RE: Setting up HA

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

Chris,

Depends what you mean by "best".

All three will integrate with quite a lot of third-party software, OR be
capable of supporting home-brew.

The CM12U has one key advantage - that of price! If you are looking to
"dip your toes" into the HA water, then a few modules and a CM12U
will
get you started.

The HomeVision standalone has a number of advantages

1: Rapid Development. I use it standalone, but with a PC to program
things. I find that, as someone who WAS a programmers a number of years
ago, the HomeVision language/development environment is very
straightforward, and easy to set up more complex, rules-based, stuff

2: Reliable. If the PC crashes, it still works. The CM12 has the concept
of "fast macros", but these are VERY limited. HV, by comparison,
can
track lots of flags and variables and respond to the same inputs in
different ways.

3: Extra non-X10 stuff. The HV can also, as part of macros, broadcast
(learnable) IR. As such, my macros can not only turn off the lights, but
turn on the telly.

The HomeVision PC-based is somewhere between the two. It's a bit cheaper
than a full HV, but it requires a dedicated PC all the time, and if the
PC crashes, the house does.

With the goal of a web-based environment, it might seem sensible to make
this compromise, but I'd caution against it... While your current goal
is about web-control, you may find that, a year down the line, you want
lots of things to happen based on, say, occupancy detection from non-web
devices like PIRs and beam breakers.

Overall, I'd go one of two routes:

- HV (full version) now
- CM12U now (if you can find one for beer money) with intention to move
to HV later


Mark Harrison
Head of Systems, eKingfisher

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Bond [mailto:chris@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 24 January 2002 09:10
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Setting up HA


Hi,

I know this will probably been have dicussed before but im about to
start
buying all the bits for HA.

>from

HomeVision Standalone
HomeVision PC Based
CMU12U

Whats the best option to go for, i've setup a Linux Server especially
for
HA. I'm a programmer for a living so knocking up some PHP/ASP scripts to

interface shouldn't be a problem.

My end goal is to have everything controlable via the web, ie. Status of

all devices, turn devices on off, change timing units etc.


Look forward to some advice!  I can see this list it gonna cost me a
forture, already gonna get one of the tablets :)

Kind Regards,
Chris Bond



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