Everything You Need to Know About Control4's Exciting OS 3 Update

Your home control system is the centerpiece of your smart home. It’s what keeps your various devices talking to each and helps them work together better. It’s exciting news, then, that Control4 has a free update for their customers in the form of OS 3.

With OS 3, Control4 aims to completely transform the experience of managing your smart home. The controls are easier and more intuitive, there are more ways to customize your system to your liking, there are new music streaming options, and so much more. Here’s a sampling of what a Control4 smart home with OS 3 can do for Lexington, KY, residents.

SEE ALSO: Check Out Our Library of Control4 Tutorial Videos!

MORE PERSONALIZATION

Every smart home is unique, so your control system should reflect your personal preferences as well as how you want to use your devices. With OS 3, it’s easier than ever to tweak your control interface to meet your specific requirements.

For starters, you can now select an image from a library of preloaded wallpapers for every room in your house, or you can upload your own pictures. These images make seeing which room you’re interacting with much simpler. Furthermore, if you use wall panels, you can help them blend in with your interior décor by using a picture of the surrounding wall as your background.

The most significant change in terms of customization, though, is the new Favorites system. You can now assign favorite rooms or favorite activities to your home screen and access them in seconds. You can also add, remove and rearrange the icons on your device, which eliminates clutter and grants you easier access to your most commonly used apps. Favorites are also unique to individual devices so that you can have certain favorites on your phone and different selections on a remote, wall panel, etc.

SIMPLER, MORE INTUITIVE CONTROLS

The Favorites system is just one way OS 3 has made controlling the devices in your home simpler. Anything you’ve chosen as a favorite can be accessed from your home screen, including your security system, speakers , lights and shades. OS 3 also adds sliders for volume control as well as more refined gesture controls for things like your cable or satellite TV guide.

Speaking of volume control, OS 3 greatly simplifies the process of controlling media in any room. Once you’ve selected a room, an Active Media bar will instantly show you what’s playing and let you control the volume, switch tracks or see the quality of the music being played.

At a more macro level, the new Sessions system lets you see and control media throughout the house. You can adjust the volume in individual rooms or system-wide; add or remove rooms from different media Sessions; or turn specific devices on and off. If you want to keep your whole home music playing but someone else wants to watch a movie, you can use Sessions to simplify the process.

MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES

Control4 has stated that OS 3 includes over 1,000 new features and interaction enhancements, which means we can’t cover them all here. There are a few other elements worth highlighting, however.

OS 3 adds support for Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) music streaming. Music in this format provides the highest level of audio fidelity for discerning listeners from services like Tidal. The app icons have also been enlarged and text is easier to read. Finally, new filtering options make it simple to view the status of individual systems like your lights, security system, and more across the home.

As you can see, OS 3 represents a major change to your Control4 system, with hundreds of improvements we didn’t get a chance to cover. To learn more, call us at (859) 402-1413 or head to our contact page.