Show report

["David Chapman" <david@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I went on Thursday and would agree that although bigger there was
nothing
really new in the Smarthomes bit and I felt most of it was way off target.

By the nature of the main selfbuild part of the show almost all there would
be practical selfbuilding type people, yes they will use professionals to
help with certain aspects of their builds but almost without exception they
would not be "get a man in" type people -especially as the HA
stuff comes
towards the end of a build when experience is high but when money is tight.

The Cedia presentation I sat through was cringing, like something from The
Office - comments like "PCs crash twice a day so buy a dedicated hard
disk
recorder - only £600" and the whole attitude of "it's all to
complicated for
you punters, just give us a wheelbarrow full of money and let the grown-ups
do it" did the HA cause no good.

I think it needs a bit of a re-focus next year and maybe presentations from
selfbuilders showing what they have done with HA - what has worked and what
hasn't, the real costs, and what they would do next time.

Re the stands, I'd really have liked to seen:

An expandable wired alarm system that sits below Comfort (which is way to
complicated for most), say at the £200 ish level, that allows control
and
monitoring from a browser - and remotely via ADSL - with ability to send
text messages maybe via a monitoring centre. The BT Home Monitor is close
but like many others I don't like or trust wireless.

Products that are built by pragmatic engineers to solve real problems -
like
Kat5 !!

A PVR product that is at least as reliable and easy to use as a VCR.

And basic lighting automation. Most visitors here are amazed at our ever so
simple PIR outside light that sounds an audio alert in the house and the
fact we can control a dimmer switch with the TV remote (Varilight).

David C