Three Years of My Life

Today Control4 announced Smart Home OS 3. It’s a major update, and as some of the press have said, the most significant release ever from Control4.

Over the past three years, the User Experience (UX) team at Control4 worked to enhance the customer interfaces and overall experience. And it was a significant amount of work and includes designs, specifications, and artwork for iOS and Android; phones, tablets, and dedicated touch screens; and a ten-foot TV experience.

Control4 OS 3 on T3 Touch Screen

It’s been a labor of love and passion. I live with Control4 in my own home. So to improve the experience for others improves my family’s experience.

As the Director of User Experience at Control4, I’ve been lucky enough to get paid for all the creativity and improvements that went into the effort. Of course, there were hundreds, no thousands of hours of meetings and debates and testing and model building and planning meetings with developers and reviewing software deliverables against specs–I like to think that’s why I got paid.

“Control4 OS 3 [is] the most intuitive, accessible, and meaningfully customizable professionally installed home automation system I’ve ever laid hands on. For what it’s worth, it’s also one of the prettiest, and although I sort of dismissed this saucy new look as one of the least interesting things about OS 3, it’s hard to deny that it’s also one of the most compelling things about this massive update.”

Dennis Burger, Residential Systems

Hardest Thing was Silence

Probably the hardest thing for me over the past couple of years has been to hear, “When are you guys gonna come out with a new design?” I had to silently listen and find a way to defend the current UI knowing full well that some of the very features people asked for were done. We literally have included thousands of great dealer and technician (our channel partners) and end-customer enhancements into OS 3.

My Favorite OS 3 Features

Control4 Smart Home OS 3 has hundreds, no thousands of enhancements driven from customer and dealer feedback. It was a blast to work these into the new customer experience. Which are my favorites? Here are just a few.

Thanks To the Teams

I want to thank the teams that made the release possible: the UX designers, the UI developers, PQA, and executives that gave us a chance to deliver something familiar but uniquely different and delightful. And certainly the Marketing team–wow have they put together an arsenal of quality material to drive awareness and put the spotlight on the features that make OS 3 special!

Reviews

Here are a few links to reviews for the Control4 Smart Home OS 3 product. 

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