About Control Tower

Control Tower is an industry first online IR database. Control Tower solves an ongoing problem in our industry as various vendor products and services converge to provide a total solution for control and automation in homes, businesses, and educational environments. Most manufacturers have their own IR codes for their hardware creating a significant challenge for the installer that integrates diverse products, along with their particular proprietary protocols. Codes can be learned through IR learning devices from various vendors (including most Global Caché products), but nowhere is there an easily accessed and usable IR database of IR codes spanning all manufacturers and models, until now.

Control Tower has two types of customers: the software or system provider and the installer/integrator, or user. Global Caché’s IR database is available at no charge to installers and users. This service is for anyone using Global Caché products, and can be utilized delivering up to 15 codes for unverified users and up to 5 code sets per day for verified users. The database solves an important challenge for installer/integrators that find themselves without critically needed IR codes and helps avoid expensive truck rolls and customer dissatisfaction when equipment is swapped out. Users can easily download the IR codes for new equipment and updates without the integrator being onsite.

Global Caché provides full integration of the IR database to our Strategic, VAR, and OEM partners at no charge, when they are driving Global Caché hardware. This eases the path for many new and established software and system companies entering the control/automation market. The ability to access and serve any equipment using IR code sets can cut a product providers time to market by months and years, as well as eliminating an unnecessary expense.

Control Tower is based upon an innovative database structure, eliminating redundancy of IR codes and providing a platform that is easily and simply searched and implemented. Conventional wisdom is to attach model numbers to each set of codes regardless of the amount of duplication that results from this approach. Control Tower has instead used a different convention that keeps the IR database complete yet streamlined.

Control Tower follows a strict set of rules to ensure accurate code replacement whenever possible. This ensures a highly accurate method to exploit the device change process implemented within an installation or application. So in the case of swapping a satellite or cable device, the codes will substitute perfectly every time when using the “replace component” feature. This is possible when a database is carefully constructed to ensure uniform code labels are in place.

Lastly, Control Tower offers unique and convenient online access, and finally provides the solution that integrators have been asking for.

Click here to download the API. Partner status is required for API access.

Click here to download the Terms of Service.


Types of Users

Unverified

Any user that registers to use Control Tower is automatically designated an unverified user and has access to 16 codes per day.

Unless a user requests to be verified, is deemed suspicious or is a known fraudulent user, an unverified account is the default and will remain open and usable.

Users receive codes by email to the email account used to register.

Verified

When registering for an account on Control Tower, users can request to be upgraded to a verified (or approved) user, by providing verifiable contact information and selecting "Request Verification" on the registration form.

Verified user can download up to 5 code sets per day.

Users receive codes by email to the email account used to register.

Partner

All VAR, OEM, and Strategic Alliance partners are qualified for access to Control Tower and for integration of our products for internal and customer use.

Partners access Control Tower through the API.

For more information on partner access, please contact our Partner program .