maybe that is a delta in the offerings that are being discussed above. I had always heard Josh was the privacy focused home assistant solution.
I think they mean they don’t sell your information like Google and Amazon do.

From a privacy protection point of view, there is no difference whether your information is processed locally in the Micro/Core or in remote Josh.Ai servers, as long as they are connected to the Internet. Both can be attacked and both can be hacked. You probably have better odds in the Josh.Ai servers because of their higher processing power and enterprise grade cyber security protections against these cyber attacks.

If one day, they change their policy and decide to sell your information, there is a mechanical disconnect switch for the microphone on the Nano to cut it off. You are SOL with Micro because its microphone disconnect is software controlled. In this day and age with smart everything that is constantly collecting data from your smart car to smart elevator at your work, one less microphone in your life won’t make a big difference. Let’s hope that big brother will use all this information for good use for humanity.
 
My C4 Programmer refused to sell me Josh AI without the core. I am delaying to implement this till my media room is built.
 
Josh works great in my home. I first started with several micros and have since added in the core and nanos. I have noticed an increase in response. I don’t think we are there yet with locally processing voice commands. Also keep in mind you cannot have the nano without the core. If you just want to try it out, start with the micro.

I also have the new halo remotes and the voice control of apple is instant. We will soon see halo voice control of josh so we will be able to use the halo for whole house voice control.
 
Back
Top