Control4 and Home Automation

by Awake31337

I work for a small business as a home AV installer.

I install mainly home theaters, whole home audio systems with Nuvo, and home automation with Control4.  This article is mainly going to be on Control4; how it works, being creative with it, and some personal fears I have of it.

Control4 basically is bringing the idea of the "smart home" into a nice little affordable box.  It's easy to add on because much of it is wireless.  It uses IR (infrared), Wi-Fi, and Zigbee, as well as Ethernet and RS-232.  These types of connections are what give a user the control over various systems.  These include home security, IP cameras and webcams, TVs, Blu-ray/DVD players, surround sound receivers, lighting, sprinkler systems, motorized gates, intercom systems, heating and A/C, and many others.  Some of the newest items to be controlled by Control4 are ovens and refrigerators.  You can imagine how fun those types of connections can be in the wrong hands...

If you seem lost, think of it this way.

You come home and you use your iPad to turn on the lights, set the heating and A/C, and start a movie on the TV.  All of these things are done automatically with preset buttons on the iPad, including the lights dimming, the TV, surround sound, and cable box turning themselves on and setting the right input.  You put a roast in the oven, go and watch TV, and suddenly a message pops up on your screen telling you the roast is finished.  This is just one of many examples of what these systems are used for.

First, you have the controller.  The basic model is the HC-200 which starts out at around $300-$400.  They have four IR outputs (IR remote to control mainly TV and AV equipment), Zigbee (wireless connection between devices, much like Bluetooth), Ethernet, stereo mini-jack input, component (RGB) video output, USB (for flash drives or Control4 Wi-Fi adapter), and stereo RCA outputs.  The controller is basically the main piece in a Control4 system.  The HC-200 can share music from a PC or media device on your network and play them on your TV or stereo system, actually listing them as they play.  It is capable of showing the local weather as well as weather alerts.  It can be controlled by an iPad, iPod, iPhone, Android, PC or laptop, Control4 RF remote, Control4 touchscreen remote, or an in-wall touchscreen remote.  The HC-200 includes downloadable apps (like everything else these days) and is upgradable.  Note that it can be used with or without Internet access.  However, you lose a lot of those features if you choose to go without Internet.

The HC-300 and above tend to be for larger projects and include other connections such as control over relays.  One thing I recently researched for a customer was how to adapt the relay output to a "squirrel catapult."  We actually were able to design a catapult that could be used remotely from the customer's laptop while he was out of town, complete with webcam so he could see the squirrel fly through the air as he was launching it, and record a video of it.

To control the heating, A/C, lights, and so on, you must purchase adapters.  The Control4 switches and dimmers replace the current ones, and the Control4 thermostat replaces the standard.  There are even outlet adapters to turn on lamps and so on.  We have lately had a lot of customers who rent houses or have cabins at the beach who are interested in remotely seeing what their guests have set the thermostats at and if they left any lights on for fear of their power bill being too high.  Obviously, they also have control over those things regardless of whether a guest is there or not.

A lot of the new theater receivers and tuners now are being controlled through Control4 over Ethernet on the network instead of your basic IR.  This provides two-way communication between the equipment and the controller, which means the controller knows what you're listening to or what source is on.

If Control4 is being installed at your house, the installer will have a laptop or something to program the controller.  Everything must be set up on a computer using a program called Control4 Composer.  From here, we can download or alter drivers for each piece of equipment that is being controlled.  We also use it to identify Zigbee and Wi-Fi connections to the equipment.  Composer also comes with the ability to program schemes.  For instance, I can have the lights dim when I play a movie, and, if I pause or hit stop, they will brighten back up.

All of this sounds pretty cool until you think of the security risk this imposes on the owners.  For instance, the installer program is not available to the public, regardless of whether the customer who paid for it all wants it to mess with.  The Composer program can be used to make changes remotely.  You don't even have to be in the customer's house to make changes to their Control4.  In fact, they would probably never know if you did make changes...

So let's say an idiot is out there who is just smart enough to be dangerous when it comes to hacking.  If he was able to get the software, login, and password to a home with Control4, you could just imagine the chaos he could cause in a household.

Remember the movie Hackers?  How the movie portrayed the character Dade Murphy hacking into the sprinkler system in the high school to get revenge on Kate Libby?  Today, if she had a complete Control4 system in her home, he could have waited until it was dark, turned off the lights in the house, turned the TV to something like Nightmare on Elm Street, turned the volume up, and locked the doors to the house.  If she started to turn the lights back on and change the channel, he could have easily turned it all back.  He could have even made a custom message pop up on her TV screen, or (assuming she had security cameras on the network) actually watched her from his computer.  Sound farfetched?  There are already such videos on YouTube of husbands playing pranks on their wives and so on using a laptop.

With that said, I want to make it clear that this article is a warning and is not an instruction manual on how to scare the crap out of someone, stalk someone, or, in any way, invade their privacy.  Being an installer, I can't state this openly or I could be out of a job.  I feel that when you decide to connect to the Internet, you're opening up a doorway to your computer or cell phone.  When Control4 or any other home automation is connected to the Internet, you're basically opening a doorway for someone to have control over the appliances and equipment in your home.
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