Re: Dedicated Z-wave sites?

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>If you
>have a large house, Z-Wave just wouldn't be a good option. A message would
>have to take many hops to get to its destination. You really want multiple
>broadcast points all of which have a fast wired connection back to the
>automation system, which the network would provide.

It's good to see that someone else understands the inherent limitations of
Z-Wave's approach. They have a relatively low MAX_HOPS which means that, if
you have a large house, one network cannot span it. I do not recall the
specifics but I raised the question with one of their dealers who was honest
enough to admit he didn't know but nice enough to get the time it takes to
traverse the network and the MAX_HOPS and post it here without quite
understanding the implications.

What price point do you think is necessary for a network node that could do
what you want?

Microchip has recently introduced a family of chips which combine their
ENC28J60 ethernet interface with some of their most powerful
microcontrollers. They sell for under $10 even in low volume but they are
only 10Mbps. Perhaps future versions will be faster.

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1335&dDocName=en026439

Even if they cannot do media, they are likely to have a place in ethernet
appliances.

http://davehouston.net
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