Re: Upgrade HomeSeer to 2.0 ?

[dicko <drwho@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 02:03:30 GMT, "Dean Roddey"
<droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>CQC supports Z-Wave, and it has a far more powerful interface system than
>HS, and doesn't have any of the issues you are concerned about in your post,
>so you should at least give it a whirl before you decide. On
>www.charmedquark.com, go to the Learn tab, and you can go through the Quick
>Tutorial which will quickly give you a hands on tour of the product.
>
>-------------------------------------
>Dean Roddey
>Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
>www.charmedquark.com
>
>"dicko" <drwho@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:e4c4i1d70nlnn1um8qn12ni44mai0nobcs@xxxxxxxxxx
>> On Thu, 8 Sep 2005 16:42:59 -0700, George Pontis <gpontis@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>
>> I've started looking at the other automation programs out there
>> principly because of this registration issue. Unfortunately there are
>> only a few on the market that handle z-wave, I havent liked their
>> human interface. So for now, I'm hoping HS gets their act togther and
>> things turn out OK and I can stay with HS. I'm sticking with running
>> HS 1.7 until things stabilize a bit more.
>>
>> dickm
>
Dean
I actually downloaded the free trial of CQC and gave it a try. I came
away with a few impressions

1. Its not a program for non-technical people. I had a tough time
trying to figure out what was happening and in the end,  I still
couldnt get it to do a simple event: "if A1 received, then send B1". I
assume I had to write a script but could find no examples of how to do
that. Even though I work in the computer industry, I'm not a
programmer and had no clue where to begin. Do you have an example of
how do this that you should show me? I'd be glad to revisit it.

2. I really liked the z-wave implementation. It seemed to work
faster/snappier than homeseer2. You even copied over the groups as
well as the individual units into CQC which I thought was really
useful. Things worked well when using the onscreen on/off buttons but
again, I didnt know how to make things happen upon reception of a
powerline command. It also appeared to react faster for X10 too. Press
an on screen on/off button and the light turns on/off without the
latency I notice in HS1 and in a lesser extent HS2. I even didnt
notice the problems with the zwave USB interface that I have with
Homeseer.  Oh, you should make the USB zwave driver part of the
download package. I had to hunt all over the CQC website to find a
reference as to to where to download the drivers. Or at the very least
put a reference to it on the main CQC download page.

3. CQC seems to be oriented toward AV control, which I do very little
off. I just want to make lights go on and off.  So I had little use
for the extensive screen drawing/control flow user interface. Unless I
missed something and that is where I really implement the events I
want.  It looked to me like I  could design a virtual control panel
for my A/V system but unless I wanted to control my house from the
computer screen, I couldnt use it to create events.

4. I didnt see any support for X10 RF like the W800 or MR26 receivers
which is important to me. Again, I guess its different applications.

My overall impressions was that it was a well crafted program and an
excellent program for A/V control. I had thoughts of going out and
buying a wireless tablet PC and creating the ultimate remote control
but thats not the application I need it for.  But while it is
infinitly flexible, that flexibility comes at a price. it is complex
to install and program. I dont think its a program for newbies,
certainly not for someone without a background in computers.

dickm