I have probably 75-100 On Controls systems out there. They were pretty flawless. At least when all real control systems were afraid of the iPad they broke the mold. We used them exclusively for about 3.5 years. This was also the time when C4 was struggling, Total Control had just came out with a plethora of problems, and RTI still couldn't deliver reliable products and products on time. The system plain worked...an your pads and iphones were getting replaced every 2-3 years with the new one, so there were virtually no hardware problems.

The way I look at it is we put in a bunch of control systems starting with iRule in 2011 to On Controls through 2014. These systems were bullet proof. Yes, there were no triggers, or too much in the way of automation triggers, but for most systems, they worked great. When 2021 hits, the systems will be roughly 10 years old. Thats not too bad for a control system. Plus if they don't need an adjustment to the programming, the system will still work on the LAN.

The real question, is how long to you plan on your control systems really working? Is 10-15 years not long enough? Look at where we were in 2005....MX3000, TS2, Proto's, etc.....Who still uses those today?

Will you be migrating to Kramer Control at some point?

+1

Probably not. We did On Controls/iRule because it was the only Phone/Tablet based system at the time, and thats what the people wanted. We are now doing URC Total Control which offers a great app, hardbutton remotes, and great processors. Having On Controls/iRule react to something like an intrusion trigger, Lutron scene activation, flood sensor, Thermostat adjustment, etc is a problem in today's world.

Well, to be fair, the MX-3000 was still manufactured up until last year (MX-3000i).

My personal opinion is that 4 years of support is a pretty solid EOL strategy for a software based product.

I wonder if those devices can just be flashed back to the standard Global Cache firmware and be implemented with another control system or UI?

They are moving their interface over to Kramer Control because they were bought by Kramer. That just business. They are keeping the cloud service up until 2021 and they mostly expect their customers to move to Kramer Control which will offer a more robust platform and feature set. We use URC and ON Controls but we are looking into Kramer Control as well. We are also looking into Raspberry Pi systems but those are a whole different animal by itself.

I agree with others that providing several years to transition is pretty fair from a business perspective.

I do wish that there was an alternative solution that offered the same degree of flexibility that was available to an end-user.

Who?

I don't understand people who expect for products to live/last forever.
We live in disposable product environment.

My wife just dropped $900 Control4 touchscreen.
No repair available.

Bottom line is that you got to pay to play.

As others have said, 4 years is a lifetime in electronic.

Have never heard of the product, so have no opinion one way or another, but popped over to their website and saw this warning:

"The following feature has been sunset and is no longer available as of version 9.6
Offline Config - If you were using Offline Config, you will need to update to an online server."

Sounds like they have some cloud dependency?

Yes, this one reason why I rejected them. Development is done in the cloud.

If you are talking about TouchControl the offline config feature is somewhat of a misnomer. Normally, you would run the server component locally, not in the cloud. The device pulls it's config from the local server.

With "offline config", you can avoid the local server and instead host the files on dropbox. So, ironically, offline config is the only time you actually use the cloud.

That being said, I looked at TouchControl and I can't imagine that it would be an ideal solution for most people.

I wish that the TouchControl computer App was not called "Server" because the computer is not required at run time. The DropBox feature was designed to send a configuration file to a remote user.

I agree with dalto, it's not for everyone, however, if one has some imagination and can program in JavaScript, one can achieve UI's that are very effective. One is not bound by a basic framework, such as URC or RTI.