Re: Dedicated Z-wave sites?

["Dean Roddey" <droddey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm sure that there is still a strong 'traditional', for lack of a better
word, automation market out there. But if you read the various fora, media
management, paritcularly multi-zone audio, is just all over the place. It
may be that you don't get those customers because you are catering more to
that traditional crowd. But I can definitely say that once you get out into
the wider crowd of people (the ones we really need to bring in in order to
grow the market), media is very much on their minds. If nothing else they
have to deal with the WAF, and convicing the better half to spend money on
multi-zone audio is probably a lot easier than on lighting (though once the
automation system is in place, then you do that upsell on the lighting and
HVAC and whatnot.)

I'm not in any real position to say what the numbers are out there overall.
But for us, so many of our customers are looking for media management, and
except for places like this (or Cocoontech) where very automation oriented
people hang out, media seems to be playing a big part in getting folks into
this world who wouldn't have really been interested before.

We, as a company, have absolutely no position on what's best. We are
software people and all we really care about is making money by creating
really good software. So we are really driven by what people want. And we've
been pushed to provide stronger and stronger support for media management
stuff. And I would differentiate that from 'home theater control', which is
really just pretty traditional type automation of a pariticular type of
hardware. So I'm talking media server, metadata browsing, CD ripping, and
multi-zone audio and that kind of thing. It's made a huge difference for us.

--------------------
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd
www.charmedquark.com
"Robert L Bass" <robertbass1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0Jidnckn-4PO4uLYnZ2dnUVZ_ternZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Again, from what I've been hearing from numerous customers not just now but
for years, entertainment media is *not* the primary requirement.  In most
cases it isn't even a consideration.  Just today I sold two more HA systems.
Neither client had any interest at all in multi-room audio/video.  One has a
home theater system but isn't interested in connecting it or any of his
source equipment to the HA system.  The other bought speakers and volume
controls for several rooms but was also not interested in  integrating them
with the HA system.