  We study $dS_4$ vacua within matter-coupled $N=4$ gauged supergravity in the
embedding tensor formalism. We derive a set of conditions for the existence of
$dS_4$ solutions by using a simple ansatz for solving the extremization and
positivity of the scalar potential. We find two classes of gauge groups that
lead to $dS_4$ vacua. One of them consists of gauge groups of the form
$G_{\textrm{e}}\times G_{\textrm{m}}\times H$ with $H$ being a compact group
and $G_{\textrm{e}}\times G_{\textrm{m}}$ a non-compact group with $SO(3)\times
SO(3)$ subgroup and dynonically gauged. These gauge groups are the same as
those giving rise to maximally supersymmetric $AdS_4$ vacua. The $dS_4$ and
$AdS_4$ vacua arise from different coupling ratios between $G_{\textrm{e}}$ and
$G_{\textrm{m}}$ factors. Another class of gauge groups is given by
$SO(2,1)_{\textrm{e}}\times SO(2,1)_{\textrm{m}}\times G_{\textrm{nc}}\times
G'_{\textrm{nc}}\times H$ with $SO(2,1)$, $G_{\textrm{nc}}$ and
$G'_{\textrm{nc}}$ dyonically gauged. We explicitly check that all known $dS_4$
vacua in $N=4$ gauged supergravity satisfy the aforementioned conditions, hence
the two classes of gauge groups can accommodate all the previous results on
$dS_4$ vacua in a simple framework. Accordingly, the results provide a new
approach for finding $dS_4$ vacua. In addition, relations between the embedding
tensors for gauge groups admitting $dS_4$ and $dS_5$ vacua are studied, and a
new gauge group, $SO(2,1)\times SO(4,1)$, with a $dS_4$ vacuum is found by
applying these relations to $SO(1,1)\times SO(4,1)$ gauge group in five
dimensions.
