What is 4Sight / Control4 Connect and do you need it?

Nine times out of ten when a customer rings us a week after their Control4 system goes live, the question is the same: “I’m at work and I want to check the alarm and turn the heating on before I get home \u2014 why can’t I do that from my phone?” The answer is almost always 4Sight. Let’s walk through what it actually is, what it unlocks, and whether you genuinely need it.

So what is 4Sight / Control4 Connect?

4Sight (now usually badged Control4 Connect in the Control4 app on OS 3.4 and up) is Control4’s cloud subscription service. Your controller \u2014 whether that’s an EA-1, EA-3, EA-5 or one of the newer Core controllers \u2014 does all the heavy lifting inside your home. 4Sight is the secure bridge that lets that controller talk to the outside world: your phone when you’re not on the home Wi\u2011Fi, the cloud servers that handle voice commands, and the notification system that pings you when something happens.

Without it, your Control4 system still works beautifully \u2014 but only while you’re standing inside the house connected to your own network. The moment you leave, a lot of the clever stuff goes quiet. 4Sight is what turns a great in\u2011home system into one that follows you around.

Remote access when you’re away from home

This is the big one, and it’s the reason most of our customers sign up. With 4Sight active, the Control4 app on your phone or tablet connects to your home from anywhere with an internet connection \u2014 the office, the holiday house, the airport lounge in Singapore.

That means you can:

• Arm or disarm the security system and check whether the kids actually locked the front door.
• Switch the ducted heating or cooling on so the place is comfortable by the time you pull into the driveway.
• Turn lights on and off while you’re on holiday so the house doesn’t look empty.
• Check your cameras and see who’s at the gate.

Voice control needs it

If you want to say “Alexa, turn off the downstairs lights” or use Google Assistant to set a scene, that voice command has a journey to make: your speaker hears it, sends it to Amazon or Google’s cloud, which then needs a secure way to reach your Control4 controller. That secure path is provided by 4Sight.

No active subscription, no voice control \u2014 it’s as simple as that. So if hands\u2011free is on your wish list, factor 4Sight in from day one. We cover the setup side of this in more detail over in our voice control help section.

Alerts and notifications

This is the feature people quietly fall in love with once they’ve got it. 4Sight lets your system send push notifications straight to your phone when things happen around the house. A few real examples from our customers:

• “The garage door has been left open for more than 15 minutes.”
• “Motion detected in the backyard after 11pm.”
• “The pool pump room temperature is climbing \u2014 you might want to check it.”
• “The kids’ Control4 system disarmed the alarm \u2014 they’re home from school.”

You decide what’s worth knowing about and what isn’t. Done well, it’s not noise \u2014 it’s peace of mind that quietly sits in your pocket.

When>Then personalisation

OS 3 introduced a feature called When>Then, and it’s one of our favourites because it puts simple automation in your hands without needing us to come back out. It works exactly how it sounds: when something happens, then do something else.

• When the front door unlocks after sunset, then turn on the entry and hallway lights.
• When the last person leaves and the alarm arms, then turn off all lights and set the heating back.
• When it’s 7am on a weekday, then open the blinds and start the kitchen radio.

You build these yourself, right in the Control4 app, dragging and dropping in plain language. Many of the more useful When>Then routines \u2014 particularly the ones that fire based on time of day or that you want to tweak while you’re out \u2014 lean on the cloud connection that 4Sight provides. If you want to go further than When>Then allows, that’s where our team and proper automation programming comes in.

What does it cost?

We won’t quote a figure here because Control4 sets the pricing and it shifts from time to time, and there are options to pay annually. The way we frame it for customers is this: you’ve invested in a system that controls your lights, climate, security and entertainment \u2014 4Sight is the modest annual subscription that lets you actually use all of that from your phone, anywhere, plus voice control and notifications on top.

For most households it’s a small recurring cost relative to what the system does for you every day. If you’d genuinely never use the system away from home, never want voice, and never want notifications, then technically you can run without it \u2014 but in our experience that describes almost nobody. We’ll always give you the straight answer on whether it’s worth it for how you live, not just sell you a subscription. Have a look at Control4’s own overview of the service on control4.com if you’d like the manufacturer’s word on it too.

How we set it up for you

The good news: there’s almost nothing for you to do. When we commission a new system, getting 4Sight running is part of the handover. Here’s the basic flow on our end.

1. Register the controller. We link your EA or Core controller to a Control4 customer account in your name.
2. Activate the subscription. We apply 4Sight / Control4 Connect to your account so the cloud features switch on.
3. Get you logged in. We help you download the Control4 app, sign in with your account, and confirm it connects both at home and over mobile data.
4. Set up your first notifications. Before we leave, we’ll usually programme a couple of useful alerts \u2014 garage door, alarm status \u2014 so you can see the value straight away.
5. Show you When>Then. We’ll walk you through building a simple routine yourself so you’re confident tinkering later.

A quick note on the electrical side

4Sight itself is all software and cloud \u2014 no wiring involved. But the lighting circuits, switchboard work and any fixed wiring behind your Control4 system absolutely are licensed-electrician territory under AS/NZS 3000. That’s our bread and butter at DUKE: we handle the mains side properly and safely, then layer the smart\u2011home control on top. You never have to worry about where the tech stops and the wiring starts \u2014 we look after both.

The short version

If you want to reach your home from your phone when you’re out, use voice control, get notifications, and lean on time\u2011based automation, you want 4Sight. For the vast majority of our customers it’s a no\u2011brainer, and it’s the bit that makes the whole system feel genuinely modern.

If you’re not sure whether your system already has it active, or you’re weighing it up before signing off on a new install, give us a yell \u2014 we’re always happy to talk it through honestly and set it up so it just works. Cheers from Adam and the team at DUKE.