Re: X-10, IF, RF, Zigbee.. What to do?

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Lewis Gardner" <lgardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4340129d_1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >>How do I decide when to stop looking
> >>and start buying without risking everything
> >>going obsolete in a year or two?
>
> Technology will never stabilize to the point that obsolescence will not
> occur. Your decision is if the technology you can buy today fits your
> need, desires and budget.

If it were truly that simple, he wouldn't be angsting.  His question is
about the true cost of ownership.  If he buys into Z-wave what happens if he
gets half his house converted when, hypothetically, they go bankrupt?  What
will he do?

In order to evaluate a technology like HA, you really have to know a lot
about the current environment, the protocols in use, the history of HA
companies - loads of stuff you might not consider when buying a car, a
riding mower or something similarly pricey.

I think he might be looking for some guidance on whether Insteon's dual
protocol technology would be a safer investment than something that had a
single proprietary protocol.   He might be looking for advice on whether to
jump on early, proprietary versions of Zigbee or decide to wait for it to
hit the market big-time rather than investing early.

There are plenty of pathways available to the new HA buyers and some of them
have very much higher risks than others based on a wide variety of factors.
Some of them, like "will this company thrive?" are beyond the control of the
buyer but others like "can I afford to buy enough spares to insure against
bankruptcy of the vendor?" are pretty much user-determined.

Even those decisions are hard to make because they assume that whatever new
design you are buying into isn't one that, for example, tends to get wiped
out by a near-miss lightning strike.  Having a set of spares might only
protect you until the next strike.  Worse, still, such poorly designed
equipment will be likely to force a small company under anyway.  So would a
product recall, which could be initiated if these devices were in any way
implicated in house fires.

And even if you factor all that in, you still aren't assured of reaching the
right conclusion about which technology to buy if the environment changes.
A malicious neighbor could create havoc with an RF-based X-10 system that
would render it useless.

I'd be bewildered, too, if I had to make a decision on which protocol to
adapt and which vendor to buy it from.  The HA market seems to be in the
highest state of flux it's been if for years.  I don't think we've ever seen
so many competing technologies offered all at once.  In a way, I am glad
that I've got almost all X-10 stuff.  I can afford to wait and let the
market "shake out" all the wanna-be's and the near misses.

--
Bobby G.