Adding to Marks
comments:
For the visonic PowerMax:
Out of the
box X10
-
Yes. Limited to one house code and 8
devices
Out of the box integration with house
phone -
Yes
Capable of complex routines out of the
box
No
- you would need to combine with another system eg
HomeSeer
System type
Wireless
- batteries should last for ~5 years
Easy integration with
monitoring services?
Yes
Easy integration with other X10
systems
Yes
Ease of programming
Very
easy, as there is aren't many options
Cost
cheap
compared to comfort.
Personal opinion, if retro fitting I
would
go for the Powermax every time. If I was re-wiring anyway then I
would
certainly think about Comfort, which really is the Rolls Royce of the
systems. The down side I see of Comfort other
than
cost is that aesthetically I think the keypads look very dated, small point
I
know but enough for me to look at other options. With the PowerMax
you are getting an X10 capable burglar alarm. With Comfort you get a whole lot
more as
it is a complete management system.
Final point worth mentioning is you
may
need to differentiate between room occupancy and intruder detection. In my case we have two cats so we
use
Pet Immune PIRs, which are virtually useless for
room
occupancy - the solution in this case then is to double up and use 'Home'
mode PIRs and 'Away' mode Pet immune PIRs
Hope this
helps
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Harrison
[mailto:Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx class=GramE>]
Sent: 15 May 2002 22:16
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Comfort vs.
Others Summary - WAS X10 Heating & Security Automation - Another Newbie
Q
uestion!
OK, Quick
summary...
Comfort advantages:
- Out of the box X-10
- Out of the box integration with house
phones
- Out of the box integration with remote
mobile
phone
- Capable of much
sophistication
- "The kind of thing we like playing
with" :-)
- Easy integration with third-party monitoring
/
alerting services such as intamac
Comfort disadvantages:
- Cost
- Potentially too complex
- Use of some features (eg remote disabling)
may
make it impossible to get NACOSS accreditation
--- (accreditation = insurance
discount)
Questions:
- value of integration with house phones in a
world where (our) houses have many web devices and wireless
LANs?
- Ability to make complex config changes
potentially causes insecurity (not enough testing)
Regards,
Mark
.