My local vendor is amazing us plebes by advertising this spiffy new game changer. They're even willing to sell it to us!

I figured this is the place where it will receive the plaudits it deserves and the skewering it deserves, if so. Please pile on.

Whaddaya think about it? Or them? Worth a look? Revolutionary? Bueller?

Isn't it like $600 for the "hub" and remote? I thought it was going to be a harmony competitor. But at twice the price, if I have someone on a tight budget, harmony works fine. Am I missing anything game changing about this thing?

You sure can't find much about it on google. Given that it just was introduced at Cedia this year, I'd say buying one right now, you'd pretty much be a guinea pig. Even URC doesn't have much on their website, and they say nothing about how it's different from the rest of their MX line. I'd wait at least a couple months before trying it.


Edit: wait, lets back up and punt. I just looked again and see the home pro is wifi based. That adds some real potential. I love the wifi based Elan remote. No fighting RF interference issues or trying to place an Antenna to pick up the remote. Also, I assume it brings in some two way abilities. You should get one and try it at home.

I finally opened the owners manual PDF and found more interesting info (Ernie, the alcohol is just now starting to kick in, so forgive me while I get up to optimum performance). It looks like the Home Pro, being wifi based, adds smartphone/tablet interface to the system, it has a Z-wave add on, and you can view IP camera feeds on the remote (Elan doesn't have camera viewing on the remote )

Fins, thanks for the information. It actually IS different, though I don't want to be the first one to try it out!

You crack me up. Just one thing worries me, though -- nobody says when they're dying that they wish they had drunk more. I've heard that even W.C. Fields said at the end that he wished he could have another life, one without alcohol. People who think they'll say that find out that they're wrong.

ALCOHOL,
Because no great story ever starts with a salad.

Except, perhaps, a tossed one.

RE: MX home pro.

My take is that as technology evolves, things that were really difficult to do one way become simpler another way.

MX Home Pro is a mama bear sized system; it's not for big jobs, but for some projects, this will deliver a ton of stuff for not a ton of dough. I would still recommend selling the hand held remote to any client...

My take on MX Home Pro was and still is that its limited in that it has no upgrade path to Total Control. So if a client insists on one room control and loves it and decides later to upgrade, you would have to rip it out and sell all new gear. It would be an interesting offering if it had an upgrade path.

Don't forget those great Winston Churchill comebacks-

Winston Churchill (when berated for being drunk by MP Bessie Braddock): 'My dear, you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober, and you will still be ugly."

Here are more details -- first introduced the the security channel as HomeSet
[Link: cepro.com]

MX HomePro is the same thing, but targeted to our channel. The 2 products will eventually diverge.

[Link: cepro.com]

Basically a sell only to a guaranteed, no possible upgrade customer. The one that you don't want an upgrade anyways or see again. Not sure that this makes much sense other than the potential death of the mx legacy product. One room solution.

I think for now we will stick with a mrx-8 and 1080 remote solution.

The problem is you NEVER know who might want to upgrade down the road. We all know a lot of clients will say one thing, and shortly later throw you a curve. If selling MX Home Pro, you HAVE to make sure the client fully understands this limitation if they are going to ever want to incorporate into a larger system. While it hasn't been a big offering in the past, whole home/connected homes is much bigger now, and I just see this as a major limitation. I would agree with you that it is possibly a path to eliminate the MX line, but I would much rather keep the MX line and not have to always worry about throwing in a reliable network for even the smallest of jobs.

Man, you nailed it. The cost of a reliable network is not considered into the cost of this control system. 600 for the control system but 2,000 for a network upgrade in my home? WTF are you talking about sir? I love trying to explain this now a days.

After using the urinal, then walking toward the door, a colleague said "at my school they taught us to wash our hands after taking a piss." Churchill responded "At my school they taught us not to piss on our hands."

Another time, he was in a receiving line. A man was going through the line, shaking hands with person after person, with nobody paying any attention to him. When the man got to Churchill, he said what he had said to everyone else, "I shot my wife this morning." Without hesitation, Churchill said "I'm sure she deserved it."