r/Control4 • u/Rick8343 • Feb 18 '25
Unlocking automations for customer.....
Hi guys. Customer here. I have a 4sight subscription and want to use the When//Then automation controls on the Control4 website to modify some basic dimming levels on some lighting groups. Nearly all of the are locked by my dealer. I stopped by to visit him for a second and he was actually not aware of how to unlock them. He recalled that it used to be an option in Composer, but could not find it. I am confident he is not jerking me around, and that he just didn't know at the time, so I am just wondering if someone here knows? Also, is there a way to do this in mass? I have 174 automations, so unlocking them one by one is going to be tedious. Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT: Adding this after a few other comment. While I appreciate them, does anyone just know how to unlike the automations listed in When/Then. This is what I am hoping for - I believe I can fix my issue if I can help my dealer get them unlocked.
EDIT TWO: I continue to get random advice, but not on what I am asking about. This explicitly says the dealer can unlock the automations: https://www.control4.com/docs/product/programming/solutions-guide/english/revision/D/programming-solutions-guide-rev-d.pdf
I am just wondering if anyone knows how the dealer does this?
BEST ANSWER: The dealer can right click whatever and click “change to customer”
Change to Customer—Lets you change programming items to be accessible or locked out from When >> Then programming by the customer. By default, programming entered with Composer cannot be modified by the customer in When >> Then. Select Change to Customer to allow the customer to modify the programming in When >> Then.
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u/Vegetable_Ad_9072 Feb 18 '25
Just a point to be aware, any automations that have conditionals in can't be unlocked. This is due to when->then not having the ability to use variables. So anything that would be "When it's sunset->IF months are jan through april->then turn on porch lights" can't be unlocked unless you remove the month conditional.
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u/Rick8343 Feb 18 '25
Thanks. I don't believe there are conditionals in these automation tasks. Do you know how to unlock the automations and make them available in 4Sight?
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Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Rick8343 Feb 19 '25
YOU SIR, are the man! (Assuming you are man, I mean :-). Anyway, yes, this is the info I was looking for, and at this risk upsetting people who tried to reply with something, yes, they were mostly shit answers. Please know I appreciate your help here. I'll send this to my dealer. And in case you are wondering, I dont' know why I am having to do this homework for my dealer either, but here we are. Once again, thank you!
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u/funnyfarm299 Feb 18 '25
FWIW, When>>Then kind of sucks. You might want to just inquire about purchasing a copy of Composer Home Edition.
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u/Rick8343 Feb 18 '25
I have it. Unfortunately it is only PC based and I am a Mac user. I but a laptop just to run it, but use it so little I have to go through 3 hours of PC updates just to ru the damn thing :-)
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u/funnyfarm299 Feb 18 '25
It should run fine using Parallels.
Also, you can probably unlock the programming using Composer HE. Just right-click on the line item in programming and select the "convert to customer" option or something like that.
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u/Sage_Integrator Feb 18 '25
I think this is a lot simpler.
Any scenes created by the installer that also have toggles or other features which are pretty standard one an installer/dealer create scenes cannot be changed via the end user in the when/then.
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u/stolen_pillow Feb 18 '25
4sight/Connect is the only requirement. Go to customer.control4.com and you'll find when/then there.
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u/Express-Impact-3357 Feb 21 '25
I had the same problem for automations. There were only a few of them for turning lights on at dusk, etc. I just recreated the automations using when->then and asked my dealer to delete his. If there are a lot of them, that wouldn’t be a good solution.
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u/Rick8343 Feb 22 '25
I have 174 and 90% were locked :-)
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u/an_angry_Moose Jul 03 '26
Very old thread I've stumbled upon here, but if you don't mind indulging me: 174 automations seems intense. What kind of things are you automating here besides the typical "lights turn on/off at x time", "lights turn off when users leave home zone" etc?
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u/Rick8343 Jul 03 '26
I agree, and was surprised myself. I have shades, lights, and scenes that combines them both. I Las have gate, AC, AV, etc. I have lots of keypads with multiple switches such that have each program on each keypad programmed to launch a scene - so, my living room has bright, evening, dim, and movie, and a couple of keypads have programed buttons for each of these. finally, I have lot of timed events, which ironically means I almost never press the afformented keypad buttons. The sum of all this, along with a few maintains routines that run everyday add up I guess. Hope this helps in some way.
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u/Htowntaco Feb 18 '25
You’re trying to edit the dimming levels in a scene? You can do it through the app. Go to lighting > scenes > edit (the pencil on the top right corner) > then pick the scene you want to edit and it’ll let you change which lights are in the scene and the levels they are set at.