Radio HA - was Re: X10 - how ? Doogie

["Kevin Hawkins" <lists@xxxxxxx>]

I have some Z-Wave stuff here in the UK already - I bought some US
stuff and have adapted it to UK operation (which is not difficult). However
the European licensed RF frequency will be slightly different to the US one
so it will not interoperate (I believe).

<remembers> -  was at one stage going to write a mini review for the
Automated Home -sorry Mark

I have a couple of the lamp and appliance type modules and a remote
control - I don't have the USB link yet.  It is excellent in some respects
but a little badly thought out in others.  The way the remote works is ok
for a small number of devices but bad if you have a lot - you have to
scroll
through a list to the device you want and then select it for ONOFFDIM. It
does accurately refelect the success of the action (status) on the lcd
remotes screen though.  This 'status' is the result of your action - you
cannot check the current status or dim level of a device this way . You can
group devices under one 'group' and switch that ON or OFF and again status
is presented but if one member of the group fails then you just get a fail
message and no indication which unit failed. I think the protocol is
capable
of achieving some of these things though and perhaps it is only the remote
implementation that falls short.
The automatic RF relaying from one unit to another is good - I can
cover distances in my property (3' internal stone walls) that I can't get
anywhere near with X10 RF. AIUI the ULTI does not relay  although you can
buy single hop repeaters. However (again AIUI) the C-Bus RF variant will
handle intelligent relaying though. The price of the US Z-Wave modules I
feel is excellent and the design of the devices is such that the UK
versions
should be able to achieve similar pricing - (volume issues though).

Kevin



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary
> Sent: 05 December 2003 09:50
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [ukha_d] Re: X10 - how ? Doogie
>
> Hi Doogie, the message was  for you
>
>
> > Certainly any RF stuff that I'm looking at installing will be
> either Clipsal Ulti, or when it comes out next year, the
> Clipsal C- Bus RF Neo range.
>
> Any ideas on prices as I expect it will be expensive?
>
> What about Z-Wave, thats coming out next year? is it
> cheaper? anyone know? any comments?