Snap One, a smart living technology manufacturer and distributor, offers entertainment, connectivity, control, and security solutions to residential and commercial users worldwide. It provides software, support, and digital workflow tools to integrator partners.
Snap One announced firmware v1.7 updates for Control4 Halo and Halo Touch remotes, offering streamlined interface, improved reliability, and enhanced user experiences. The update includes a redesigned lighting page, access to custom buttons, extended battery life, enhanced WiFi stability, and a “What’s New” page on the remote itself.
The updates aim to meet user and partner demands for improved functionality and usability. By incorporating features like custom buttons, improved battery life, and better WiFi stability, Snap One seeks to enhance user satisfaction and provide stronger selling points for its Control4 solutions. The inclusion of a “What’s New” page directly on the remote ensures users are informed about updates and features, enhancing the overall user experience.
Snap One today announced a slate of new features and capabilities for the Control4 Halo and Halo Touch remotes that provide a more streamlined interface with greater reliability and improved user experiences. Following the over-the-air update to v1.7, all Halo and Halo Touch remotes will gain a redesigned lighting page that offers faster control, longer battery life, improved WiFi stability, access to custom buttons from their system and a convenient “What’s New” page that explains new features right on the remote itself.
According to Eric Fritz, Snap One Senior Director of Product Management, the new Halo firmware delivers in-demand features requested by users and Partners to make the family of remotes even more powerful and easy to use.
“With the new firmware v1.7 for Halo and Halo Touch remotes, users immediately get an upgraded home control experience with faster, more intuitive lighting and ceiling fan control, up to 24 customized buttons for unique multi-system scenes or programmed controls, significantly improved battery life, a new more reliable WiFi architecture and a handy What’s New info page available right on the remote’s screen,” Fritz said. “This increases the power and usability of both remotes, ensuring users enjoy the experience and Snap One Partners have strong arguments when recommending the remotes or bundled Control4 solutions to clients.”
Through the new redesigned lighting experience, users can precisely control light dimming and ceiling fan speed using sliders on the list view and color control pages, without needing to navigate to individual devices.
With the addition of custom buttons, the remote control experience mirrors that of the Control4 mobile app or touchscreen interfaces, making all existing custom buttons available on the remotes. Custom buttons can be used to execute scenes, macros, or any programming events within Control4, offering rapid, precise control of large areas with multiple subsystems. Users can create up to six custom buttons on each of four menus, offering 24 unique actions that can combine lighting, audio, video, window shades, HVAC and more to offer instant control of fully customized environments.
To improve daily usability and user satisfaction, Snap One’s engineers have made major improvements to battery life, with both versions of the Halo remote now delivering roughly double the previous runtime thanks to better power management.
In addition to extending time between charges, the new firmware also enacts a brand new WiFi architecture that features improved capabilities that enhance network connection reliability and usability, while greatly reducing the need for resets. Continued rigorous WiFi testing ensures ongoing enhancements and consistent performance optimizations for the remote.
Crucially, all of these enhancements are presented directly to users on the remote itself in a “What’s New” page, with a blue dot on the home screen indicating there are new updates or features to be reviewed. Future firmware updates will be detailed in the What’s New page.
“Software offers us the chance to consistently improve user experiences and device functionality as new opportunities and needs arise, and Snap One is committed to making Control4 easier to use and easier to sell with every new iteration,” Fritz added.
