You aren't really giving up on your first day are you? That may be a record. Feel free to join us if your skin grows thicker...

I think that he's just done with me, you, QQQ and probably Eden now for calling him "postal".

I'd be dissapointed at the end of the day if he's not done with Moe & Carl too.

Coastal, one of the things that you have to realize about a lot of these guys, is that we are a pretty tight-knit group. There is usually at least one member who partakes in a discussion just to throw out random comments in a misguided effort to keep the mood light (see my misguided posts in the speaker wire thread [Link: remotecentral.com] ). If you are going to play with this crowd, it pays to have a thick skin. We all get the joke as it is and there is no malicious intent. AHEM is just in a jovial mood today. We all get that way from time to time. If you are going to post in this area, I advise 1) reading Wesley's excellent thread about our industry, 2)have beer and laugh a bit. It aint that serious.

Call me crazy but, I'm pleased to be lumped in with a list like that...not that it surprises me.

Jason did SO much work in typing out his extended command list.

I thought about jokingly doing a "quote & reply" and just saying "MCE can do all of that in 5 minutes, plus, give you the temperature", but I reconsidered the use of my "sophmoric humor", and I'm anxiously awaiting a reply to his challenge.

Hey, now I feel really left out. I've been at least as awful as the rest of you.

This is my new favorite thread. I'm going to Florida tomorrow and now I'll have to keep on this thing.

Good night all.

Coastal, as a personal favor, would you please be done with rlustig too?

Damn...I almost skipped this thread. This place reminds me of an old west saloon sometimes. LOL

Welcome CoastalHome, I told you they would get you. Now pay your dues and get on with it. You will soon learn that these same guys will offer pretty good info in the future. You guys are mean, but I am glad I started this thread and I am still waiting for my EI/MDU question to be answered.

Oh we're not mean, we're simply challenging or skeptical.

Somewhere about 20 posts ago, Coastal made a claim, QQQ asked him to substantiate it, and he blew a gasket.

Oh where do you guys get the time. I am still am curious on the new guy, but thanks for business. Your appraoch is dead on as to what we see shops from big to small doing.
1 There are multiple people out there touting MDU ammenity solutions that are web and PC based. I have seen several hotels using them, nothing i have witnessed residentially, but email me on the side and i will give you the names, but you have to do the research. EI is agnostic, but there are alot of opportunities in the MDU arena and ammenities are on radar. That is all I can say. Keep in mind our solution is much better suited for MDU than anything else because the building has to have networking infastructure regardless of automation, so no extra infastructure is big to land a big job.
2 the vantage infusion things above fore 140+ loads is around 7K retail, take normal dealer margin off, the question is how much would you charge to intimately program that with amx or crestron(every load and scene with bi directional led status and such). With EI and vantage WSD interface i would have very load name and scene into our software in literally a minute with the plug in to the network connection and you would never reprogram anything in lifeware, regardless of light levels changing in scenes or such, as far as hardware, nothing required, but our controller suggested. Keep in mind, the homeowner just wants what they want for a price.

The guys on here are what you would call "dedicated".



Hate to be a stickler for language/grammar, but it should read :


The "anything else" comment is not correct and this is a pretty big claim.

AMX is all network based and has been for years. No extra infrastructure required to break out any type of control anywhere that you have network connection.

Anw what kind of interface would you end up with? At best it would be some incredibly simplistic list of buttons, maybe arouned in a series of rooms or something, right? Any system can query the loads from a device that makes that information available (and it doesn't require WSD), but making something useful and attractive to control those loads isn't going to automagically happen.

I like it.

So at first glance we can do most of what is in the spec, however our approach to this systems is very different. All the two way transport controls and av gear(DVD, CD, Tuner, etc...) is in MCE, done out of the box. If you can swallow that. We would use our UDI tool for the misc rs232 equipment triggers and scripts. The biggest difference is that the interface is very complex in what you are doing to simply play music or a movie. Also most of the content is digital in our world, so you add a lot of metadata and cover art features that i don't see discussed. If we want to run at this spec, we can do it. I personally don't think of this as home automation, but more as an overgrown pronto remote with two way. I am used to bigger jobs and more subsystems instead of button push control. It would be more fun to take the end result of the system and the customer and show him the way we do it and see what he is really finding value in. Doesn't the customer just want it to do what he wants, play a movie, pause it to go to the bathroom, finishing watching it in the master. Also all the cryptic hold this button down for 5 seconds and stuff, the usability is out the window. As i state, we can do most of it, it is just complex IR macro and such, the gui is a problem for us, but keep in mind we beleive that our closed loop gui is one of are biggest assets, i realize some of you disagree, but we will have to let the future tell us who wins here. Lets not have the same arguement again. I would try to design this system with the thought in mind of it being in a weekly rental suite, different guest each week that is paying a ton for the room. Last thing you want is them not be able to watch tv, if a manual or training is needed for each guest. If you take that approach it is generally usable by mom dad kids alike. We certainly differ if the real secret sauce of that system is gui and cryptic hold nose for ten seconds, unbutton fly, flush toilet, and then ask mom for a good night kiss. Got to run, just my end of the day humor.

SC