To quote the Rep I met at the office Starbucks ( wh o repped Frox,and Phast ) "let's wait until they produce a working product?" In theory it sounds great. ZigBee protocol for wireless communication for both control and audio between processor and touch panel for retrofit applications and CAT5 for preconstruction. Easy programming app but neither GUI nor source code can be modified by the programmer at this time nor do they know what software appications they will make available when they do permit the programmer to modify the graphics or source code.. If you are an Elan, Niles, Sonance or Russound dealer this may be your ticket to more sophicated system control but these are the same guys who brought you Phast. Maybe they learned from that experience and this time they will get it right. On the other hand nothing is shipping but will within the month....... They are supposed to be adequately funded this time. On the other hand half the questions I asked could not be answered by some of their employees in the booth. If its this new who has done the beta and gamma testing of either the soft or hardware? It did look good but one of my buddies reported that when he sat through the presentation the system crashed and had to be rebooted.

This is round III in the IP control wars. First there was Premise Systems and thier challange to the usual suspects and propritary technologies with TCP/IP control. Netstreams and Zon then fired round II at last year's expo with audio systems that delivered audio ( and this year Netstreams included video ) over Ethernet protocols. Control 4 has raised the bar by including whole house automation targeted to the early majority client. They guesstimate the retail price of installed systems to be between 4-10k. They have retro fit solution but they only have a RF remote, 3 button kp and one small touch panel. Their breakout boxes ( that convert 802.14 to analog ) do not exist save as prototypes. While Netstreams can exist on a wireless network they do seem to recomend a wired solution. Premise Systems seems to have lost its way in the Motorla umbrella but my chat with one of the boys in the booth seemed to suggest that they need to remain small to be nimble. It is exciting but as it is a work in progress it is also a risk. If there are hardware or software issues as there were with Phast are you prepared to be the unpaid beta site? Or will everything come out of the box and work?

Alan