I've read about a few hear testing some of the 2-way stuff at home or in the office. I haven't had much experience with it yet, but am thinking about specifying an RTI system for a decent size project. I would be using an XP8, (3) T2C and (1-4) T1-B and maybe some In-walls (probably RK3)

So what's the word on the 2-way features?

What are you using/doing that has improved the functionality of your projects?

What is the word with the Zigbee issues?

How have you found is best to setup the zigbee network? (# of antennas, distance, etc)

Are you selling ANY systems based on ANY of the 2-way features?


THANKS!

The drivers are not very good imo. The zigbee implementation is limited. The processors are very good, and of course the programming environment is great.

I could deal with the driver short comings but the roaming and range issues with the ZM24's makes me leery of using them in a clients home.

I believe not being able to hard wire more then one ZM24 is a serious design flaw.

The T2CZ's that we have (3) all seem stable, no white screens or any of the other problems we were having with the original. Although my personal one has frozen about 3 times on a please wait animation.

You may consider using the inwalls 2 way and doing the handhelds 433. Is a volume bar and a weather icon necessary?

that and not having the remote be able to jump to the strongest ZM24. Ask Jim about that.

I was just thinking this yesterday.  I haven't done any inwalls with 2-way yet, but I hear it's 100%.  If I were to redo my last job I would have skipped the Zigbee altogether... Didn't really need it anyway.

I hope to god they come out with some sort of firmware update for the ZM24s that 'fixes' the way they currently lock on to a single repeater. 

I'm installing a system with 10 K4's right now and have been testing 2-way only with these in walls and they've been rock solid. Using the following items:

Sonance C4630
iPort FS-22
Vaux Matrix
Weather

Waiting for the K4 firmware that we should have by Monday. This will give us the Screen Wake Up function on the K4's. Need this for Door Bell, Front Door Camera scenario.

In-wall is awesome. Handheld is garbage. Would your customers be ok with waiting 2-3 seconds after they pick up the remote before they can push any buttons? It frustrates the hell out of me and my girlfriend. Stick to 433 on remotes until further notice.

In-walls are awesome. I had a great experience with my showroom zigbee (even through concrete wall and a steel structure). Until, I went to check on it a couple of weeks later and the remote wouldn't respond. Reset the ZM-24 and still didn't work. I ended up resetting the T2-C and it popped back on right away. Other than that it's been good but I haven't installed 2-way remotes into a job yet. I have a couple coming up though. Fingers crossed!

Did one job with 3 T2Cz, XP8, 1-ZM24.Every remote in the house is never more than 30 feet away from ZM-24. All firmware was updated. Set system up first with 1-way control. After noticing wake up delay and two bad T2C remotes (froze-up) I decided one way control is good enough.

Ya know when a sandwich looks really good, then you take a bite and there's a hair in it?

new 2.1 firmware says they fixed a bug where the Zigbee takes forever to connect after a programming change (which I've experienced - forces a reboot basically).   I wonder if this will affect the overall zigbee performance and wake up time?  I certainly hope so.

We've dona a couple systems, mostly with in-walls and a single handheld.

I can tell you that the iPort drivers are almost perfect. The only thing missing is the ability to "Resume Play" so that the system will start playing music without having to make a direct section.

The drivers for the Marantz ST7001 are rock solid when using AM/FM. I haven't used the XM... yet.

The Escient drivers are good, but the implementation is flawed and RTI knows it. I have a test driver that I will test on Monday. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and they chose the wrong one the first time... this "rebuild" will hopefully fix the issues.

The weather driver is great, I rebuilt the pages to do what I wanted.

The Vaux drivers are AWESOME! They lack the ability to have a Volume Bar, but I didn't care much for that anyway.

The range on the ZM24 is not the same as an RM433. If positioned properly it is not as poor as some of the others have stated. I got a solid 80 feet with direct line of sight... 50 or 60 with walls. I have not had the opportunity to use multiple ZM24s yet, but a couple of the jobs will be calling for them soon.

Can you elaborate on this?

Hi I am a RTI installer from Israel, I was once the importer and have been working with RTI form the day they made the T500 for Lexicon .
My personal experience is, wait with all 2 way that is wireless (not necessarily because it does not work but it seems to still be "shaky" and I am passed being a "beta site" for any other company, not just RTI).
As to all the wired products: K4, K3, ext.. very very good really works nice.
As to the two new Importers to our small country; one never did 2 way before! In fact never did XP-8 before; and the other one say they have a few 2 way Lutron projects working fine, but with ridicules number of zigbee antennas to give good converge.
PS you do want to know RTI monitors this form constantly, thus please be very accurate in what you say, so we will be taken seriously and help them improve.
Also I recommend that if nothing to hide please fill your profile in as much detail as possible, I think it helps one to position his opinion and how to take-in a forums frind's opinion .
Thanks guys. I Love this forum I wish RTI had something like this on their website.

Dan

Sure! I'm not a fan of the included templates so I rearranged them to make something I liked better. Added Precipitation percentages for each day in the five day outlook... moved a couple things around, nothing too exciting.

The weather driver has all kinds of neat capabilities... unfortunately most of them aren't the kind of things that the average customer would care about i.e. Pressure, Dewpoint, Wind speed and direction... The new driver has all kinds of nifty stuff.

Ahh that stinks.. I was adding in this Vaux Audio switch just for this reason.. Its a commercial job and they def. need volume feedback on the k4 !

So your saying the default oasis template that shows the volume bar at the bottom off each screen will not work with vaux!!

In my house i'm using 2 t3v's with weather, iport, and hai drivers. I have found the iport and weather drivers to be everything you need. The hai could be improved. (no command to run a user button, no way to get ready/not ready status, Unsecure zone list doesnt work)

Ive also played with the RK3 and K4 on these same drivers and have the same impressions.

I have a house still under construction that will be getting: HAI, B&K multi room, iport, marantz tuner, and marantz AVRs in the local theaters. They will have the multi room components and hai on the rk3's and one zone on a t2c which is also the tv remote. It will be the first multi antenna big install ive done with the RTI 2way and cant wait to see how it goes.