Paul,

Thanks for your comments. Have you installed any systems into customers homes yet?

One other question Paul. I think you are the second person in this thread to mention you are marketing LF to builders. Is there some reason you find LF easier to market to builders versus all the other solutions on the market?

It is a little difficult to answer that question, because it is a yes and no answer. We are not your typical CI as we have 2 distinct division in our company: a professional commercial IT company (Microsoft Gold Partner, Citrix Silver Partner, Cisco Premier, HP Server Partner, ect) and the residential HA. Are philosophy blends the commercial SMB IT market into the residential home and we were limited with that vision and what we can do with WindowsXP. We had to wait until Vista was officially released, although we had been using Vista since June of last year and standardize on the platform in November. Other than our private homes, so far the answer is no however we will have a house by the March 15th that will be fully functional will all lifeware components except shade control and built on Vista, SBS2003 and possibly Window Home Server. (If HP ships us a unit on time). We do have houses in the construction phase now: 2 houses in Lake County in the Clemont area that should be ready in June, 1 in downtown historic Orlando scheduled for August, and 1 in southwest Orlando around September – all lifeware 2.0 installs. I have spoken to some other dealers, mainly in South Florida that have several Lifeware installs now and both they and their customers love it.

I think it can be hard for us (meaning me and you, not our company) sometimes to step back and look at what is important to the consumer. We are enthusiasts and we are willing to try a lot of different software to control different things. This can be cheaper to than lifeware, but if it breaks we have the knowledge to fix it … your average person doesn’t. Having a single interface like Lifeware does 2 things: makes it easier to support and gives the customers a more reliable system and better peace of mind that it is going to work from morning to night.

We targeted builders from day one because most of the custom home builders had used some sort of HA in the past. The downside to that was it wasn’t a good experience for the majority of them. So it has taken time, education, a lot of leg work and hard work to swing them around. I think having a platform built on WindowsXP/Vista has made it easier now because they are familiar with it. And whether you think Microsoft MCE is any good or not, Microsoft still has great brand recognition.

We are in the process of rebranding our HA division into a different name so that it is more friendly to the consumer. We are working with a marketing company to create an ad campaign directed to consumers. All of the projects currently underway we have already met with the client and have given a good demo to. Surprisingly it is the wife who helps us make the sale … for some reason, women find the GUI very easy to use and aren’t afraid of the remote!

We do need to start educating the consumer a little. The Parade of Homes started this weekend in Lake County and it was irritating in a way. Beautiful very high end homes, in the 5-6K sq foot range and the only HA they really had was cheap distributed audio with analog dial controls, distributed cable and a wiring closet. No communicating HVAC, no lighting control, no security cameras, no media centers. And these houses were in the $1.9-2.5 million range. Do get me wrong, very beautiful house, excellent construction, but for that much $$$ I would be demanding more.

While our commercial IT business doubled from 2005 to 2006, we expect our gross revenue from the HA side this year to outperform this easily and with higher margins. And for me personally, it is more enjoyable than the commercial IT side.
Kind Regards,
Paul

Paul,

Thanks for your forthright answers. Very much appreciated.

Steve@EI, one last question. Are you guys ever going to have a solution for a retrofit whole house solution along the lines of Sonos? You could stream to Squeeze Boxes or something. This seem like a big whole in your feature list. Right now I would need a Xbox 360 and a tv for a streaming audio zone.

I just got my Lifeware evaluation software. I will let you know what I find.

Any updates. How do you like it?
Or did you have to sign a NDA for that too !!!

MDU's are a slightly different animal from the typical integration package a home would require. In the first place there is a need to integrate into any number of third party interfaces that usually reside on what for me would be obscure browsers. I had to look up Opera when it first crossed my desk and it is incompatible with Crestron's e-control, which requires ActiveX.

Were I in the MDU business, an XP based solution that could run any browser extant might be a design plus since accessing Concierge services might be a requirement of the job. Secondly, since the point of an MDU is to provide global services such as "get my car" "call a taxi" "order in food" "call maintenance and fix my overflowing toilet" having a common look and feel to the UI is not something about which a client might complain. They are only parenthetically paying for the service through their carrying charges so they are apt to be less critical of an application that only parenthetically was the reason the purchased their apartment ( remember location, location, location ).

In a home environment, interfacing into IP phone systems and their custom menu browsers (which are becoming touch screens ) is not a design requirement. I'd wager that the engineering reasons why Lifeware are present in the few MDUs has very much to do with the requirement to interface into bizarre browsers other trades have forced upon the job and for which, XP as a computer OS, has far fewer issues or problems achieving than proprietary OS from Crestron or AMX. After all, those companies provide an integrated solution and their computer interfaces may be limited by a choice to go with the biggest player ( Microsoft IE ) or with a solution that does not compete with their own selfish need to sell touch panels. The fact that Lifeware has been specified into an MDU or lots of MDU does not make for very much information. If I gave Integrator X, who had the MDU contract for a large building in Miami, free software and support if they chose to use my product, and I offered to customize my product to work with the bizarre browser the company providing the networking/phone/concierge system then I might also have a few of these types of jobs on which to boast. It's akin to Donald Trump asking you to do his job for free but telling you that you could advertise that you did Donald Trump's job and that would be even more profitable than the fee you might have otherwise earned.

Alan

They sent me the old version. I wanted version 2.0 for Vista. The sales rep at EHX also told me that if I signed he had work for me. Yeah right.

RR,

I just looked at the date of your post announcing that you had received your copy of the software. Unfortunately, Lifeware 2.0 had not been released at the time your copy was sent out. If you still want the 2.0/Vista version, email me and we can get a copy on the way for you.

Not to resurrect and old thread, but anyone have an update on this?

It seems like this thread was pretty hot right until EI stepped in and gave some of you the software to try out and then it died.

Was the software so good you can't knock it any more? Couldn't get it installed? Still evaluating? Not worth commenting on?

I figured when people got their hands on it and could comment from direct experience the thread would really take off with some useful information.

Sorry I got busy with work. I never tried for 2.0, but I do plan to if the offer from joshod

[still stands]?

I'd still be happy to send a copy to anyone who is interested. It benefits everyone to give you all something solid to base your comments/suggestions on, and it helps us to cut down on some of the mis-information out there. We see and hear a lot of people talking about Lifeware, but I got suprisingly little response on the offer for folks to actually check it out for themselves. If you are still interested, just send me an email at: [email protected] and please use "Remote Central" in the subject line. In most cases, we can get it sent out the same day we receive your email.

I am new to this forum, but not new to the space. I've been researching other Home Automation Systems as well as Whole-House A/V systems. I've researched Axonix, HomeLogic, Crestron, AMX, Niveus and EI (Life|Ware). I've recently 'stumbled' upon Superna Systems (and it seems like a great product).... All that being said....

I built a house that has Cat-5e, RG-6, Speaker and IR wires going to every room (looped in each room and home-ran to the basement). I did the wiring myself, so it's extreme 'over-kill'.

I am confused as to what I should do. I like the fact that Life|Ware use Windows Media Center (as apposed to the proprietary software AMX/Crestron uses). However, MCE has it's faults as well. I like the features that Superna offers in there ConfigNet/ControlWare, but it is also proprietary.

I want my house set up something similar to this topology:

[Link: axonix.com]

In a utopia, I would not want ANY hardware in any of the rooms (all of it would be in the basement). I would control the content through a touch-pad/screen or a pocket-pc, PC, etc...

I would like a system that allows me to control zones for A/V and lighting/HVAC. I want the system to allow me to have 6 rooms using different content (S/HD-Live TV with S/HD-DVR capability on each TV OR Watch different DVD Movies (or the same movie) or Music or Photos). The KEY would be to allow each of the 6 rooms accessing different OR the SAME content at the same time (including LIVE-HD TV with S/HD-DVR capability).

I am very price cautious, but also want the functionality. I am also not against building my own system, if it can give me the same functionality.

I know you guys probably receive e-mails like this all day, but I wanted to know your opinion on what I should do and I value your opinion.

to Steve/Josh, does EI support this (either alone or with a control system)? To the rest of the group, what other systems may be able to do this functionality? Thank you and I look forward to your response.

Also, to Steve/Josh, what separates your product, from a functionality perspective, from what HomeLogic and Superna Systems can do? Thank you.