Automation Software suggestions? [Text View]

robertmee

10-12-06, 03:41 PM

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=1768

But I concur with CQC. Goto www.charmedquark.com and look at the available drivers. Then go into the forum and find the thread for new drivers up and coming. The beauty of CQC is that it is distributed control, so after you install the Master Server on a PC, any other PC can run the client side and can even connect to devices and control them all through your network. For example, my CQC Master sits in my Home Theater. I have a Client that sits in another room that has a Modem in it for logging CID and it also has a touchscreen connected to it for all my screens. I have another Client in another room that is serially connected to my TV for controlling it. So, you don't have to string all your control back to a single box.

The other nicety about CQC is that the backbone is rock solid. The pluggins/3rd party drivers that many of us write can only be written within a controlled framework to control quality. It's really a masterstroke.

I've used Xlobby, MainLobby, MyHTPC, Meedio, XBMC, etc. and nothing compares to where I believe CQC will be one day. Right now CQC is far and away the better HA controller but doesn't have the flashiness of some of the others when it comes to media management. But that's about to change some with the impending 2.0 release. Something else you'll find that's been different for me with CQC vs others is that everyone who uses it gets passionate about it. You won't find to much in the forums that dog it like you will in the Homeseer, MainLobby, etc. forums.

Oh, and CQC has control of lights via Insteon, Lutron RadioRa and Lutron GrafikEye drivers.

IVB

10-12-06, 03:42 PM

You'll probably want some hardware to accompany that s/w, esp the keychain stuff. I use CQC and an Elk automation panel to achieve my goals.

About the only thing I don't do is lighting, and that's because I wanted to implement everything else first. I"ll be adding that in the 3-6 month timeframe. Check out the site in my sig for screenshots.

As of this minute, I can:
- Whole House Audio (CD & XM distro)
- Whole House DVD via both ripped & megachanger (ok, just 2 rooms)
- Security System Integration (can arm/disarm/monitor/get paged, also control & monitor via cellphone)
- HVAC (also can adjust heat/fan/etc via cellphone, when i'm on my way home, etc)
- Irrigation System Control
- Closed Circuit TV viewing ( i can also pull up a live shot of the cameras on my cellphone, very very cool)
- Very basic CallerID tracking
- Doorbell & Telephone ring detection, so I can take action as desired. (ie pause video/audio, or just lower the volume)
- "Cross-discipline" integration - i.e., if the security system detects something and the system is armed, turn on the sprinklers and announce over the PA that your picture has just been taken and emailed to the cops, so you get out ASAP. This is what you're talking about with lighting via DVDs via ...

Working on:
- Whole house TV distro (ie, via SageTV)
- Lighting
- Drape Control (already got remote controlled curtains mounted, haven't taken that last step of training the IR codes into the PC)
- Recipe Management/Display
- Expanded Call History Log, integration with MS-Outlook

boslaw

10-12-06, 03:51 PM

LathanM

10-12-06, 05:31 PM

Expense and time are what it comes down to. CQC is probly the most powerfull all in one package on the market at the cost of using a developer kit model. It does require a fair bit of development at the start to get the basics up and running. If you are willing to sacrifice a little versitility you can go with MainLobby. It is a modular design so you can purchase just the packages you need.

If you are just starting out you can spread the cost out over a longer period of time. For example if you don't have whole house audio or security cameras you aren't paying for the capability to add them. You only need to buy what you need. The other benifit is you can quickly get things up and running with little custom programming or modification. For example I am running their DVDLobby plugin with 4 DVD changers and the other than installing a 32 port serial card (overkill for now but ...) to control them the setup was quick and painless. In less than an hour any movie was accessable in the main theater and about 3 hours later I had them configured for 2 zones with the changer keeping track of what one was in use to eliminate conflicts.

Another thing that may be important to you are printable manuals. I know software changes constantly but having a printable manual is a big benifit when you are learning any piece of software. Having only web and forum documentation can be a bit of a pain if you want to work on something while off line. Sure you can print web pages or forum post but that is a poor subtitute for a decent starter manual.

Think of MainLobby as regular Lego blocks and CQC as Lego Technic. You can do some cool stuff with both but one is a little more flexable but harder to work with.

IVB

10-12-06, 05:33 PM

Trust me, it's nothing short of cheap when you look at how much you get. Plus, it's going up to $895 for the full package, $495 for the base in a few weeks once V2.0 goes G/A.

What other stuff are you looking at? There's no real competition for a fully robust solution, everything else is really just good at a handful of focused items.

FWIW, I priced out my setup using HomeSeer & Cinemar's MainLobby, that'd be $1500 for the software alone.

robertmee

10-12-06, 07:10 PM

The CQC price seems kind of steep compared to the other stuff I'm looking at. Maybe because the other stuff really only automates lighting and appliances? I'm not sure I'm ready to spend $495 yet since I'm still in the beginning stages of this.

As mentioned, the thing you have to be careful of is scope creep. Invariably, once you start into HA, you'll find more and more you want to control. CQC's price of $495 includes everything w/ all drivers. With MainLobby/Homeseer, everytime you want to add a new device, open up your wallet for a new driver or new piece of the puzzle. If ALL you ever want is lighting control, then CQC is too much for you. If you envision a completely controlled/distributed home, then CQC will fit the bill.

Good Luck in whichever way you decide.

QQQ

10-12-06, 07:52 PM

For this poster another strong vote for CQC if he can swing the budget. Well worth it.

Korey

10-12-06, 08:01 PM

Take a look at HCA (Home Control Assistant). I have been using it with x10 for years, great stable product.
hcatech

boslaw

10-13-06, 09:18 AM

Ok, you're all enticing me with CQC. What do you all use it for today? Right now, I can't envision much more than lights and maybe calling home to set thermostat (either via web or phone). I have an ADP alarm system, so I don't think I'll need automation for that. I have a programmable sprinkler system so I won't need it for that. I don't have (or want) DVD changers - I only watch one at a time ; ) What am I missing? I know I can look at the website and see all of the capabilities, but I'm more interested in your real-world use.

robertmee

10-13-06, 12:09 PM

I have it integrated to my alarm system (talks serially to it). Instead of having to remember zone 21 is the Living Room window, I can pull up the floor plan of my house and see exactly what sensor is going off. Plus, by reading the sensor values through the security system, I can do automated events like turn on/off lights based on motion or the front door opening, popup PIP on my TV that shows the front door surveillance camera based on motion at the front door, etc.

IVB

10-13-06, 12:50 PM

Yeah, when I started with CQC, all I could envision was the ability to move my receiver to another room and control it via serial. And now so much more, as the incremental cost for automation was an 8port serial card and some RS232 cables.

I opted to eBay my sprinkler computer, and get a cheap rain8net so I could do it through CQC. MUCH simpler interface than my damn sprinklers, also I can trip them on a security intrusion and get the thief wet at least :-)

I also ripped out my ADT and put in that Elk, so I could re-use my security stuff for non-security purposes. (ie, motion detectors). Also, ADT wanted $100-$150/sensor. I'll have ~50 sensors in my 1650 sqft house, the door/window ones are $2.50 each, the motion is $22 each. I put them in every single room.

I'm the midst of changing my screens to take advantage of V2.0's new stuff, but here's some older pics.

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_House_Motion.JPG

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_Floorplanview.jpg

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_Sources_Video.jpg

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_XM.jpg

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_Elk.jpg

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_Irrigation.JPG

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_House_Temperature.JPG

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/vladstudio/VladStudio_Camera.jpg

Dean Roddey

10-13-06, 02:30 PM

You can see some more systems (though some of them pretty out of date now) if you go to the web site (www.charmedquark.com) and go into the section under the Gallery Tab. We need to get some newer systems into the gallery.

boslaw

10-13-06, 02:33 PM

robertmee

10-13-06, 02:37 PM

If I have a really good programmable remote, why would I want to control my AV equip through one of these systems? My remote can presumably turn off/dim lights, turn on and switch AV components, once I program lighting scenese with my computer.

Because most of us have our AV equipment tucked away in some remote equipment rack with no visual clues as to what's going on. Sure you can use a remote IR extender to get to the equipment but you won't have feedback like you do with a touchscreen that not only shows you what you're asking for, but how the equipment actually responded. And have you ever tried to pick from 20,000 songs from a remote?

And of course some of it is just style. Why would someone buy a mercedes when a Kia will get them to the corner market just as effectively.

IVB

10-13-06, 02:43 PM

Three reasons, although admittedly I use both CQC and an MX850, for the best of both worlds.
1) Robustness of communication.
Remotes are IR, and hence inherently 1-way communicaiton. You cannot tell if sending a given command succeeded or not.

I have an MX850 programmable remote, I owned it before I owned CQC. Thing is, if there was no sound coming out of the speakers, I couldn't tell if it was b/c the source input was wrong, the volume was too low, it was muted, or what. Pressing the button didn't always solve the problem, and I constantly found myself getting up to see what the issue was. That defeated the concept of using a fancy remote. Now, with CQC, it's serial, so it's a guaranteed send.

2) Bidirectional communication
Again, as it's a serial connection, I can paint the current status on the screen. If there's an issue, I can see what the problem is. If I notice that my wife left the receiver cranked, I can turn it down BEFORE starting up a show or song.

3) Whole House a/v distribution
Try using one of those programmable remotes in a different room to tune a station, see how frustrated you get. For me, I had to push the dang button 5x, or play 1001 guess as to why there's no damn music in the living room.

boslaw

10-13-06, 03:06 PM

I have an MX-750 remote with an RF expander. However, if nothing's happening when I push a button on my remote, what's the diff between getting up to look at my computer screen or getting up to look in my AV cabinet? If you're changing a radio station from another room, won't you still have to be close to a computer to get feedback? Maybe I'm being a little dense?

What I envision -

connect my Mac or PC to my receiver and projector. Run itunes through FrontRow (Mac) or something on the PC. Control with MX-750 remote.

connect my Leviton lights to my computer via X10 and simple light automation (indigo Mac or activehome pro PC. Control with MX-750 remote.

alarm - I live in a pretty rural area (in the woods actually). My ADP alarm system is already installed so I don't think I need to change.

I guess I'm just missing the "gotta have it" feature in these descriptions. Automation sounds great and sounds like something I want to do, but I just haven't found a use that I either really need or really want yet.

IVB

10-13-06, 03:29 PM

I render the CQC screen on my TV, so I don't have to get up period.

For me, that's gotta have it. Heck, literally the first second that my wife saw it on the screen, she said "oh, thank god". She hated getting up to look at the receiver.

Dean Roddey

10-13-06, 03:43 PM

Here are some of the benefits:

1. Media management. You can't do this on a remote control. I can browse my media, and then start the player playing, and then control the player and see the status of the player.

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web/Gallery/CQCDemo1/MusicOverlay.jpg
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web/Gallery/CQCDemo1/CurMusicOverlay.jpg
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web/Gallery/CQCDemo1/CurMovieOverlay.jpg

2. External Data Feeds.. You can bring in external data sources, such as weather data, traffic cameras, weather radar, horoscope, etc... and display that information to you.

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web/Gallery/CQCDemo1/WeatherOverlay.jpg

3. Automation Logic. Yes you can 'send and pray' commands to your system with a remote, but you can't do any logic based on feedback. An example from my own system is that the DVD changer has to be up and running before moving forward with any other commands. Without feedback there would be no way to know if it's on or not in the commands being sent. So you'd have to wait for the maximum time. With two way control, my system on logic can see if it's on yet or not and not bother to wait if it is.

4. Visual feedback. Look at the examples above. The current volume is presented there above the volume knob. So I can know what the volume is before I turn the system on, and know it's not going to be at reference volume if I turn it on at night.

5. Scheduled/triggered events. You can set up an automation system to do things automatically at particular times, or in response to something happening (which in turn depends on two way control.) You can have it turn on the outside lights on/off at sunset/sunrise. You can have it turn on lights in response to a motion sensor. You can it turn on sprinklers based on a moisture gauge. You can have it turn up the heat at 7AM before you wake up.

6. Text to Speech. You can have it talk to you and tell you things, like it's 11PM on sunday, you need to do XYZ. You can have it speak the weather conditions to you.

7. Network distribution. You can have touch screens or hand helps in various rooms of the house, all connected to the automation system and able to provide all of the above features. So you can arm the security system from the bedroom, or turn off the outside lights from the home theater, and so forth.

8. Remote Access. You can access your home from on the road and turn off the security system for the house keeper or make sure the lights are off or turn up the heat before you come home from a weekend trip.

Basically, your imagination (and cash in some cases) is the limit.

Ripper99

10-14-06, 03:48 AM

I've used Xlobby, MainLobby, MyHTPC, Meedio, XBMC, etc. and nothing compares to where I believe CQC will be one day. Right now CQC is far and away the better HA controller but doesn't have the flashiness of some of the others when it comes to media management. But that's about to change some with the impending 2.0 release. Something else you'll find that's been different for me with CQC vs others is that everyone who uses it gets passionate about it. You won't find to much in the forums that dog it like you will in the Homeseer, MainLobby, etc. forums.

I'm in the same boat as robertmee and have tried all the others except MyHTPC and can say without a doubt CQC can do everything you want and is a very reliable product.

I tried all these other softwares to control my 1100+ CD collection and either they choked and ran slow..rather than point out the faults of other products I can only say there is a reason why I switched to CQC after using it maybe 10 days and giving it an honest trial.

I'll admit at first I was unsure of the product because others products seemed flashier at first glance however I can design my own graphics and don't need to be spending hundreds of dollars on graphics packages I can create myself and surely don't want to design my system so it looks like everybody else's with canned graphics.

I was looking for a system with the power of Crestron or AMX and a company that could support it without excuses or promised upgrades delayed time and time again...I took a chance and tried CQC and during my first few days downloaded IVB's music control templates and dedicated those days to seeing if CQC could control my music without excuses the way I wanted it, if I wanted buttons to be any size they could be!

After about 2-3 days I knew CQC was the product I wanted, and within 10 days I agreed to buy it and since then I havent looked back and CQC will be the product that I build my dream system with...I have been a CQC user since March 2006.

You can see many of the graphics I have designed for use with CQC at this link, many of them I use for my own system and some I have designed for other CQC users free of charge in my spare time.

http://www.touchscreengraphics.com/gallery2/main.php

I'd have to say the CQC users I have met since I bought the product are one of a kind, the group is not a bunch of custom installers or fly by nights looking to make a quick buck..we have professional installers on our forum as well as many DIY's like myself and we all have something to contribute to each other and we all get along and help each other in some way.

I'm especially thankful for all the new programmers who have been writing drivers for CQC free of charge, even though I don't use all the drivers your free drivers are yet another reason I moved over to CQC.

I'm a previous owner of a multi-buck Crestron system, after realizing Crestron offered no support to DIY's I gave it back to my dealer and vowed to build my own "Crestron on the cheap"..its been many years since then and I have tried almost every product since then but can say without a doubt CQC is the closest thing you'll find compared to Crestron or AMX and the price is so much less :-)

I could babble on and on for hours and point out the faults of other products but I won't, instead I invite you to download the trial of CQC and join us on the forum for a week or two and after that you will have a very good idea of why I stand behind this product 100%...nothing else I have tried has the reliability and stability of CQC and as I mentioned before there is indeed a reason why I have stuck with CQC...nothing compares for the price ;)

Quixote1

10-18-06, 10:38 PM

Sorry if my initial post was too vague.

I'm a beginner at automation. For now, I'm interested in controlling my lights (all Leviton dimmers and scene controllers). I'd like the software to do that well, but also be able to expand into other areas of control (media, HVAC, etc.). I'm sure if it works well, I'll get hooked and want to do more with it.

I want to be able to come home and turn on outside lights with a keychain or remote. I want to be able to control lighting scenes with a remote while I'm watching a movie, etc.

I haven't scrutinized every post in this thread, but I did a quick search and noticed that no one has mentioned the very excellent application: Girder by Promixis.
Of all the software that I've encountered, Girder's been the most flexible and fun software to use.
Based on your post, I think that Girder's the way to go. I've been using it for years now, and it's almost like a game to me now. I love the way the only real limits are your own imagination (and obviously your hardware) Right now I'm experimenting with Insteon and the results have been pretty good so far. The Promixis team is working on a plugin for Insteon and it's updated regularly. You could use your X10 switches as well. When you want to expand you can just get some more hardware and then add the proper plug-in and it's good to go.
I have my entertainment system controlled fully with the program, I control my vertical blinds, my surveillance system, lighting, fans, Caller ID announcements, and I've set up a security system that SMS messages me on my phone if there is an intrusion or missed phone call.
Also, it won't put you in the poor-house. It's around $150 for the pro version.
If you want to check it out for yourself, I believe they have a trial version you can download at promixis dot c0m (sorry I can't post the url because the system thinks I'm spamming)
I can help you out if you decide to check it out -- we can start a new thread on it here. There's also a forum with a lot of brilliant and helpful people on the Promixis site.

Have fun!

-D

mwebster

10-20-06, 01:08 AM

Dean Roddey

10-20-06, 04:08 AM

CQC is primarily targeting the professional market, where flexibility is more important than getting something going quickly, so it leans towards being highly flexible. Customization is an important factor for installers to add value and differentiate their services relative to someone else's.

IVB

10-20-06, 12:49 PM

CQC is primarily targeting the professional market, where flexibility is more important than getting something going quickly,

FYI - there's probably 5 of us who've made all our templates freely downloadable, (me, ripper, ellisr63, blanking on the others), and we also have monthly CQC user group webex meetings to help each other out. This means that you can get the best of both worlds - Dean/CQC focuses on building a highly flexible system, and the DIY community helps expedite the setup process.

Don't get me wrong, it still takes a few days->weeks based on how much you want to do. But you can get some awesome CD/DVD/weather templates up within a day or two, and spend the rest of the time on the real cool stuff.

Quixote1

10-20-06, 05:37 PM

I'm sure CQC is a great system... for rich people. No disrespect, but at $900 it's a little out of range for a lot of us. Especially when you consider that the only difference between CQC and other systems is mostly the eye-candy. In my opinion an automation system should be invisible when done correctly, in which case the graphics don't really matter. The exception is when you bring touch-screen panels into the equation -- then they are extremely important. I was very impressed with the screens that IVB posted (in another thread, I think?). The thing is, again, a touchscreen panel is another $1000 to $1200, and a lot of us are too busy worrying about our car payments and rent/mortgage to drop $5000 on automation hardware and software.

When I hit the lottery I'll be sure to check out what you have to offer. ;)

Quixote1

10-20-06, 05:42 PM

Can't comment on CQC. I haven't used it. I've used NetRemote from Girder with Girder with Girder and I'm currently using MainLobby from Cinemar. I'm happy with the MainLobby products and like the direction they're going. You can do a very nice looking interface quickly WITHOUT purchasing the extra graphics. If you want to design your own graphics, something else might be a better choice. I'm more interested in functionality and reliability, and their current efforts seem to be pointed in that direction. Good luck.

You mentioned that you were using Girder and NetRemote -- what versions were you using and what did you think of them? I'm thinking about getting into NetRemote because I'm so happy with Girder and I'd like to add a new dimension to my setup. I'm currently using an old ATI remote wonder to control my system. It's functional, but leaves a lot to be desired.

QQQ

10-20-06, 07:35 PM

I'm sure CQC is a great system... for rich people. No disrespect, but at $900 it's a little out of range for a lot of us. Especially when you consider that the only difference between CQC and other systems is mostly the eye-candy.
I don't believe this is an informed statement. You might want to download a CQC evaluation for free and learn more about it. The ability to create beautiful graphics, while important, is not what separates CQC from the pack of other software solutions.

IVB

10-20-06, 08:03 PM

Especially when you consider that the only difference between CQC and other systems is mostly the eye-candy.

Not even remotely true.

Fact of the matter is, CQC is the ONLY truly network-distributed true client/server architecture program out there, bar none, which is of paramount importance once you get past the "hey look ma, i can control this via my computer" world. And you get all that for the single price.

There's also about 100 other differences. I've checked out pretty much all the others.

Quixote1

10-20-06, 09:52 PM

Not even remotely true.

Fact of the matter is, CQC is the ONLY truly network-distributed true client/server architecture program out there, bar none, which is of paramount importance once you get past the "hey look ma, i can control this via my computer" world. And you get all that for the single price.

There's also about 100 other differences. I've checked out pretty much all the others.

"Not even remotely true." hahaha nice pun. :D

Well, as a previous user of Girder, I'm surprised that you didn't know that Girder could communicate with other instances of the program over the network, as well as communicate with a PDA on a wireless network when paired with NetRemote.
Sorry if I'm mistaken, but I'm not sure if you're correct about CQC being the only network-distributed true client/server architecture program out there.
In fact, NetRemote just won Multimedia Remote Media Controllers category of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine's 2006 Best Software Awards.
Anyway, I'm sorry if I rubbed you guys the wrong way, I do enjoy a nice healthy debate, though. :)
Aside from the crazy price of CQC, but it's apparent simplicity, what other differences have you noticed? I don't plan on downloading it to investigate further, since there is no way I'm going to shell out the same amount of cash I could spend on a new washer and dryer.

smoothtlk

10-20-06, 11:21 PM

IVB (or Dean), I keep seeing CQC fans talking about "Only truly networked distributed true client / server architecture program out there, bar none, which is of paramount importance once you ...."
Ok, provide some details on what those words mean, and what you see as the paramount importance and why you feel it is "bar none".

There are a lot of "truly networked distributed solutions".
There are a lot of client / server architecture programs.

I don't get it. What is this differentiating factor?

IVB

10-21-06, 12:09 AM

"Not even remotely true." hahaha nice pun. Oh, yeah, didn't notice that. I'm a poet and didn't even know it...

Well, as a previous user of Girder, I'm surprised that you didn't know that Girder could communicate with other instances of the program over the network, as well as communicate with a PDA on a wireless network when paired with NetRemote.

The thing about having multiple PCs all integrated is that I don't want other instances, I want a single instance, administerable from anywhere, any change that happens on any machine is immediately visible everywhere.

It's interesting how many network admins or other IT guys have joined those monthly CQC calls and said "holy cow - this thing really is a fully distributed network-designed architecture. I've never even heard of someone doing something like this for a DIY application".

One silly reason this is important to me is that my wife and daughter seemingly always want the same machine that i'm on. If I'm on the laptop, they suddenly want the laptop. If i'm on the office PC, ditto. Christ, it's about to happen right now - my daughter literally just sat next to me and asked me if she can play a game. I'm busy getting some stuff finished up for that CQC walkthrough tomorrow, so i'm now going to have to save my work here and get on a different PC to finish this post. That ability to work anywhere, link in to a common repository, where a driver on any server is visible to all machines and easily integrated into my screens is a must-have for me. Dang, i need to stop typing and finish this up on a different computer.

Dean Roddey

10-21-06, 12:15 AM

There are a lot of "truly networked distributed solutions".
There are a lot of client / server architecture programs.

I think that there was an implication that the comparison was limited to the world of software-based automation programs, not the world of software at large, where there are many apps like CQC out there.

I think that where CQC is different from the competition is that everything is distributed, from the ground up. If you want to edit your interfaces, you don't need to do some kind of shared directory, the interface editor works through a back end server that coordinates access to the user interfaces and allows you to load, edit, and store interfaces through a purely client/server interface. So you can do it from the road if you want. The same goes for macros, scheduled or triggered events, images, actions, metadata, ripping CDs, log information, etc...

So it's not just distributed in the sense that you can have a server running drivers (plug-ins in other products) and access the data form those drivers from various clients. It's that the whole thing is distributed, even from a management and configuration standpoint. And access to the data is controlled through our security system, because they aren't on shared drives so that they can be gotten to by clients. They are gotten to by way of tools that understand the security system and enforce it, and insure that more than one person doesn't access this or that piece of information at the same time and munge it up.

More fundamentally than that, it's based on our own Object Request Broker technology, which allows for a very dynamic environment. The only thing a client has to know is the address of the master server, and they can go to a name server and look up the services available (services register themselves as they come up) and figure out where they are. So services can move around easily without impacting the clients that use those services. It also makes it very easy to create remote interfaces, so we have probably 40 or 50 of them at this point, which is why everything is doable from any client. It's based on a distributed object foundation all the way down to the roots.

It allows us, for instance, to have a remote serial port server, and since you write drivers through our own graphical IDE (which works through a back end server that manages access all CML code for network clients), using our own object oriented CML language, we can use polymorphism and the ORB to easily vector serial commands to our own remote port server and write drivers for devices that are on the customer's premises, without them having to buy any special hardware or software. We've done many drivers without ever having seen the hardware ourselves.

It's my understanding, for instance, that things like ML scenes are just files that have to either be shared from a drive or copies to each client. So, from a management and configuration perspective, it's not really a network distributed system. CQC is more like a high end, network-based multi-user development system, of the sorts that generally cost tens of thousands of bucks when sold for software engineering purposes.

The kinds of apps out there of CQC's sort tend to be sold by big companies to other companies, and have the word "Enterprise" somewhere in the title (which tranlates roughly to "very expensive".) Most software geek types would probably be stunned at the amount of software technology (of our own) that we have. We don't depend on third party software to do more than a few things, and use only the lowest level operating system interfaces we can, so we have a level of control over the quality of our product that even most quite large companies would kill for.

And just as importantly, the speed this allows us to move forward is significant. I mean, I'm one guy, but because we control all the code I don't have to waste time. If there's a problem, I can fix it. If it could be better but requires changes in some fundamental bit of the system, I can improve it. If something is going wrong, I can look in side the box and see why. It's allowed little ol' me to out-program companies with considerably more development resources. But that's because I started writing this program about 14 years ago now, though I didn't know that at the time. So while other companies have to deal with bugs in third party code they use, we just don't have that problem really. We do have some bugs of course, but they are ours and we can fix them, we don't have to work around them, or scratch our heads because the user installed this new program and now ours stopped working. Well, that can happen in some rare cases, but it's not often. Mostly it's over-zealous anti-virus or firewall programs that can cause havoc when they start walling off some of our bits and pieces.

IVB

10-21-06, 01:23 AM

Ok, sorry, back now. Well, Dean covered a lot of it, but the other bit about network-architecture is that I am sick of sacrificing PCs to the altar of HA/HT. I want to leverage all the existing computers in my house, and not have to pay through the nose for either additional licenses or stability.

How many of us have kids who either have or will want their own PCs? Don't you want them to tap into your overall HT network without any issues? They should be able to pull up any DVD or your SageTV recordings or CDs without concerns. I've already got 5 PCs(more powerful HTPC, office PC, old cheap fileserver, CCTV server, laptop), and 2 touchpanels, the kids would be #6 [or 7 if the 2nd kid wants her own too].

I want to know that the package I go with is designed to be used by that many computers, and isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg. I don't want to deal with shared directories, and have to worry about what happens if 2 different PCs both happen to compete for the same file.

Anyhow, there's a lot more to that story, but i've droned on long enough.

Quixote1

10-21-06, 04:15 AM

smoothtlk

10-21-06, 08:57 AM

Quixote1, Yes, you have a great point. Girder is a fantastic application. Cinemar really likes it. We recommend it to our dealers all the time if it helps get them out of a jamb to support a certain piece of hardware that there is already a Girder plugin for.

Cinemar has a pretty open strategy. Not open source code, but open to interfacing with other software developers apps. We take a "best of breed" approach. If there is an excellent app that does X really good, and that supports interfacing, we do that instead of rolling our own. Now, if we find that we can do that piece better, we do roll our own. We treat other software similarly to hardware - if you bought it, why not use it.

We have a free Girder plugin that can help you add the good things about MainLobby to your Girder installation. Any drivers you produce using Girder are directly reusable with MainLobby. Our pricing is not a huge leap either. To add MainLobby to your Girder installation, you would add the MainLobby 3 Combo which includes the MainLobby Designer and client and MainLobby Server3, which does all of the automation and interfacing with hardware / software. The combo is $179.99. More expensive than NetRemote (another nice product), but quite a bit more expansive, easy to use (both for design and end use) and polished. The graphics alone are worth the price.

You can also feel free to "get your hands dirty" If you like to do software development, have at it. Our "semi openess" allows you to build your own custom plugins if you have that background. With MainLobby you have complete control over what the user interface looks like and can creatively use the included hundreds of pro level (not just user contributed)graphical assets that come with it, or build your own (or borrow from one of some that our talented user community has come up with on their own). We also offer additional pro level graphics at additional cost as well. We have in beta a means that allows end users (which includes our dealer network) the ability to write their own RS232 serial driver to support the myriad of hardware that comes out every day.

There has been 35 updates to MainLobby client and 125 builds (probably 20 released) of MainLobby Server3 alone in the last 5 months. Most of the 35 updates have included additional free graphics (below is a part of last night's free upgrade). There have been hundreds of new products and product updates across the product suite in that time frame as well, and that is because we have many more than one developer to keep pace with this evergrowing, everchanging industry. Fast pace is defined by consumer electronics and software.

We can afford this because we price at the level that sells, provide users easy means to get started, provide our dealer base with products that differentiate from their competition with one touch of the screen, and have provided virtually 24x7 support via our forum because there is more than one of us.

Feel free to try MainLobby's demo and the girder plugin when the time is right for you.

http://cinemaronline.com/images/0019_slidingmenu_screens.jpg

penngray

10-21-06, 10:04 AM

Aside from the crazy price of CQC

I dont get that?

Crestron/AMX, etc cost what?

a yearly MSDN developer licenses is 2K or more. Cable TV or Satellite TV costs easily $90 a month. XM radio costs me $20 a month.......Xantech or Russound audio matrix devices $1500 easily so what are you comparing the $500 price tag and then a yearly subscription too?

Besides that I have read that if I was to by the other products and ALL the components I need it would cost the same or more so I would say that term crazy doesnt appy here.

penngray

10-21-06, 10:13 AM

"a lot of us are too busy worrying about our car payments and rent/mortgage to drop $5000 on automation hardware and software."
Maybe you can afford to have 8 computers in your house, touchscreens at every main junction and a software suite that costs a cool grand, but for the folks that like to get their hands a little dirty sometimes and save a lot of money for a product that is in my humble opinion superior (for different reasons) there is Girder and NetRemote.

Home automation is many things but for full house automation you have to spend the money. Heck you can not get full house automation with just 5K.

How do you do the following then if you dont want to spend money?

4 HD rooms need simultaneous access to ripped DVDs on a storage network. ONLY one way to do that is with multiple PCs. did you know 8 PCs would still cost under $2500 but no one needs that many, we only need 3 to supply 5 rooms? Not much when considering Russound CAV6.6 is $1500.

btw, CQC only needs one PC period so I dont know why you posted saying it needs more, the others are for audio/video options. You need more PCs too if you wanted a Audio/video solution.

6 audio zones need to have access to XM/FM radio, MP3s, etc.....you need multi-zone amps.

Thermostats, security control, irrigation, video cameras etc cost money.

wall mounted controls or portable remotes (Ipaqs) cost money.... I have 3 airpanels now for a total cost of $1500. I dont know how you control anything without wireless touchscreens, that is what HA software is for and that costs money.

Matrix switches for audio/video cost money.

It seems we are talking about two different things and it seems those who dont or cant spend 5K are not doing full home automation in my opinion and that is what shoul matter when considering a product.

1K for the software is just because the price was raised recently, heck it was cheap before. 1K again is nothing wrt to the total cost of true home automation. Im building a new house and to just get speakers,wiring,switches,amps, HD in many rooms its costing my 14K already.

$500 to control it? wow that is too incredible!!!! sign me up!!!

I could not find another piece of software out there that will handle my project. Oh wait there was but it was 20K to start :(

penngray

10-21-06, 10:22 AM

We can afford this because we price at the level that sells

sure but you could triple the price, lose 1/3 of your customers and still make more money. I doubt you would lose them since there isnt much great competition.

Mudslide03

10-21-06, 11:05 AM

IVB

10-21-06, 11:13 AM

Well, you guys certainly have a case for a certain niche. Personally, I only have two computers, so for me it's not that big a deal to install a second instance of Girder on my second computer and use remote desktop over the network when I need to, especially when you take into account that it's only $150 for a whole home licence which allows me to install it on every computer in the house (should I decide that I need one for another room). The thing is, I don't see why you would need more than one computer running your automation tasks. I have one system to handle pretty much everything automated, and the other for downloading torrents or browsing the net in my bedroom. If I need access to my media, then I can just use a shared folder. I'm not sure why you don't want to use a shared folder -- you can just make it read only so the kids don't mess with it.

Maybe you can afford to have 8 computers in your house, touchscreens at every main junction and a software suite that costs a cool grand, but for the folks that like to get their hands a little dirty sometimes and save a lot of money for a product that is in my humble opinion superior (for different reasons) there is Girder and NetRemote.

Three main points:
1) Yes, agreed totally with everything that you said. Girder is a great tool for what it does. If you have a small scale implementation and don't need a lot or have a computer background, it meets that niche. But I'd be concerned it would crumble under my desires or suck up even more of my time, which is whole-home-automation. My life is already sucked up by the hardware/wiring part of this project, I don't want to dedicate any more time or risk any more failure points than I need to in order to make things work. I did a pretty indepth analysis of Girder & NetRemote last August before I chose CQC, in the end I just didn't feel comfortable in my ability to correctly set it up. I'm clearly ok with getting dirty, but I honestly didn't understand half the words on the Girder-NR integration page. I got out of programming 10 years ago, and have forgotten nearly all of it.
I fully accept the statement that I opted to use a package that takes care of many of the dirty bits for me. For me personally, it's a better use of my time. But for others, they may have a different education point.

2) Yes, I actually only have the CQC server doing the automation generation. However, I have all these older PCs laying around the house (and within 2-3 years, so will you. 23M households today have >1PC, that # will double within a few years) (http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/r1005/01r05/01r05.asp&guid=). Not sure if you were the one who pointed this out on HTPCNews, but when someone saw my multizone a/v distribution suggestion (http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/temp/option_4.jpg) they said "just use cheap multiple PCs".

Are you going to throw out your current PCs when they're too old to run the new stuff, or would you rather re-use them?

3) 1 PC to control all the hardware and do all the event programming isn't really reasonable. Based on your level of automation and amount of foresight, wiring everything to 1 PC or location isn't going to cut it. No way could I have physically fit all my a/v, hvac, irrigation, lighting (partial hardwire), security, modem wiring into a single location. Plus there's that whole scope creep thing. I didn't realize I could automate the Elk, callerid, lighting, irrigation, FOR FREE as part of that CQC license. Given that I hadn't run any of that wiring, I needed to use alternate PCs for some of that based on what would be the easiest to run wiring to. Given that I now have multiple PCs controlling hardware, I don't want to run around to multiple PCs to program them. It needs to be centralized.

In the end, I suspect that as HA moves away from the hobbyist and towards folks who rely on it working in order for their house to work, CQC will only gain in prominence. As you said, it's more for the folks who don't want to get their hands that dirty, and will want distributed control.

sure but you (cinemar) could triple the price, lose 1/3 of your customers and still make more money. I doubt you would lose them since there isnt much great competition.
Are you joking? Cinemar would have already been 50% more than CQC ($1500) for what I'm doing, it's just priced in a nickel&dime fashion. Remember that old saying about putting a frog in a pot of boiling water as opposed to putting a frog in cold water, and slowly turning up the heat. One way makes the frog realize what they're getting into, the other situation doesn't.

IVB

10-21-06, 11:22 AM

CQC vs. CInemar.

I am a current Cinemar product user. I own the whole suite of products. I love what they do but it is incredibly frustrating trying to get anything setup with the lack of instruction.

I am looking for opinions from people that have tried both products. Would CQC be easier to work with or would I be spending numerous hours everytime I try to do anything with it?

I've tried both products. In all fairness, it depends on your background, your level of knowledge of a product, and the willingess and availability of the community to help. I have to take a page from Mario's book, not respond directly, but ask you to at least join one of the monthly CQC webex sessions to see what it's like. I'll be walking through how I setup my whole system at 3:00pm PST today, but I end up doing a bit of that every month as there's always a newbie or 10 that want to know how to do something.

I personally find it extremely quick to muck with it, but then again that's an unfair statement as i've now heavily used the product for 12 months to accomplish my goals. I can probably do anything in less than 30 minutes, but if I had spend that same amount of time with Cinemar, that same statement might be true.

Also, between me, ripper(who i'm sure you know from his cinemar posts), ellisr63, and probably 10 others, you'll find video tutorials, online webex sessions, and horrifically detailed forum posts with pics about how to accomplish many things.

Mudslide03

10-21-06, 11:44 AM

IVB

10-21-06, 11:49 AM

BTW, CQC is currently $495 for the full license. Once 2.0 goes final (single digit weeks), it'll go to $495 base, $895 full.

Some folks would be content with the $495 license, here's the other modules:
- App control server (now that both SageTV and TT have TCP drivers, this is less important)
- $95 DotNet Viewer ( use CQC on PDA's)
- $145 Media Plus (CQC repository. You could use JRMC or DVDProfiler instead)
- $95 Event Server (scheduled or triggered events, i find this very useful)
- $95 Web Server (i've never used it.)
- $95 XML Gateway (i don't even know what this means)

Hence, based on your preference, you may only need $495 plus maybe 1-2 of the modules. I bought the full license cuz I didn't want to underbuy and regret it yet again.

IVB

10-21-06, 11:50 AM

If CQC has clear documentation that can walk me step b
y step through setup then I think I need to give it a try.

The current CQC docs aren't yet revised due to V2.0. Some of us have add-on docs that literally spoonfeed the user on how to do stuff.

But even better yet are those monthly calls, and one of these days i'll record them to spoonfeed you a video tutorial on how to install everything you need, not just the CQC bits.

Quixote1

10-21-06, 02:07 PM

Well, thanks for all of the info, guys. This has been very informative.
For the record, by "getting your hands dirty" I meant getting under the hood and really delving into it; writing scripts and plug-ins etc.
I understand you didn't have much faith in your programming ability, but in all fairness, you were planning to do some pretty complicated stuff... serial communication is a big world of many devices from what I've seen.

On another note, Cinemar looks quite sexy, but I think that since NetRemote and Girder are practically made for each other I'm going to have to go down that road. It just makes more sense to me since the developers are so tightly knit.
Thanks again.

Dean Roddey

10-21-06, 03:03 PM

I have already invested in Cinemar so I am not worried about the cost comparison. I am strictly looking from a time standpoint. Cinemar has great product but horrible documentation and it takes way too long wading through forums to try to decipher things.

If CQC has clear documentation that can walk me step by step through setup then I think I need to give it a try.

In the end, CQC is based on a number of fundamental concepts. The quickest way to learn them is to just go through the Quick Tutorial (go to the web site, the Learn tab, and then the Quick Tutorial section.) It'll take you through an installation and basic configuration of the product (in the 1.6 sort of way for now until 2.0 comes out, but the bulk of it still applies in 2.0.) You don't need to get it hooked up to any devices to do this, so you can do it on a laptop on the plan or some other time when you have some time to spare. It'll take about an hour or so, maybe two if you play around more on each step.

The purpose of this tutorial is not to help you do X, but to help you learn the concepts and architecture of the product. So that when it comes time to want to do X, you know how to apply the tools to do it.

smoothtlk

10-21-06, 04:41 PM

MudSlide03, feel free to PM me with your contact information and I would be glad to give you a call and help anyway that I can.

QQQ

10-21-06, 04:41 PM

When is CQC 2.0 coming out and what will be the major changes? Is it in beta?

Dean Roddey

10-21-06, 04:54 PM

Here is a thread that describe the new stuff in 2.0:

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=2382

It kind of assumes you know a bit about the existing system, but it should given anyone a good feel for what's new. Some more improvement have been made since that post, and it only covers the bigger ticket items.

2.0 is in late beta at this time.

IVB

10-21-06, 05:10 PM

When is CQC 2.0 coming out and what will be the major changes? Is it in beta?

I'm doing a walkthrough in 45 minutes over webex of my CQC 2.0 stuff if you want to see (3pm PST...

mwebster

10-22-06, 10:37 PM

You mentioned that you were using Girder and NetRemote -- what versions were you using and what did you think of them? I'm thinking about getting into NetRemote because I'm so happy with Girder and I'd like to add a new dimension to my setup. I'm currently using an old ATI remote wonder to control my system. It's functional, but leaves a lot to be desired.

I'd spend some time looking through the netremote forum before you go that way. I had a working system with netremote including dvd changer control, weather, and whole home automation all on a touchscreen. When I switched to the cinemar stuff, CQC was too new for me to consider. I changed because I didn't see a clear path for me to get it all working reliably with the time I have to devote. Much of the functionality was at the time provided by the user community in the form of scripts. Support was all mostly forum based and the cost was so low I could hardly get impatient waiting for a staff member to reply. When I switched, they seemed to be constantly improving the products. I bet they're much better now, but I didn't want to wait. If you're not doing a touchscreen, I'd look at Promixis or Homeseer (v1.7) depending on your needs.

Honestly, I'm still working on my cinemar stuff to get it to the point where I can forget about it. I am getting close and particularly enjoy watching my 5 year old navigate & use the interface successfully. The support has been good (mostly through the forum) and the software works very reliably. The prices are a bit rough, especially when you just want a button with a tv logo on it. But - after my investment of time & money, I do want them to stick around, improve the product, and the graphics look great. As I said, if you want to make your interface look exactly the way you want, I'd go another direction. I'm not much of an artist, so the mainlobby stuff was probably my best choice.

Matt

Dean Roddey

10-22-06, 11:17 PM

CQC was too new for me to consider. I changed because I didn't see a clear path for me to get it all working reliably with the time I have to devote. Much of the functionality was at the time provided by the user community in the form of scripts. Support was all mostly forum based and the cost was so low I could hardly get impatient waiting for a staff member to reply.

Just to clarify, you are talking about Netremote/Girder, not CQC there, right?

smoothtlk

10-23-06, 08:27 AM

Matt, thank you for your business. We have a quite a few updates and new products that will be released around EHX time. Thankfully, they will be easier to install and with good documentation now that we are getting caught up post the MainLobby 3 launch.

MainLobby 3 was a corner for us that has fueled reliability, documentation, additional support, a better installer for simplicity and version control (will be out for EHX), many more drivers for wider hardware support, and less sleep for Cinemar :)

But, the sales success of MainLobby 3 says it was all worth it, both for Cinemar and most importantly, our customers.

Ricoch3T

10-23-06, 04:38 PM

Im kind of new to this whole thing, but like the idea of automation and having something that'll run most of the stuff Id like to control.

Quick question, if i bought the full license now how much more is the 2.0 upgrade?

Also if I want to use it for dvd player to play ripped dvds, is it possible to pull up a library on some device, and when I pick a movie play it on a set source on a certain tv?
What I'd like to do is have my collection on my pc, and be able to run it from anywhere in the house (thats connected to the computer) but I'd like to upconvert the dvd's also to any of the hdtv's that i have (currently 1). I'd like to use something such as theatertek and ffdshow for the upconversion.

Is all this possible ?

BTW, CQC is currently $495 for the full license. Once 2.0 goes final (single digit weeks), it'll go to $495 base, $895 full.

Some folks would be content with the $495 license, here's the other modules:
- App control server (now that both SageTV and TT have TCP drivers, this is less important)
- $95 DotNet Viewer ( use CQC on PDA's)
- $145 Media Plus (CQC repository. You could use JRMC or DVDProfiler instead)
- $95 Event Server (scheduled or triggered events, i find this very useful)
- $95 Web Server (i've never used it.)
- $95 XML Gateway (i don't even know what this means)

Hence, based on your preference, you may only need $495 plus maybe 1-2 of the modules. I bought the full license cuz I didn't want to underbuy and regret it yet again.

mwebster

10-23-06, 06:43 PM

Just to clarify, you are talking about Netremote/Girder, not CQC there, right?

__________________
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd

That's right. I've never used your product, but everything I've read has been positive. I plan to check it out as soon as I get more free time. Best of luck.

IVB

10-23-06, 07:45 PM

Im kind of new to this whole thing, but like the idea of automation and having something that'll run most of the stuff Id like to control.

Quick question, if i bought the full license now how much more is the 2.0 upgrade?

That's the cool thing - buying a full license for $495 now gets you the upgrade for free. But, waiting until 2.0 goes GA means the full license is $895, base license is $495.

I'd be willing to bet that most folks would only use 1-2 of the optional modules, but at $100/piece, i'd suggest to spend the money now and get the full deal so you don't regret something later, and have to buy up.

Also if I want to use it for dvd player to play ripped dvds, is it possible to pull up a library on some device, and when I pick a movie play it on a set source on a certain tv?
What I'd like to do is have my collection on my pc, and be able to run it from anywhere in the house (thats connected to the computer) but I'd like to upconvert the dvd's also to any of the hdtv's that i have (currently 1). I'd like to use something such as theatertek and ffdshow for the upconversion.

Is all this possible ?

So you want to send both svideo/composite output to some TVs, component to others? I'm sure we could design some method to do that, but i'd recommend getting an el cheapo PC to render the SDTV, and use your current PC for the HDTV. Mixing output types is fraught with peril. It'd be simplest and most stable & reliable to use a PC to generate the output video, then a hardware switcher like the autopatch to send the signal to whatever you want.

FWIW, the reason to use an elephant gun of an HA package like CQC is that no matter what you want to do, it's not going to be hard. You cannot physically outgrow it. Plus, it's a whole-house license, so no matter how many PCs/etc you decide to turn into "servers" (a computer that controls either hardware or software) or hardware you decide to purchase, it's the same price. There's no additional cost for any drivers or graphics.

Ricoch3T

10-24-06, 09:55 AM

Thats really nice about the upgrade, and I may have to try the demo and see if I like it. Is there any idea how long it will be before 2.0 is released?

The main thing I want to get working for the dvd player now is just the hdtv side of it. I want to upconvert my dvds to 1080p. The other tv's in the house can wait until I get everything up and running correctly. But you are saying to use 2 pc's to do this and just share the hard drive that stores the dvd content?

That's the cool thing - buying a full license for $495 now gets you the upgrade for free. But, waiting until 2.0 goes GA means the full license is $895, base license is $495.

I'd be willing to bet that most folks would only use 1-2 of the optional modules, but at $100/piece, i'd suggest to spend the money now and get the full deal so you don't regret something later, and have to buy up.

So you want to send both svideo/composite output to some TVs, component to others? I'm sure we could design some method to do that, but i'd recommend getting an el cheapo PC to render the SDTV, and use your current PC for the HDTV. Mixing output types is fraught with peril. It'd be simplest and most stable & reliable to use a PC to generate the output video, then a hardware switcher like the autopatch to send the signal to whatever you want.

FWIW, the reason to use an elephant gun of an HA package like CQC is that no matter what you want to do, it's not going to be hard. You cannot physically outgrow it. Plus, it's a whole-house license, so no matter how many PCs/etc you decide to turn into "servers" (a computer that controls either hardware or software) or hardware you decide to purchase, it's the same price. There's no additional cost for any drivers or graphics.

penngray

10-24-06, 10:09 AM

Also if I want to use it for dvd player to play ripped dvds, is it possible to pull up a library on some device, and when I pick a movie play it on a set source on a certain tv?
What I'd like to do is have my collection on my pc, and be able to run it from anywhere in the house (thats connected to the computer) but I'd like to upconvert the dvd's also to any of the hdtv's that i have (currently 1). I'd like to use something such as theatertek and ffdshow for the upconversion.

Is all this possible ?

Yes, IVB posted to confirm.

This is what I will be doing too. here is a summary of my plans.

- I have 200+ ripped DVDs on a storage network (One of the PCs has 1 TB)
- I want to be able to play those DVDs simultaneous in 3 different rooms so 3 PCs are needed since one PC can not handle multiple streams of video :(
- all equipment will be in a closest and I have run the component video and digital audio to each room.
- autopatch will be my matrix switch
- speakers mounted in ceiling, wires run back to closet to amps that connect to the autopatch
- CQC will be my software on one of the PCs above
- To remote control it I have 2 airpanels and 2 Ipaqs

so thats 3 PCs, CQC software, 1 autopatch, 3 amps (receivers), 2 airpanels, 2 Ipaqs....total approx cost of that part of my HA is $4000.

You could obtain the same result with a Storage network and 3 xboxes in each room. Cost is probably under $1000 but my HA just starts with Video distribution.

Dean Roddey

10-24-06, 02:53 PM

Just to make sure the pricing thing is clear....

We never have changed for an upgrade so far. Because we were only going to charge for major version upgrades. When 2.0 came along, and this issue came up, we decided that instead of that, we would do a subscription model instead, which is more appropriate for this type of high end application. So, once you buy the product, there is a $95 per year subscription charge that gets you all upgrades for that year. The first year is included in the price, and the clock isn't going to actually start ticking until 2.0 comes out officially, so it's still over a year away for the first subscription payment. The reasons for this move are:

1. We don't have to swizzle around releases in order to generate revenue, we can do whatever is best for the product. We stayed in 1.x for over two years and we may do the same for 2.0, because we don't need to 'fluff up' releases in order to justify charging for them.
2. In the end, it'll probably be cheaper for the customers to pay a single flat fee than if we actually charged for upgrades.
3. It heavily encourages people to stay up to date, since they are paying for them. Having people on really old versions is a support burden for us.

Also, if you are a 'full system' customer, meaning you bought a full system package, as part of the subscription, you'll get any new 'minor' components that come out for free. We may add a large new component that isn't free, but most of them will be. The only one so far that wouldn't have fallen into that category is the new media system. And, of course for those that we do charge for and you choose to buy, existing customers will always get a discount.

So if you buy now, before 2.0 comes out, you'll pay $495, which will get you a full system license and the new media system, plus the first year of upgrades.

Ricoch3T

10-24-06, 05:19 PM

That sounds pretty much like what I want to do. I'm still considering the xbox's as a solution but my 360 makes some decent noise when its turned on and I didn't know if I wanted to have that in the same room. I have an older xbox I guess I could mod to handle the video stuff.

I'll have to do some more research I guess.

ALso I need to upconvert for at least one of the tv's so I suppose xbox is out of the question for that one?

Thanks for the info!

Yes, IVB posted to confirm.

This is what I will be doing too. here is a summary of my plans.

- I have 200+ ripped DVDs on a storage network (One of the PCs has 1 TB)
- I want to be able to play those DVDs simultaneous in 3 different rooms so 3 PCs are needed since one PC can not handle multiple streams of video :(
- all equipment will be in a closest and I have run the component video and digital audio to each room.
- autopatch will be my matrix switch
- speakers mounted in ceiling, wires run back to closet to amps that connect to the autopatch
- CQC will be my software on one of the PCs above
- To remote control it I have 2 airpanels and 2 Ipaqs

so thats 3 PCs, CQC software, 1 autopatch, 3 amps (receivers), 2 airpanels, 2 Ipaqs....total approx cost of that part of my HA is $4000.

You could obtain the same result with a Storage network and 3 xboxes in each room. Cost is probably under $1000 but my HA just starts with Video distribution.

Ricoch3T

10-24-06, 05:29 PM

That seems reasonable, I like (well better than 895) the 495 for everything deal and the subscription does make sense, but are you say we are pretty much guarunteed updates through out the year? Or at least one to justify the cost? Its hard to justify 95 dollars a year for no or very small updates that don't really pertain to what you are doing.

I'm not a FAN of subscription stuff I see how that would be a little easier on yall to keep people working and make everyone stay updated.

Again I'm not bashing, I understand that your business needs to make money. Just clearing some more stuff up or clearing up something that maybe I didn't read correctly.
Thanks!

Just to make sure the pricing thing is clear....

We never have changed for an upgrade so far. Because we were only going to charge for major version upgrades. When 2.0 came along, and this issue came up, we decided that instead of that, we would do a subscription model instead, which is more appropriate for this type of high end application. So, once you buy the product, there is a $95 per year subscription charge that gets you all upgrades for that year. The first year is included in the price, and the clock isn't going to actually start ticking until 2.0 comes out officially, so it's still over a year away for the first subscription payment. The reasons for this move are:

1. We don't have to swizzle around releases in order to generate revenue, we can do whatever is best for the product. We stayed in 1.x for over two years and we may do the same for 2.0, because we don't need to 'fluff up' releases in order to justify charging for them.
2. In the end, it'll probably be cheaper for the customers to pay a single flat fee than if we actually charged for upgrades.
3. It heavily encourages people to stay up to date, since they are paying for them. Having people on really old versions is a support burden for us.

Also, if you are a 'full system' customer, meaning you bought a full system package, as part of the subscription, you'll get any new 'minor' components that come out for free. We may add a large new component that isn't free, but most of them will be. The only one so far that wouldn't have fallen into that category is the new media system. And, of course for those that we do charge for and you choose to buy, existing customers will always get a discount.

So if you buy now, before 2.0 comes out, you'll pay $495, which will get you a full system license and the new media system, plus the first year of upgrades.

robertmee

10-24-06, 07:31 PM

ALso I need to upconvert for at least one of the tv's so I suppose xbox is out of the question for that one?

Thanks for the info!

A standard modded xbox running xbmc can upconvert to 720p, but it just doesn't have enough horsepower to do 1080i or beyond.

Dean Roddey

10-24-06, 07:38 PM

QQQ

10-24-06, 08:22 PM

Dean,

I don't think you actually answered his question of whether he is guaranteed a years worth of updates. Answering this as a person who wants to see your product stay around (i.e. want to see you making money), and not as a consumer, I don't think he should be, BTW. No one in the software industry that I am aware of guarantees a years worth of updates. When I purchase software including expensive business software, we may or may not get some free updates, but NO ONE guarantees them, UNLESS I am on a software assurance contract.

Ricoch3T

10-24-06, 09:10 PM

Your right, I guess guarantee isn't a good word, there NOTHING guaranteed in life anyway is it? haha. Anyhow I didn't want to think, or for anyone else reading the thread, that we would pay a subscription and MAYBE get some kind of update every couple years or so. The program maybe good enough in itself to justify the cost, I'm not sure, I'm just looking in as a potential user. (and trying to talk myself into trying/buying the program)

Dean,

I don't think you actually answered his question of whether he is guaranteed a years worth of updates. Answering this as a person who wants to see your product stay around (i.e. want to see you making money), and not as a consumer, I don't think he should be, BTW. No one in the software industry that I am aware of guarantees a years worth of updates. When I purchase software including expensive business software, we may or may not get some free updates, but NO ONE guarantees them, UNLESS I am on a software assurance contract.

Ricoch3T

10-24-06, 09:14 PM

A standard modded xbox running xbmc can upconvert to 720p, but it just doesn't have enough horsepower to do 1080i or beyond.

I didn't know this, I might just get some use out of the older xbox :)
I am looking for 1080p until maybe some of the hd market comes down then I'll switch to that. What i've been doing to watch dvd's in high def is ffdshow on my computer monitor. I've recently purchased an hdtv so I wanted to be able to upconvert from the dvd res to 1080p res on the tv.

Dean Roddey

10-24-06, 10:18 PM

Maybe I misunderstood. But the bottom line is that, for the $95 fee, you will get any new releases we do that year. That will include, for full system customers, any updates (included in those releases) for any of the components that you are licensed for, plus inclusion of any minor new components come along.

Since the product has come out, there have been 6 new optional components released. Five of those are of the sort that would be considered minor (included free as part of the subscription under our new scheme), and one is not (the new media system.) Those that aren't will still be substantially discounted for full system customers.

We won't necessarily introduce a new component every year, though probably we will (average of 2 per year now.) But there's been just as much new stuff in the core part of the product in every release as their has been in the form of new components. And, moving forward, a lot of it will be in the form of usability improvements, not new features. We've favored new features, and the end user touch screen interface capabilities, so far so that we can a critical mass of functionality in place. But we really to now start addressing making the management and design interfaces more refined. One big step was taking in that direction with 2.0, but there's still plenty of work to do in that area.

We cannot absolutely guarantee anything, given that we don't rule the universe. But, to go a year without a lot of improvements and additions would kill us so, as a practical matter, we cannot do that and that means that there will be two or three significant releases every year.

QQQ

10-24-06, 10:36 PM

But the bottom line is that, for the $95 fee, you will get any new releases we do that year.
When does the Client pay the $95? One year after they purchase the software? And if so, does that mean you are giving them upgrades for one year for the firsy year after purchase (at full price) REGARDLESS of whether they have commited to the yearly renewal?

Dean Roddey

10-24-06, 10:42 PM

The initial purchase includes the first year's upgrade subscription really is the way we see it. So, technically, you've already payed for the first year's worth. It's then due on the anniversary of the purchase date for each subsequent year.

NOTE: This doesn't apply to professionally installed systems, just DIY systems. Currently we aren't charging any sort of recurring fee for systems installed by our IPs, since the price is considerably higher for that package.

Mark P

10-27-06, 09:36 AM

I wish I had found this before I comitted to something other than CQ, I was told it was hard to learn and program and I admit I stuggle with wading through forums reading how to do things and I dont understand variables and commands very well but does CQ have phone support or a pay phone support, If it costs a couple hundred dollars to get the basics rolling I am certainly up for it. I have Insteon set up and working great , I started with Mainlobby from advice from someone I trusted but soon found I want to do so much more than what it can handle. The basic problem is there are no instructions or if there are they are missing key components that keep you pulling hair and getting frustrated because they forgot to add this and that to the instructions only found by a phone call. During this phone call you are told " You pay $700 for software and expect 10K in support?" this didnt quite soak in imeadiatly but a few moments later I recalled the conversation about " Oh I guess we havent updated that into the plugin instructions or our Servers auto update doesnt work or We will have that fixed in a couple weeks....etc, etc." Now I am thinking to myself " You got 1K for software but offer no instructions or support, who pays for the hundreds of hours spent on trying to get something working that will never work ( I have a time limit and its 1 day on callerID or getting a camera to pan in the client)?" I guess I am asking if and what type of support does CQ have, I read the Monthly webex and this alone sounds exciting and useful!

Heres some stuff I did with my soon to be old system http://www.screencast.com/users/GoBigRed/media/44847222-337d-4812-b588-09eefc388207

and the theater I am working on ( in my sig) can get going again when full automation is up and running, I really want to know and learn the ins and outs of my automation and dont mind spending hours, week, and days........I just want it to work or know it will certainly work at the end of all my hard work and tireless copy and pasting

robertmee

10-27-06, 10:30 AM

Nice job on the floorplan look.

So, you are one of the few it seems happy with Insteon. I'd love to give it a shot with my CQC system, but the cocoontech horror stories keep me away. How many devices do you have? What revisions and what history of replacement have you gone through?

As for CQC, there is a learning curve but it is so powerful, once you get the basics you'll start to really enjoy it. But I have to say, the ML interface looks pretty slick too.

Mark P

10-27-06, 10:52 AM

I have 150 Insteon devices ranging from 600w dimmers to lamplincs, line link dimmers, 1000w dimmers, normal flouresant/ fan switches and can reach a pool house 150' away through 2 walls. they were purchased 2 weeks ago and seem to work flawlessly ( so far) Had a couple take a dive imedeately. Had a little troubles with HouseLinc software and broken links and not finding a couple switches without manual adding to software.

My concerns are, they get hot, not warm but hot even 100 watts under powered, Insteon says this is normal, I will get a good nights sleep next year some time. The 1000W dimmers hum a little, not loud but you can hear the 6' away dead silent home. The LEDs are to bright and not programable, I put in the blue lenses and they look rather futuristic and appealing. Stock out of the box they are distractingly bright when placed in 4 gang boxes or even 2 gang boxes, you also better have traveler wires to seperate the load switches with the heat issues. out of 150 switches I have 2 load switches in one gang box and it stays toasty warm but seems fine after 2 weeks.

Any other questions and do you have a link to the people having troubles, I never had any help, just sort of figured it all out on my own, pretty simple stuff.

IVB

10-27-06, 12:34 PM

but does CQ have phone support or a pay phone support
No, not from the company, all support is through the forum. However, if you lurk on that forum, you'll realize it's 2nd only to avsforum in terms of traffic. AVSForum has 100-500 people at any one time, CQC has 30-50, but the DIY'ers are all very active in terms of setting up and helping each other out.

In addition to all that, we have monthly CQCUser webex sessions where we walk each other through the cool new stuff we've done so others can see how to do that, as well as help out the newbies. And frankly, given that 2.0 is so new, we've been having weekly/semi-weekly setup sessions where we walk each other through how to best use all the new functionality in 2.0.

To be honest, I think phone support would pale in comparison to actually seeing someone else walk you through stuff.

Mark P

10-27-06, 01:07 PM

robertmee

10-27-06, 01:14 PM

Sounds great, are the graphics ( buttons mainly) flash, jpeg or other. I am really comfortable with the ease of Cinemars Mainlobby on page design, button assignments and such and feel it would be hard to match their ease in this aspect. I am guessing I must have some issues in Windows Media Center that causes most of their plugins/ hardware to not work with my system.

Can you sell software/hardware you bought and it doesnt work with the setup you use to other partys? I have never ever had anything crash or glitch in anyway shape or form so I would almost fele guilty I was passing along stuff that doest work but it must have worked fine on some folks systems or they wouldnt sell it. At the same time its apparent there is a pretty good failure rate amongst others. Are there many that just give up on CQS out of frustration or thread after thread of unresolved issues from your experience?

I can tell you that's one very surprising thing I've found about CQC and it's users. They are a passionate bunch and in two years, I don't think I've seen a single thread on the CQC forums bashing or trashing the product or even someone expressing frustration. I've tried many other products in the past, including ML, and one the thing I found common in the forums as that after awhile it seemed more of a bitch fest than a place to go and actually get some help. Also, if you visit the forums, you'll see it's split into several sections. The main area (support) if you take some time to look through the active threads, you'll see that almost without fail, Dean Roddey (the owner/creator) personally answers most of them on a daily basis. I would almost challenge you to find a thread in that forum from a user with an implementation question that's not answered by Dean within a day. It's almost unimaginable considering he is hip-deep in the v2.0 release. I believe the guy lives/breathes CQC and is chained to his computer.

If you have the time, I would download the free trial of CQC and play around with it. Only then will you get the feel for what it does. After becoming a poweruser with ML (which you appear to be), you may find that it's just too different for your comfort, or you might find that you love it. You will have to be patient with it, as there is the invariable "well I used to do this on ML, why can't I do this on CQC" syndrome. In all likelyhood, you can, it will just be a different methodology. I'm forever switching between Industrial software design packages that do similar things, and I get frustrated myself at how they all approach the same problem differently and I'm forced to think differently each time.

Mark P

10-27-06, 01:33 PM

I am very far from a power user in ML, I didnt even really get started when I discovered it just wasnt working with what I wanted to do. Example being, I bought the CallerID software and hardware after basically having a great sales pitch on fantastic it was. I have spent over 6 hours just trying to set a setting in a plugin but everytime I do it crashes ML Server, I have tried every combination of what their obviously best forum mod has thrown my direction to no avail. The Security Camera stuff works but you cant pan the camera, basically the first 2 things I try, dont funtion. Whats going to happen with wireless Jandy pool control, Chandelier motors, close to 200 zones of dimming, ramp rated lighting scenes, auto curtains and shades, Projectors, D-Box motion simulators, 100 zones of rainbird control, etc....etc all from a 7" touchscreen or cell phone

Mark P

10-27-06, 01:42 PM

Their tutorial section is already outstanding, this is the biggest disappointment in the other things I have tried. Any word on what Microsoft is coming out with, I heard they are soon to release home automation software for XP.

Dean Roddey

10-27-06, 02:16 PM

Sounds great, are the graphics ( buttons mainly) flash, jpeg or other. I am really comfortable with the ease of Cinemars Mainlobby on page design, button assignments and such and feel it would be hard to match their ease in this aspect.

CQC has its own interface designer. It's drag and drop and is highly flexible. You place 'widgets' on the interface and configure how they look and what they do.

At the same time its apparent there is a pretty good failure rate amongst others. Are there many that just give up on CQS out of frustration or thread after thread of unresolved issues from your experience?

I don't know of any CQC customer who has left to another product. We've only had them come to us from other products AFAIK. I only know of one customer who has had an issue that we've so far been unable to figure out, because he wrote this enormous device driver that we couldn't possibly spelunk ourselves. So we aren't sure yet where the problem lies. Otherwise, I don't know of any customer who has had a problem go unresolved (other than the "I wish I could do X" type of things, which are problems but wish list things that aren't available yet.)

Any word on what Microsoft is coming out with, I heard they are soon to release home automation software for XP.

I'm not aware of anything like that. They may add some small amount of stuff to MCE or something. But they are not the kind of company that's likely to get into serious automation. It's a low volume, high cost, high support type of market, and that's not what MS does really.

Mark P

10-27-06, 02:36 PM

Thanks Dean,

I guess what I am asking is.....what are your " widgets "? Are they CQS specific or flash, JPEG, GIF.... can I design something in photoshop and get it to my interface. Not sure if you watched my little tutorial I made for myself for a later date but using Mainlobby you can make anything or use any picture and make it a pushable button with on/off transparencys , colors etc. its actually a very powerful and fast program in that respect. I want to keep the room pictures with clickable areas with the lights and such coming on in the picture as status buttons.

After reading your forum it looks like I may have a problem since I have all Insteon switches ( I guess theres Ebay) but it looks like Johnathon has been working on Insteon, I just dont know if its the same firmware and type or where hes at on his plugin. I know your busy getting out your new release, is there someone with your product that can answer about 20-50 questions before I get too involved with a new product?

IVB

10-27-06, 02:57 PM

Re:Graphics

Well, the folks who know more than I (i.e., ripper who is a photoshop god) say that graphics support in CQC is as good as the best out there. Words above and beyond what I understand, like PNG alpha-based images, are importable into CQC. You can import jpeg, PNG, and BMP images. There's also on/off/pressed/unpressed/focus level images, and a ton of other graphics options. There's no flash support, but other than that you're covered.

Jonathan's made some serious advances with his insteon driver, I think he's been using it live. You can always ping him if you have questions about that.

For the others, I'd say that you could always test out the forum support. Put your questions into a thread in the "installation and config" forum, see who responds. (i promise i won't warn anyone that you're going to post).

If you want live responses, I happen to be working from home today. I was planning on mounting all these HA sensors, but my daughter was up from 4am with the stomach flu, so I'm not really up to running around the attic.

PM me with your email/IM handle, and i'll ping you. If you have MSN messenger, you can remote-view my box, and i'll show you what it looks like and how you do stuff. I can make a reasonable attempt to show the graphics stuff, but frankly i've kept my stuff relatively simple in that regard. But, I've seen where to set those images, so we could always experiment on that live.

Dean Roddey

10-27-06, 03:00 PM

CQC uses PNG images for graphics. Well, you can import directly BMP or JPEG also, but they are converted to PNG for internal use. It comes with a nice set of images, but you just import any others that you want to use. These are uploaded to the master server's image repository, and become immediately available to any other CQC clients for design or viewing of interfaces. From what I've been told by ex-ML users who have switched over, it's far easier and more flexible.

A 'widget' is one of the types of objects that our interface system supports. There are a number of types. An enumerated image widget that can show a different image based on the value of of a device field. A boolean image that can show true or false images based on a boolean field. Command buttons to invoke actions. Cover art browser to browse through the media repository. Weather channel widget to map from weather status values to images. Static text widget to show a fixed piece of text. And so on. There are about 15 types at this point I think.

One thing that make's CQC's interface system so powerful is that these widgets can send each other commands. So a button can send messages to other widgets to get them to do things. This works through the same action editing system that is used throughout the system.

If you want to ask questions, just sign up on the support forum and ask away, either on the threads related to the Insteon driver and so forth if specific to those, or start one of your own for general questions.

If you are going to start now, you'd probably want to start with the 2.0 version. It's in late beta now and a good number of folks are already using it. The gotcha is that the docs are updated yet, but it probably woldn't be worth starting with 1.6 when 2.0 will be out very soon.

QQQ

10-27-06, 03:37 PM

Any word on what Microsoft is coming out with, I heard they are soon to release home automation software for XP.
It's scheduled for release at the end of 2007. That means it will actually be released in 2011. And in 2015, at which point it will be called Automation XQ, it will start to work and have some cool features, after having spent 2011-2015 copying all of the cool features thought up by the free open source automation vendors.

Seriously though, I do not think you will see MS playing in the market under discussion here any time soon. That will be left to people like Dean writing software that integrates with what they are building into Windows (and hardware based automation vendors will be able to do the same thing).

IVB

10-27-06, 03:51 PM

A 'widget' is one of the types of objects that our interface system supports. There are a number of types. An enumerated image widget that can show a different image based on the value of of a device field. A boolean image that can show true or false images based on a boolean field. Command buttons to invoke actions. Cover art browser to browse through the media repository. Weather channel widget to map from weather status values to images. Static text widget to show a fixed piece of text. And so on. There are about 15 types at this point I think.

Well, Dean doesn't realize how many features he's put into CQC over the years. :-)

There's 34 different widgets, although admittedly a few major gruops (text, image, field-display, command buttons) have multiple types (static vs dynamic vs ...)

13 months after buying CQC, I still don't know what they all do. Actually, one of the newbies showed me a cool one just yesterday, during one of the 2.0 webex sessions...

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/temp/widget-types.JPG

Dean Roddey

10-27-06, 04:38 PM

Well, Dean doesn't realize how many features he's put into CQC over the years. :-)

There's 34 different widgets, although admittedly a few major gruops (text, image, field-display, command buttons) have multiple types (static vs dynamic vs ...)

Oops, yeh, I was thinking more about the underlying basic categories (as represented by the classes that are used) more so than the actually exposed specific types.

penngray

10-27-06, 06:19 PM

can I design something in photoshop and get it to my interface.

not only does it allow it but its definitely encouraged. Im simply amazed at the graphics the CQC users are pumping out and then posting on the forum for others to use.

One thing that sets CQC apart for me is the involvement level of the users. Im loosy at graphics only really because I think its tedious and time consuming. Im able to go on the forum and look at other users graphics and with their premission use their graphics for my own system.

The other part is the "walk through" stuff IVB and some others do on a weekly or monthly basis. Its the best training you can have, its very hands on and very specific to individual needs.

Les Auber

10-27-06, 07:12 PM

Mark P, don't know what else I can add to what has been said already but I can vouch that CQC can be made to work by a non-programmer at least for the rather simple system I'm using. I can also say that the forum support is first rate from Dean on down. They'll even dumb it down for me when needed.

I second the idea of downloading the demo and getting on the support forum. Quickest way to see what this thing really is and what it can do.

Dean Roddey

10-27-06, 08:02 PM

Keep in mind that if you download now and do the tutorial that it's the 1.6.x version of the product that you are doing. The vast bulk of it is still applicable, but some important new stuff is available now. Here is a thread on the support forum where I've laid out the new 2.0 features and given an overview of each one:

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=2382

This is kind of the 2.0 docs until the documentation is updated.

Mark P

10-28-06, 12:38 AM

I am hearing alot of feedback that CQC ( whats the C stand for, should it be CQS?) is very hard to use and only people familiar with writing long drawn out script and good working knowledge of complex variable assignments and such and some of this comes from someone that is good with all this. I certainly fall far from this category and wasnt able to handle MLServer and Mainlobby without major frustration including headaches that wouldnt go away for 24 hours and Cinemar is supposedly the most user friendly software available according to a handful of people that talked me into buying it. One of them actually calls the owner and has hour long discussions with their support on setting up a security camera that was fairly simple for me and setup properly to begin with, I didnt set them to port 80 but ports 81, 82, and 83 and entered the proper address as 192.168.2.253:83, turns out it only works on port 80 for the guy who spent an hour trying to figure it out, I knew he didnt have virtual servers setup in his router like I do because I helped him get them up and running in the first place so guests could see his cams via the internet. I guess What I am trying to say is that I can follow instructions well, if they drag out over 5 pages, probably not and wouldnt want to for something as simple as a glorified $700 web cam but if the instructions dont say " you must use port 80" I really dont want to read through countless threads on a forum trying to discover a bug or left out documentation. I get sidetracked very easy if something catches my eye thats sounds fun and appealing while stumbling around in a forum looking for the same problem as I am having. Next gets into the CallerID fiasco that caused me hours and hours of frustration because NO instructions are sent anywhere and it concerns COM ports mixed with modems and loading and unloading registry files and updating plugins that are set to auto update but auto update doesnt work you find out hours later and 40 minutes of combing the forums and even after all this happens ........14 hours later someone comes in and replys " I had to add an alias to get mine to work"????????? Im 12 hours past having a migrain and to fed up to wait the 20 minutes for MLServer to load to find out if the 14th part of the puzzle works or not.

If I go to the car dealer and buy a car, I expect that when I insert the key ( or push a button these days) the car starts, if I cant find the key hole I expect the owners manual to show me where it is. I guess im just a little funny that way.

What I do know is that if theres alot of this

1. // Speak the date and weather conditions
2. LocalVars::SetVariable(LVar:ToSay, Today is %(StdRTV:WeekDay) the )
3. // Format the day number for correct speaking
4. System::FmtNumAsSpoken(%(StdRTV:DayNumber), LVar:DayNum)
5. LocalVars::Append(LVar:ToSay, %(LVar:DayNum))
6. // Add the month
7. LocalVars::Append(LVar:ToSay, of %(StdRTV:Month).)
8. // Add the conditions. The high can be invalid after 2pm
9. If Not System::Equals($(Weather.Day1High), 999)
10. LocalVars::Append(LVar:ToSay, Today's high will be $(Weather.Day1High))
11. End
12. LocalVars::Append(LVar:ToSay, . Current conditions are $(Weather.CurCondText))
13. // And finally speak the text
14. System::SayText(%(LVar:ToSay))

And I have to know what all this means then I should probably stay far away and call AMX because I have now tried all the other automation softwares and made amazing strides only to get choked down into searching forums for hours to get a basic component working while I had no trouble figuring out other complex items.

Maybe if CQC is too complex thats what I actually need to get a full understanding of automation but I really want to drag and drop because I will have 200+ lighting zones ( I might be in trouble because they are all Insteon that work very well manually but wont ramp up or go all on to a dimmed state in MLobby), 6 or more dry contacts, Jandy pool controllers, 100 zones of rainbird irrigation, 7" and 12" touchscreens in guest rooms, security cameras I want to see from Fiji, Light zones turning on automatically to dimmed states differently Monday through Friday while away on vacation and then onto the theater that will have massive automation ( Curtains, chandeliers rising into ceiling, curtains opening and dry contact Blackouts lowering with 20 zones of lighting going bananas during live performances)

Is Charmed Quark my simple solution? Or is this a job for AMX? They didnt seem intimidated , just very, very costly

QQQ

10-28-06, 12:51 AM

Mark,

I am not purposely being rude but it seems you have already been given all the information you need and people have answered as best they can. And now you are doing what people often do and posting again as if you want people to tell you what you want to hear or give you some definitve answer, but there isn't one. There is a free download and user forum a few clicks away. For crying out loud, give it a try :). As far as complaining about not having the patience for documentation that lacks crucial facts, have you been living in a cave :D? That the STANDARD nowadays :).

IVB

10-28-06, 01:09 AM

I'm one of CQC's biggest fans, but CQC is intended to be a pro-sumer system. It's DIY-friendly, but targeted towards the same professionals that install that AMX system for you. The difference between AMX & CQC is that you have the ability to self-install CQC and get support, whereas with AMX does not. You could always one of the professional CQC integrators to setup & install your systerm.

Be warned that the professional version is $2635 for the full license, as opposed to $495 now/$895 in a few weeks for the DIY version. Hence, that path will also cost you.

If you want simple simple, get someone else to do it for you. And pay the $$. Just like any other package or system, CQC will take some time to learn. Heck, even outlook takes time to learn.

But FWIW, you don't directly add any of that code. You use pulldowns like this. It will take some time to learn, but once you do you'll realize how powerful it truly is.

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/temp/action_1.JPG

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/screenshots/temp/action_2.JPG

Mark P

10-28-06, 01:17 AM

Then that saves me the trouble of even wasting the time. I was told Mainlobby could set lighting scenes to a dimmed state ( a scene envolves groups of lights in my understanding) and it can not. Too me this is the most important thing whether it be the theater or whole house. Sitting there pushing 200 buttons in a row doesnt seem like automation to me. Its easy to say give it a try but I gave others a try and they couldnt perform . I was trying to find out if these things are possible, tried, proved and working somewhere ( they are in Bill Gates home and have been for years now. Give it a try meant a couple hundred hours already and maybe some people have hundreds of hours to try stuff, I want to know up front if it does and I re read the answers as you said my question was answered and all I read is " give it a try". I guess this translates to no it wont work to turn on 35 Insteon Dimmers to 50% with a ramp rate of 42% since no one said "yes" and I kind of figured the owner would know this question.

When you buy any other product like a car, how long does it take you to try it, 15-30 minutes?

I thought AMX was joking when they said DIY automation and HTPCs and the such are buggy, complicated messes that dont work and you rarely get a straight answer.

Just thought I would ask, thanks for the confirmation, I'll spread the word to the other dozen people wanting me to find out.

Mark P

10-28-06, 01:20 AM

smoothtlk

10-28-06, 01:29 AM

MarkP, feel free to send me a PM with your contact information so we can help with resolving the MainLobby issues you are still having.

QQQ

10-28-06, 01:34 AM

Mark,

I've read your last post a few times and I'm guessing by your response that you think I have some association with CQC. Either that or you are simultaneously addressing several people. Regardless, just to clarify, I have no association with CQC.

IVB

10-28-06, 01:52 AM

IVB that answer wasnt aimed at you, are you still awake for a few minutes and can we speak somehow, I hate to type as much as trudge through forums for an answer

$2635 :eek: what comes with the extra 2k?

Yeah. I'll PM you with my IM handles.

You cannot directly buy the professional license - it's the same software as the DIY version, but is what an integrator will charge you as they get a level of support far beyond what the DIY gets.

IVB

10-28-06, 02:04 AM

I thought AMX was joking when they said DIY automation and HTPCs and the such are buggy, complicated messes that dont work and you rarely get a straight answer.
BTW for the lurkers out there, any system, including AMX, crestron, C4, etc, are only as good as the integrator makes them. If you get a crappy integrator, anything will suck. With a DIY system, you're the integrator. With my system, it just works. Heck, it works just as good as my buddy's $150K AMX system up the street. (ok, his sounds a lot nicer because he's got all this high-end stuff, but you get the point). Plus, I can do more with mine than his, b/c I could extend it's reach.

The value of something like MainLobby is that it's a precanned system, so you don't have to do much work to get it working. But as you're finding, unless you learn it, you will have a hard time changing it.

CQC has no precanned interfaces (yet). Sure, me & several other folks allow you to download our templates for your use, but you still need to learn it.

Anyhow, making sure folks don't think CQC is some form of magic pill. Sure, it can do pretty much anything HA or HT related you want, and is easily more powerful than most other packages out there, but with such power comes the need to learn it. If you already own MainLobby, you may as well take David (smoothtlk) up on his offer and see if mainlobby could work, and how much work it would take. Then you can decide whether the way CQC does things is for you, or whether you prefer the MainLobby or AMX way.

QQQ

10-28-06, 02:05 AM

Mark,

I want to address a few of your questions.

The issue of being able to control Insteon is not a CQC issue per se, but an Insteon one. What I mean by that is if it has a protocol and can be controlled via serial or Ethernet control, CQC can control it. If it has a protocol that allows addressing a dimmer and setting it to a specific level, CQC can do that. And yes, it can easily do it with 200 dimmers at the same time. And if the Insteon protocol is capable of being polled for feedback, CQC can show you the actual real time level of those dimmers as well.

I work extensively with Crestron and AMX. I could give you no more of a definitive answer than Dean could because the issue is not AMX or Crestron, it’s Insteon. I took a look at Insteon’s web site but they don’t have a published serial protocol that I could find on the site. They appear to have some type of developers kit that they want you to buy, whereupon they give you the protocol. Only by looking at that protocol would I know how well written and powerful it is. To give an example, with some lighting systems you can not only tell the light to go to a specific level, you can ask it what level it is at (i.e. the program would do that and show you the level on the touchscreen). With other lighting systems you can only ask the light if it is on or off. With another yet, you might not even be able to ask...you might only be able to tell it to turn on or off.

So if someone has the Insteon protocol, I'm sure Dean or someone on the forum can look at it and tell you what is possible. I can say one thing for sure - if a light can be turned on, CQC can easily turn on 200. I am not familiar with Main Lobby (other than having played with it once), but cannot imagine why it would not be able to accomplish that basic task unless the lighting feature in it is just some type of simple add on not meant for real automation.

I thought your main question was whether you could learn to use CQC, and that’s why I said to try it. As far as accomplishing what you want to accomplish, all I can tell you is CQC is a “real” automation system. It is not your typical DIY “toy”.

I hope this helps.

Dean Roddey

10-28-06, 02:07 AM

When you buy any other product like a car, how long does it take you to try it, 15-30
minutes?

You have some fundamental misconceptions. A car, to the end user, is a trivially simple device. It can do basically one thing and that's it. It's not reasonable to compare it to a system that can do hundreds of things. They are just not the same types of systems.

If you want an automation system that you will let you turn off and on one light, then yeh that could be as simple as a car probably. But if you want one that has the flexbility to do what you want to do, then it cannot be as simple as a car. A better analogy is to compare a product like CQC to an airplane. You don't just jump into an airplane and turn the key and take off.

There is no system out there that's going to automagically figure out what you want to automate and set it all up for you. It's just not possible. If that's what you are looking for, you can stop looking. However, see the next response.

I thought AMX was joking when they said DIY automation and HTPCs and the such are buggy, complicated messes that dont work and you rarely get a straight answer.

There are multiple issues here. The statement that they are buggy and don't work is just FUD being spread by AMX, because obviously they don't want any competition. Our product works quite well. The statement that you never get a straight answer is obviously bogus. I spend a huge part of my day giving people straigh answers, and a lot of people are trying right now to give you some answers without being paid to do so.

The other issue is the complexity. But this also applies to AMX or Cinemar or anyone else. They are all just as complex if you want to do anything non-trivial, for the reasons I explained above, because the 'problem space' itself is complex.

The implication of the AMX guy that AMX is not complex is based on the fact that you are going to pay someone to do it. So yes, 'DIY' is more complex because you are doing it yourself. But our product is not 'DIY'. It's 'DIY friendly', but it can also be installed by a professional without you having to get involved other than to explain what you want. In this case, it is as 'easy' as AMX is because the complexity is being handled for you. If you were going to just buy the AMX hardware and set it all up yourself, you'd be right back where you are now.

So anyway, I hope that gives you the straight answers you are looking for.

Dean Roddey

10-28-06, 02:15 AM

IVB that answer wasnt aimed at you, are you still awake for a few minutes and can we speak somehow, I hate to type as much as trudge through forums for an answer

$2635 what comes with the extra 2k?

We provide the DIY version for an artificially low price, because the people who are really doing it themselves are not making money off of the product, and we only are legally obligated to provide them support on the forum on a best-effort basis. You will find that our best effort is extraordinarily good though. We provide it as a service to the DIY community, because we think it's a good thing tod o.

The professional version is being installed by people who are doing it for a living, and who have obligations to their customers. They, therefore, expect more of us, and we charge more for the product to make up for that. If they call up and they are dealing with a problem in the system that they installed for you, then we have to deal with their problem immediately, so that they can help get you up and running again ASAP. That's expensive, so we charge more to make up for it.

It's the difference between washing your own car and having it detailed. You can wash your own car for the price of some water and suds and your time, and you have to make the time to do it. If you want it detailed, and you want it done today, then that's going to cost. So if you want to DIY, and there is a problem, then you have to take time to fix it. If you want to just pick up the phone and say 'fix it', that's going to cost.

Dean Roddey

10-28-06, 02:17 AM

On the Insteon front, the software development kit thing has been commented on by a number of folks, and you can look up those comments if you are interested. There are various comments on our support forum and on Cocoontech. A CQC user has been working on a driver for Insteon, and has had some problems with the controller locking up, and his opinion on the Insteon SDK and level of support provided isn't very positive.

QQQ

10-28-06, 02:26 AM

I took a look on the Crestron newsgroup as well Dean. Could only find one guy there that had done some work on a serial driver. Very little activity about it otherwise, which is not surprising. He posted saying he had developed a serial driver and asking if anyone wanted it but it didn't look like anyone even bothered responding :).

IVB

10-28-06, 02:36 AM

Yeah, doesn't surprise me either. If you can afford Crestron, why would you bother with a PLC protocol like Insteon? Just go straight to Lutron (vantage?).

QQQ

10-28-06, 03:35 AM

I'm one of CQC's biggest fans, but CQC is intended to be a pro-sumer system. It's DIY-friendly, but targeted towards the same professionals that install that AMX system for you.
To elaborate on this a bit, the closest thing I am aware of that is an "easy to set up" home automation system is Control4, which appears with software version 1.3 (based on feedback from others) to finally be OK. But it is no where as powerful as AMX, Crestron or CQC (you can't even create a GUI, you can only used the canned one). So if Mark wants something that is easy AND powerful, I can save him some time right now because it does not exist, at least by my *personal* standard of what a reliable and powerful home automation system is.

penngray

10-28-06, 08:34 AM

You will find that our best effort is extraordinarily good though. We provide it as a service to the DIY community, because we think it's a good thing tod o.

Dean several times has responded quickly to my (sometimes very dumb) questions. Many other members always help too but Im on the east coast and I have to think Dean doesnt sleep because Im posting questions at midnight and he is answering them :D

penngray

10-28-06, 08:41 AM

Mark P, there isnt a piece of software out there that will do complext things that isnt extremely difficult to grasp at first. I completely understand what you are saying, I have been in he software industry for 20 years and sadly documentation normally is an after thought in most cases. Of course I would rather have a great product then great documentation. ;)

The tutorial and documentation goes through and teaches you the underlying concepts that once are understood then all aspects of CQC are derived from that, it is VERY well written in my opinion too. The problem with this approach is that I believe we live in a world of demos and example and honestly it gets a C- grade from me. I have to post to show Im NOT complete bias all the time ;) If CQC had "core" examples for every task....."HOW TO" templates for all general usages it would be extremely easy to startup.

If you are interested in CQC the best route to learning it in my opinion is through users like IVB. I dont speak for IVB in offering his help to you but the core users use gotomeeting.com to help people get up to speed quickly.

penngray

10-28-06, 08:46 AM

IVB, had a going point CQC is a professional package and therefore there should be some very good installers out there.

IF DIY isnt someone's cup of tea, I believe CQC is still a viable and cost effective solid solution.

barhoram

10-28-06, 09:11 AM

I'm curious about the graphics I've seen demonstrated in this thread. Are they canned w/ the product?? and if so, are you tied to this type of graphics (for the icons, buttons, etc)? Or do differnt button types exist? can they be imported?

penngray

10-28-06, 09:44 AM

CQC comes with a rich set of icons, pictures, backgrounds that you can use but if you have more png, jpeg,bmp files then you can import each one of them in as needed.

Members like IVB, Ripper and a few others have photoshop and they have been awesome with creating new objects and sharing them.

IVB

10-28-06, 10:46 AM

Ripper has actually shared his photoshop ASL style sheet, so you can use photoshop CS2 (maybe V7, not sure) to create your own size/shape button, apply his VERY professional looking styles, save as a PNG, then import into CQC.

Teach a man to fish...

Mark P

10-28-06, 01:19 PM

Sorry for not responding IVB but I was on the phone with Cinemars "tech support" for a couple hours so I guess they get major "two thumbs up from me" and it wasn't so much clearing up the problems with automation but maybe the discussions about the psyche of the Automation developer which I sort of understood because trust me, I am a geek as well just not an advanced geek that enjoys countless hours of copy and pasting strings together UNLESS the end result is satisfying. I have no problems putting 10,000 hours into something that works but in my line of work that is somewhat simular in that I have days that I need to be on the ball with hundreds of precise decisions being made at a rapid rate between multiple applications concerning mechanical, electrical, HVAC, Plumbing, complex pool and irrigation systems beyond the scope of commercial in some cases and design/build start to finish and usually perform the actual physical labor ( Installing of every type of device made at the end of the wired/wireless connection you guys write code for and some things you don't) if I can not get a professional installer on site within hours. I have several systems that needed to change 2 phase to 3 phase power and figured out how to do this without involving local utilities and work 24/7/365.

I need to be fast and furious somedays or alot of things are at risk including money that makes a Crestron install price resemble buying a pack of gum at Walmart. 99.9% of the time everything goes according to plan and rather smoothly, I can not remember a time where something was not resolved that day and this spreads across properties in 4 states, 2 continents and 2 islands in the middle of the Pacific. So when I am rocking & rolling through some automation that I am learning to expand my abilities and I hit 2,3,4 glitches that take hours to get a response too only by visiting Internet forums and trying to match up thread titles to my problem it takes me out of my comfort zone and what I am used too. Automation must be unique in the aspect that the developers and owners don't really know off the top of their heads if their system works with everything or not, I understand that if CQC had 5000 developers writing plugins they would have quicker answers ( and no competition ) Have any of these companys discussed merging together between owners to offer an amazing Automation package for the DIY and Pro installer, probably not because it would take a decade to agree on GUI alone.

I know when I was sitting there waiting for MLServer to load for the 14th time after trying specific instructions trickling in throughout a 24 hour period I had my hands on both sides of my head massaging my temples and seeing images of Tom Berringer in "Platoon" Jack Daniels bottle in hand saying " When the machine breaks d..o..w..n, We break d..o..w..n"

You guys need extreme patience or ten times the developers and the first one that developes a drap and drop automation system will win and get all DIY action, I think Mainlobby is trying to stear in this direction, I applaude them for dealing with idiots like me.

At the same time something tells me to buy CQC at its cheap price now because their forums have twice the activity in a day and are ranked fairly high in the scope of internet traffic, an impressive ranking but far from Meedio who I dealt with last year before giving that the heave ho to anything they offer. If I stumble with Cinemar, it would be nice to have a backup strategy to try but when members of CQC, or Crestron installers make statements that Insteon is basically crap because they dont like their PLC or SDM coding and therefore Lutron is king, I get nervous because I yanked out 150 Lutrons and their howling 1000w dimmers and installed a product that on its user end appears much more flexible and appropriate with outstanding performance so far. Maybe Lutron Radio RA is worth twice the price to automation programmers but from an end users point of view $6000 dollars in savings for the same thing is a chunk of change.

I wish there was 1000 hours in a day, I got 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours due too automation but I know theres atleast one other that was trying and suceeding on calming me down, Thanks a bunch Dave! it was wonderful talking to you, I appreciate your commitment to honesty and hopefully for you wont have to endure that again.

QQQ

10-28-06, 07:14 PM

I dealt with last year before giving that the heave ho to anything they offer. If I stumble with Cinemar, it would be nice to have a backup strategy to try but when members of CQC, or Crestron installers make statements that Insteon is basically crap because they dont like their PLC or SDM coding and therefore Lutron is king, I get nervous because I yanked out 150 Lutrons and their howling 1000w dimmers and installed a product that on its user end appears much more flexible and appropriate with outstanding performance so far. Maybe Lutron Radio RA is worth twice the price to automation programmers but from an end users point of view $6000 dollars in savings for the same thing is a chunk of change.
1. UPB is a powerline product that people have given very good feeback on. Insteon has tons of horrible feeback from it own USERS. Crestron or CQC people are not the ones giving that feedback.

2. You state that Insteon has outstabnding pefotrmance so far. Yet in another post you indicated that you can't even dim more than one at a time. So I'm unlcear on what the outstanding perofrmamce is you are referring to is so far if you have been unable to even get them automated. Pressing the button on the wall?

3. You state that you removed 150 Lutron dimmers. I have to assume those were your standard variety hardware store dimmers so how is that relevant?

4. "Maybe Lutron Radio RA is worth twice the price to automation programmers but from an end users point of view $6000 dollars in savings for the same thing is a chunk of change". I bolded the relevant part. They are NOT "the same thing".

5. I've seen your theater and it looks nothing short of spectacular and like some major thought went into to. It also looks like you prefer to do things yourself and/or be heavily involved in the process. So when I saw your name on this thread I thought you had found the perfect product in CQC.

robertmee

10-28-06, 08:12 PM

Just to re-emphasize what QQQ is saying, the hardware variety Lutron dimmers and Lutron's RadioRa and Homeworks systems are completely two different animals. It's like comparing Ford's Pinto to the GT40.

As for Insteon, as QQQ so rightly stated, if you go to any automation board whether it is Cinemar, CQC, AVS, Cocoontech, etc. the consensus seems to be that Insteon is a good idea gone bad in implementation. It just simply is NOT a stable product at the moment. It has gotten better in the past couple of months, but still has a ways to go to improve upon its disasterous introduction. The real proof in the pudding is that professional installers are NOT installing Insteon as a viable solution because they just cannot afford the constant callbacks due to equipment failure. Professionals rely on proven products from Lutron, Vantage, Centralite, but NOT Insteon, and I would hazard to say, not even UPB at this point in time. Powerline technologies while filling a niche market are not ready to replace the more proven wireless/wired technologies.

Bottom line, it is not Cinemar's, CQCs or Meedios fault that Insteon products aren't reliable or integrator friendly. It is SmartLab's fault and theirs alone.

audiblesolutions

10-29-06, 09:45 AM

Quote:
When you buy any other product like a car, how long does it take you to try it, 15-30
minutes?

Comments like this one are what cause my blood pressure to reach 5000ppi and result in a near death experience. Look at your car radio or try to adjust your clock in the car and that comes close to what home automation tried to do and even that's wrong. On an other forum some pseudo pro made an analogy of the CI automation products to Boeing. It is a foolish comparison. The auto manufacturer or Boeing has complete engineering control of his product. He has the budget to test it and test it and test it and still sometimes they get it wrong. What do I have control over? Almost nothing. Can I specify the firmware in any of the products I integrate? How about their serial protocols? Do I have total control over how and where wires are run, how high voltage is regulated, the kind and type of surge, line conditioning and grounding on a project? Automation is a complex task where I have full responsibility but no control over anything. Not the cable box or its delivery system, not the display or its problems, not the firmware in the system, not the underlying firmware in the automation system. If Dean screws up or Crestron or AMX or anyone it's my butt and my uncompensated time. If your cordless telephone, neighbors wi-fi system or some mircowave transmitter across town causes a problem then I have to fix it--to the degree that it is even possible. If some government agency is using the same frequency as the automation system I will promise you that the automation system is the system that will not function until it moves to a different frequency ( and this is a true story that actually happened in NYC ).

Sure there are different levels of software programmers. There is also product variation. Did you know, for example, that a product from the same display manufacturer can have 10% standard deviations in color temperature? So if the specification is xi then xi+10% or xi-10% is very possible and probably very likely. Hence I can make few assumptions. Any other common issue --for which Sony is a known culprit-- is that the protocol will tell you to expect y. For 90% of the time you will see "y" but then suddenly out of the blue you will see "v" and your parsing routeen will go all to hell. These issues arise because serial protocols are afterthoughts and are given to the newest engineers and the least amount of funding. An auto manufacturer would not be able to get away with this. But the lighting manufacturer is making lighting switches and as long as they turn on and dim his main manufacturing criteria are being met. Communication protocols are secondary and little time or thought often goes into them. They also change without notice, something that would not happen in auto manufacturing. They have a closed system and we have an infinitely open system. Even if CQC were perfect it could still have issues because of unstable and/or dirty mains power, surges and ground loops, poorly written serial protocols ( what do you mean I cannot send volume up to all 37 zones and the same time? ), problematic 3rd party firmware, heat issues and on and on. In a corporation crucial equipment is placed in temperature and humidity controlled enviorments. In residential jobs it is thrown wherever it is least objectionable.

Alan

IVB

10-29-06, 10:46 AM

Very well said, alan.

For exactly the reasons you put forth,setting up an HA (or HTA - home theater automation) system that is simple enough for the DIY to install and powerful/customizable enough for the pro to setup advanced systems, will never happen.

In a capitalistic economy, without an 800lb gorilla like Microsoft demanding a standard akin to plug-n-play (which is still usually plug-n-pray), there's no real incentive for a manufacturer to play nice. And given that Sony doesn't need it's own protocol, there's no reason for them to follow it to the letter.

Nearly 12 months into beginning down the HA setup road myself and hitting a tiny fraction of those issues, I've completely reversed my initial thinking and now firmly believe that not only is the professional CustomIntegrator trade worth every penny they charge, they should get bonuses from the hardware folks for beta testing their products.

I am now far better with a multimeter than I ever wanted to be, but at least the CI's have tried to do this before and shaken out many of the big issues. I still swear like a sailor when I'm extending my system, but I guess that's a step up from a drunken sailor.

Ok, off to add more HA announcement speakers to my system today. I want to setup zones that I can turn on/off independently, which means I need to deal with 2 different types of resistors and a capacitor on each run. If only I had taken the Electrical Engineering college acceptance instead of the Computer Science college acceptance...

Mark P

10-29-06, 11:42 AM

Good info and the type of things that need to be brought up long before " Our product is limitless and the most powerful"

Basically a disclaimer that automation software is only as good as the products you choose to automate, I guess Denon is another one that has whacky things to deal with.

I think I am figuring out Insteons problem, #1 I have ALOT of Insteon to control for that poor little PLC to deal with on a All ON command, it works and flawlessley to 100%, dimmed and ramps are another issue but if you give the PLC a second to catch its breath it seems to work. I made a macro to turn on each light seperately in a macro and it worked 1 time to dim ( ramp rates work every time) . The first light in the string always works flawlessly to dim, If I wasnt a dummy I could probably add a pause between each command and it word probably fix the problem. Infact coming on one after another creates a very neat effect if done properly and stategically. 200 lights coming up with 10 second ramp rates circling around through the house in an artistic approach is something to behold from a block away at night

smoothtlk

10-29-06, 01:02 PM

Denon isn't "Wacky" by any means. The issue we have found with Denon is that they aren't consistent in their implementation of a RS232 control protocol from device to device. This aggravates the development of a software control plugin that covers many Denon devices. If we built a plugin per device, then no problem.

Yamaha did a great job of holding consistency. That reduced the effort and cost to create the MLYamaha plugin.

Most companies don't hold to a protocol across their line. But, if the device has RS232 support and there is some documentation available, we invariably get it knocked out and reliable. This is part of the value of the software automation company. The end result is typically just as reliable as proprietary, closed systems. There are many do's / don'ts to get there, and that is a lot of the value of the professional integrator who has those learnings.

Dean Roddey

10-29-06, 01:10 PM

Good info and the type of things that need to be brought up long before " Our product is limitless and the most powerful"

Basically a disclaimer that automation software is only as good as the products you choose to automate, I guess Denon is another one that has whacky things to deal with.

Well, to ge fair, this is such a self-evident fact that I don't think anyone would feel the need to point it out on a regular basis. To back go to your car analogy, if you bought a million dollar Bugatti Yyron, and put some cheap, thin, bald tires on it, the results are going to be pretty obvious.

That doesn't in any way invalidate any claims that this is the best high performance production car on the planet, because it still is. The car isn't the problem, it's the tires you've added to it. The same applies to a product like CQC. It is an excellent product and practically unlimited, but of course it cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Automation products by definition deal with the real world, and the real world can be more real than we would like sometimes.

If you want super reliable automation, you have to use super reliable components to automate. The automation system can make up for some shortcomings sometimes, but there's only so much that can be done.

Mark P

10-29-06, 01:48 PM

Alot of stuff is self-evident if its used in a certain field of expertise you are used to. If someone was talking to you about some complex Macros used in automation, to you it would be like you taking a breath, to me it would be like building my own motherboard from scratch because I have only scratched the plastic wrapper on the surface of automation. If Insteon is a sows ear or a bald tire then I suppose they need the disclaimer that their products dont work with automation. Im not postive yet that this may be a fact and if people are talking about failure of switches because they are stacking three load switches in a single gang box because if this is true than I guess they are out of their comfort zone. I figured out instantly that Insteon needs to be properly placed using traveler wires because this is in my comfort zone. I am guessing its other things they must be finding via the automation itself, If I can get this on to a preset dim, it works flawlessly, this is the only glitch I am having and I am pretty sure I am just overlooking something.

By the way I feel like an automation wizard pro power user extrordinare at this moment because I am typing this in an area 1 mile away on the HTPC server from my laptop and turning Insteons on and off ( calling wife on cell to see) and making changes on Mainlobby on another Laptop in another room in the house. Baby steps I guess, but this is huge for me.

Dean Roddey

10-29-06, 01:57 PM

I didn't specifically say that Insteon is a sow's ear. But, OTOH, it's no Lutron or Vantage either. I was just saying that no automation system can be super-reliable if the things it is automating aren't extremely reliable as well, since the whole point of the automation system is to pull the strings of those other bits and make them dance. If those things don't dance when the string is pulled, then things aren't going to work as you'd expect. This rule doesn't seem to me to be terribly specific to the automation world, but more of a general rule of systems of any kind, that they are no better than their weakest important link.

And, as Alan pointed out, many devices seem to be designed to be as frustrating as possible to control. In many cases the control protocol is an afterthought, and is designed by an engineer who isn't an automation person at all, and therefore is happy to just get something done that seems to work.

An extremely common one is digital projectors, most of which take a long time to power up and many of which will stop responding during that time. Another is a device that stops responding when it's powered off. To the automation system, either of these things is no different from the device being unplugged or disconnected from the automation system. The only thing that tells the automation system that the device is there and healthy is that it responds to queries. The protocols for these devices were not designed with the needs of automation systems in mind.

QQQ

10-29-06, 02:15 PM

Good info and the type of things that need to be brought up long before " Our product is limitless and the most powerful"
If you are working with an integrator and they are worth their salt, they are going to be specifying all components based on whether they can be properly controlled. This is why for instance, an integrator will generally choose components that have a good RS-232 protocol and barring that, at a minimum discrete IR commands (if you are not familiar speak up and someone will explain). If you are choosing components they are going to be warning you about the issue.

If you are going the DIY route, I think it's a growing pain that you are likely going to experience, as I'm not sure it's practical to say "the most powerful automation system in the world*" with a disclaimer for the asterisk of "*as long as you don't own a TV with a barrel knob and no remote control" :D.

I DO understand your point completely. It's just very rare that you get the Caller ID type disclaimer "for this product to work, you need to have caller ID with your phone company". I do think it would be nice if we saw that type of thing more often.

QQQ

10-29-06, 02:21 PM

This is part of the value of the software automation company. The end result is typically just as reliable as proprietary, closed systems. There are many do's / don'ts to get there, and that is a lot of the value of the professional integrator who has those learnings.
I think that is some smooth talk ;).

Is Main Lobby open source ;)? I believe the following applies to most sales peoples definition of open system versus propietary and closed. "Open system": the one I sell. "Proprietary Closed System": the competitor.

I do acknowledge that ML is much more DIY friendly that Crestron and AMX etc.

robertmee

10-29-06, 02:39 PM

Any other common issue --for which Sony is a known culprit-- is that the protocol will tell you to expect y. For 90% of the time you will see "y" but then suddenly out of the blue you will see "v" and your parsing routeen will go all to hell.

Boy does that ring true. Having just completed writing a couple of serial drivers for CQC, it was a real eyeopener to the many variations in responses that were not documented in the protocol. It takes brute force and ALOT of time to sit there and monitor send/receives to see the oddball junk that shows up sometimes and then figure out what to do with it.

smoothtlk

10-29-06, 03:13 PM

QQQ, good point :)
No MainLobby is not open source, but allows for 3rd party development, connection with many 3rd party systems, runs on generic PC platform, allows for dealer / DIY RS232 driver development (we even built a plugin to foster this specifically), allows you to use any graphics you want (Flash, JPG, or many other formats), and several other "Open" think attributes.
Very different from hardware companies that "won't play with anybody else" :)

Mark P

10-29-06, 03:40 PM

Well I am trying to remain calm after getting further in 2 hours than I have in a week.

Deep Breath and.................... I wish Daylight savings time wouldnt have ruined my experience of seeing 150 lights ramping up to a selected dim, boy can I hardy wait untill dusk to experience this miracle of Insteon/Mainlobby but I only tried it 10 times so its bound to break before dusk since its not Lutron.

The one thing about Lutron I sort of miss is the loud howling hum they produce on heavy loads (800 watts or 18 - 50 watt low voltage picture spots) and I am not talking about hardware store Lutrons ( please save the insults on what type of products we use in a 5 million dollar 11,000 sq. ft. home )

The other thing I really miss is that so 1990s green LED but I think that signifies $$$$ @ $150 a pop ( 2/3 Insteon) even at my dealer discount, I do however understand the concept of the higher the cost, the more percentage the customer gets racked for. And those big ugly table top extenders??? The RF signal repeaters are also a lovely addition to any home. Not too mention their lamp dimmers. Got a link to whats wrong with Insteon other than theyre not fun for plugin writers? Mario seemed to get me rocking and rolling with Insteon maybe Crestron has some catching up to do.

If you had not come out like Joe Smartass on your first post directed at me we could keep this civil

audiblesolutions

10-29-06, 03:53 PM

I think it reasonable to expect that you could grasp the concept that some products integrate easier than others or that the supposed promise of a serial protocol does not guarantee that a product can be integrated, even as a layman. It is hardly a new concept that some things are too good to be true or that experience makes you better at what you do. Book knowledge and experience are not the same. You are expecting more than should be expected from a board. You need to own up to your ignorance and stop casting stones at others for assuming you possess a basic level of competence. It is one thing to be surprised that parsing the value of 30h with itoa may not provide you with the ASCII value of 0. For that you might need to use the chr command. It might be reasonable not to know what secret handshake you needed to get into a consumer Pioneer display to enable it for serial communications. But it seems totally reasonable for anyone attempting automation to understand that some products can be integrated easier than others and that this knowledge is experiential. You are too defensive when the better response to Mr. Roddey might be " thank you for taking the time to share with me concepts so basic that you would naturally fail to think of them upon first initiating a conversation on the subject of automation. I am aware I am ignorent but I have the "ganas" to learn and infinite patience as I reinvent the wheel.

It would be nice if folks like smoothtlk did not crassly market and shill for their product as much as they do. I do not play here to sell my services though I admit to a bias for the products I do integrate and sell. I admit that AMX is as good as Crestron or CQC though in the end the real differences are in the skills of the programmer. I have always given Mr. Roddey credit for not being the biggest shill in the world. Would that his counterpart from Mainlobby had the same tact and decency. If you want to advertise pay the good folks who host this site for the privilege. Remember IVB is an end user who has no financial stake. I sell Crestron but not to anyone on this board so I have no financial stake in a decision ( though I have an intellectual and on the margins an emotional commitment to any product I sell ). We all know that your products are responsible for all manor of things from the coming of the Messiah to perfect sound forever. When we pros forget that Penngray is sure to remind us. But it might be nice if we got back to sharing information and not naked, crass self-interest.

Alan

robertmee

10-29-06, 04:00 PM

Got a link to whats wrong with Insteon other than theyre not fun for plugin writers?

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=5826

On of about 2 dozen similar threads that are disgusted with Insteon.

If you had not come out like Joe Smartass on your first post directed at me we could keep this civil

Not sure who this is directed at, but it appears that you don't want to hear anything bad about your decision to go with Insteon. If it works great for you, well then, great for you. But many MANY others have suffered through with Insteon and are fed up. I hope you don't end up that way and that Insteon does everything you want and more. I'm hoping Insteon gets their act together too, because its price point is very attractive.

Mark P

10-29-06, 04:06 PM

QQQ

10-29-06, 04:21 PM

If your first paragraph is directed to me, I never aimed anything at Dean Roddey, my snide comments are directed straight at QQQ and his repeated snide comments. Looks like Crestron folks practice this art of belittlement.
I am not sure which of my "snide" comments set you off. Would it be the snide comment where I complimented you on your theater and said:

"I've seen your theater and it looks nothing short of spectacular and like some major thought went into to".

But I guess I set you off with my innocent comment:

"You state that you removed 150 Lutron dimmers. I have to assume those were your standard variety hardware store dimmers so how is that relevant?"

Or perhaps my joke about MS software? Or telling you to give it a try?

QQQ

10-29-06, 04:28 PM

p.s. the only reason I mentioned my experience with Crestron, which has now caused me to be labeled as nasty "Crestron folk" was that I was trying to assist in explaining that someone from that perspective has looked at Dean's software and that it is definintely serious automation software.

Mark P

10-29-06, 04:31 PM

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=5826

On of about 2 dozen similar threads that are disgusted with Insteon.

Not sure who this is directed at, but it appears that you don't want to hear anything bad about your decision to go with Insteon. If it works great for you, well then, great for you. But many MANY others have suffered through with Insteon and are fed up. I hope you don't end up that way and that Insteon does everything you want and more. I'm hoping Insteon gets their act together too, because its price point is very attractive.I read that post and really wish people would understand what they are dealing with, Dollar and a doughnut this guy shouldnt be hooking up light switches in the first place. They get Hot that is their main problem but this is not a problem unless you stack 3 in a gang and expect to run their rated watts. The Load switches get hot and need to be distributed appropriately using traveler wires. Out of 150 light switches so far I had one gang where I had to have 2 loads in one gang and its fine because the whole box is pulling 300 watts. The was a thread about this in Dedicated theaters a couple weeks ago and every one of them was replacing switches left and right until I came in and gave them a diagram of how to properly hook up the Insteons.

Also his 1000w failure was probably due to cutting the heatsink off one side to get it to fit in a double gang box and you dont get 1000w dimmers to power 100 watts so I am expecting this guy has over 600Ws running to a clipped heatsink 1000w switch thats now a 600W switch. Hes also replacing switches left and right and I highly doubt hes removing them from the PLC causing a mess of the PLC with broken links and who knows what. At 150 switches setup properly I yet to have a failure and I am pushing it to the limit on several 1000w dimmers. 2 weeks is not enough time to see but if these go a year I will be very happy and return to shower praise.

Half his switches that are dead could probably be reset if he hasnt toasted them from double stacking, or making sure he didnt pull out the "set" button

Any valid links where someone that knew how to install switches properly had troubles?

Mark P

10-29-06, 04:37 PM

I will agree Insteons should be installed by an electrician that calls Insteon and finds out about the heat issues and installs them properly. Im lucky I have knowledge of wiring homes and the way traveler wires work and after I hooked up the first switch grabbed it and felt the heatsinks and was suprised so I called Insteon before another switch was installed. Failure = heat

smoothtlk

10-29-06, 04:45 PM

audiblesolutions,
Nice to meet you too!

QQQ

10-29-06, 04:50 PM

Alan must be in a bad mood today because I missed all the shilling, but maybe I better reread :).

audiblesolutions

10-29-06, 08:41 PM

For a little truth in advertising. Many may research my comments on CQC as well. Many of my negative comments have been disabused as the product became more widely used and it had more than a DIY following. Additionally, I pay attention to the various comments from those who have used it and while I might not go down that route it seems to me to be a powerful piece of automation software. Personally, I still believe in a pre-engineered solution. I do want a system as opposed to building an automation system from disparate parts, as we used to do with state of the art audio and video systems. It simplifies matters a lot when things go wrong and I am uncertain of Mr. Roddy's abilities to provide all the tech support that could occur, especially if the issues are have to do with hardware. Nonetheless, I have been persuaded that it is a valid software option, even if it is not the right option for me.

If you are unaware of basic concepts, such as derating light switches ganged together or how to install them so you do not have to derate them then you should hire a professional to do that work. I'd not count on an electrician understanding this either although one would hope he would. I perfectly understand that some DIYs enjoy playing with their systems and wish to do the work themselves. My suggestion would be to play with non crucial sub systems like your theater, a distributed audio system or even a distributed video system before moving on to crucial life/death sub-systems like lighting and security. Sometimes people reach the limit of their abilities and it might be the best advise not to provide them with the specific solutions they seek and rather provide them with the advice to slow down and build up their knowledge base. It is funny how plain speaking seems to antagonize individuals. If you are willing to take on the tasks of automating your home it seems to me reasonable to assume that you already know that investing in automating a particular device may prove unsuccessful or at the very least frustrating. It is similar to someone posting for help with translating serial protocol and opining that the protocol is horrible. If you are basing those decisions solely on price then you may be in for rocky journey. Ultimately, as I believe IVB discovered, investing the not insignificant dollar amounts in one of the "big boy" lighting systems can in the end be a wise decision. Off loading the logic to the lighting computer seems wise programmatically and from the point of view of system design. It would seem to me prudent to do your due diligence before investing in a product than afterwards. I don't have a horse in this race other than to suggest that there are right and wrong ways to proceed when deciding on which automation system to use and which sub-system products. If you get it wrong it may cost you more than wasted time.

I don't have a problem with display devices that take time to warm up. I do have a problem in that many do not provide accurate feedback for their warm up or cool down states nor do they provide large enough buffers so you can send them commands and they will be stacked internally until the device is prepared to process them. Sure you can kludge a solution with booleans or time, but knowing which devices provide this information is just as important as which displays provide you with the ability to calibrate them properly. For years I have ignored those portions of display protocols having to do with gamma, RGB gain and cuts. Having just gone through ISF training I now see the benefits of this from an automation point of view. Not only is it useful to have these controls on a secret page because it makes my job calibrating the display easier, but it is useful to use the automation system to call what ever analog settings are correct for that device and input when it is selected. But an ISF calibrator is more interested in a display that facilitates calibration then in once that makes control or automation possible. However, were you to attempt to calibrate a display yourself I think it would be assumed you understood the basics of calibration, such as D6500, dynamic range, or color saturation. In automation much knowledge is experiential, undocumented and in some cases so basic that one forgets that someone beginning the journey might not be aware of it. Automation also requires a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of every sub-system, which also takes years of experience to amass. Enjoy your journey but try not to be so defensive when you become frustrated or become aware of the limitations to your knowledge base.

Alan

Ricoch3T

10-31-06, 12:53 AM

quick question.. are yall running a serial cable from each component to your server computer? Or is there some kind of an easier way to do it?
Also IF you are running a serial from each component, what type of add on serial cards are you using?
I imagine your touchscreens of just run through cat5 cable or a wireless network to the server.. correct?

Thanks for the help!

Dean Roddey

10-31-06, 02:08 AM

If all of the devices are in the same place, but a good distance from the server, you can use a USB or IP based multi-port device (such as from IONetworks (Edgeport) or RocketPort and others.) If they are fairly close by or in various places not too far away, you can just generally just run Cat-5 since most devices are 3-wire and don't require a full serial cable.

There are various PCI/PCI-e multi-port serial card manufacturers, such as Lava or SIIG. We tend to use SIIG cards, which are reasonably priced and have quality drivers.

Though I used a USB multi-port card for years (Edgeport) and it worked flawlessly, if I can avoid introducing more external bits I generally will. It's just being conservative and keeping the system as is practical. And keeping everything internal where possible helps keep things simple.

There is also the R2DI IR blaster card that we support as well, which provides 4 zones of IR blasting from an internal PCI card.

http://www.digitalconnection.com/products/remote/ir500p.asp

QQQ

10-31-06, 02:33 AM

Don't forget his touchscreen question Dean :).

Dean Roddey

10-31-06, 02:42 AM

I'm probably not best to answer that one. I just use a standard 15" Planar touch screen in my system. There are various options available. Some are:

1. UMPC wireless tablets
2. Touchtronixs UMTA system
3. Remote desktop clients
4. Various flavors all in one wall mountable touch screen computers from Nobu or some other places that I'm forgetting right now but someone will kick in with that info.
5. A PC in the closet running out to a wall mounted standard touch screen (from a 7" Lilliput type to a standard 15" type) via a Cat-5 KVM extender.
6. If you want more than one, you can add other tiny PCs in the closet also run out to standard wall mounted touch screens via Cat-5. You can get a very small PC plus KVM extender plus a 7" wall mounted touch screen for about $1000, and this keeps all the mainteance centralized in one place and just dumb touch screens out in the rooms.
7. A .Net based device like a higher end PPC is another option.

IVB

10-31-06, 02:50 AM

I use a hardwired network connection from my Fujitsu 3400 touchscreen tablet PC to my network switch. I have a 96yr old house that's plaster&lathe, kills most signals. It took my ~85% uptime to 100%. well worth it.

I have also run tons of RS232 connections, most over CAT5 with RJ45->DB9 adapters, so I can do bidirectional communication with my equipment. At first most of my components didn't have RS232, but eBay helped me out with thatproblem.

I use 2 MOXA 8-way RS232 cards to easily add more RS232 ports to my network. I've got one in each of 2 different servers, (none of which are actually my master server.)

Mark P

10-31-06, 07:22 AM

These are about as nice as we have discovered and will be introducing a 10" in Feb.
and these have docks http://www.tabletkiosk.com/ , Nobu's are sleek as well but I dont have one in my hand yet to tell you about quality, otherwise everyone sells/makes inwall touchscreens

Ricoch3T

10-31-06, 01:39 PM

Thanks for all the info! Def answered my questions..

I didn't know the touchscreens were so high, but I guess you are really just buying a small computer.

I'll look into some of those suggestions and I'm sure I'll find some more questions for yall.. Thanks again

Dean Roddey

10-31-06, 03:02 PM

Samsung and ASUS also have UMPC models. The high cost on these things is mostly due to the fact that they are still a pretty low volume product.

Mark P

10-31-06, 03:17 PM

The Samsung cant dock, or have a dock. The Asus is very nice but again, does it have a charging dock?

Dean Roddey

10-31-06, 06:42 PM

It's true that they didn't when they came out. I haven't checked to see if they've added one yet or not, so they may still not. I thought it was not because they couldn't but because it just wan't available yet, but maybe I'm wrong about that also. I would also want a docking/charging station.

Quixote1

10-31-06, 09:48 PM

wow. I started reading this thread to catch up with what I've missed while painting my apartment, but got tired of it since it's one long advertisement for CQC.

Hopefully I won't agitate the wrath of the CQC tag-team when I suggest that Mark P downloads and installs the Girder Trial to see if it suits his needs for comparable performance at 5 to 20% of the cost.

www.promixis.com

audiblesolutions

10-31-06, 10:43 PM

wow. I started reading this thread to catch up with what I've missed while painting my apartment, but got tired of it since it's one long advertisement for CQC.

Fascinating. This takes me back to the 80s when I was in Grad school. How different the source documents seemed to be when compared with what secondary sources claimed they said. You conclude this is a long advertisement for CQC and I think the other guy has yet to make a comment that didn't say use my software. I wonder who's correct? With the sole exception of a comment about Denon serial protocols only Mr. Roddy has made comments that pertained to matters other than his software. To wit the few posts above where he speaks to the various panels DIYs might wish to use with their preferred DIY software solution.

To be fair I only had one experience with Mainlobby and it was with Andrew the Nigerian enabler and his boss, the thief. I liked its graphics but grew to dislike everything else about it though I may be blaming it for the defective way DVI was being displayed when it was not the culprit. Compared to what I could do with Crestron--and this was 2 years ago--I thought it simply a AA software and not ready for the Show. Of course, Andrew was using it to control purloined DVDs which I also find problematic but I'd wager that few participating here would have such qualms. That experience is certainly not sufficient to pass judgement on its merits and I have already confessed to not having played with Mr.Roddy's baby--though should he wish to send me a free copy and wave a magic wand so that the day 30 hours long I would very much enjoy playing with it. To piss off the few remaining folks still passively consuming this thread, hire a pro and install a Crestron system. All these DIY software hacks are in reality crap. That ought to get someone's hackles up and keep this thread going for about an other 6 pages.

Dean Roddey

10-31-06, 11:48 PM

Of course, what Crestron and AMX don't want people to know is that use of their products leads to impotence and Satan worship. This is well documented if you find sources that aren't controlled by the powers that be.

IVB

11-01-06, 12:28 AM

Hopefully I won't agitate the wrath of the CQC tag-team when I suggest that Mark P downloads and installs the Girder Trial to see if it suits his needs for comparable performance at 5 to 20% of the cost.

If the OP or anyone can indeed have their needs met by Girder, then I'm all for it. Just because it isn't right for some of us doesn't mean it isn't a solid product.

All these DIY software hacks are in reality crap. That ought to get someone's hackles up and keep this thread going for about an other 6 pages.

Well, if that doesn't, we could always bring up Universal Remote Control's new software distribution policy.

audiblesolutions

11-01-06, 12:52 AM

Well, if that doesn't, we could always bring up Universal Remote Control's new software distribution policy.

Ah, but we all already know the solution to this delemma, do we not? Then why not?

Alan

IVB

11-01-06, 01:11 AM

Ah, but we all already know the solution to this delemma, do we not? Then why not?

Alan

The real solution is to go back to living like the Amish. No worries about touchpanels, serial protocols, or tech support calls. They're much happier than any of us.

Dean Roddey

11-01-06, 02:56 AM

I don't think it's considered worldly as long as you don't use too many colors in your touch screen images.

Quixote1

11-01-06, 06:33 PM

Hahahaha!

You guys are sports.

IVB - have you tried living without your toys for any significant length of time? I've become convinced that I've formed an addiction much akin to my old cigarette habit. It's almost as bad as my internet addiction.

smoothtlk

11-01-06, 08:54 PM

audiblesolutions, You should give MainLobby 3 a try. About a hundred updates since when you last looked. Judging from some of your comments, I don't think you quite got what it was, back then. Now, that can be because one needed to invest a fair amount of time to get going with Mainlobby 2, which is not the case with MainLobby 3 as it comes with prebuilt scenes that function near out of the box.

Not sure what DVI has to do with it. MainLobby doesn't affect a DVI output at all....
now, were you talking about a software DVD player that MainLobby / DVDLobby might have launched? If so, then you probably didn't have the settings correct for you display. But again, that isn't a MainLobby issue, but a system setup issue.

We now have the most comprehensive control over the best two software DVD players in the business (TheaterTek and Zoom Player). We also have complete control over DVD changers like the Sony CX777ES which is considered by most the best DVD changer system.

Maybe if you clarified your thoughts I could address them more accurately. Either way, feel free to demo the base MainLobby 3 application so you can see some of the differences since your last touch. I think you will be suprised on how far things have gotten in the last two years. Will you be at the EHX show in Long Beach? Stop by the Automated Outlet booth and we will give you the tour.

IVB

11-02-06, 03:58 PM

IVB - have you tried living without your toys for any significant length of time? I've become convinced that I've formed an addiction much akin to my old cigarette habit. It's almost as bad as my internet addiction.

Yep, worse than that, I now get bitched out by the wife if I take down SageTV or CQC. Well, SageTV I get screamed at. CQC she just gets upset (her big issues are no whole-house audio, no touchpanel to quickly check both weather forecast as well as the outside thermometer).

Mark P

11-02-06, 08:07 PM

QQQ

11-02-06, 08:36 PM

Funny thing happened while dealing with the trial of CQC, as I was finishing up the client install I read something to the effect of " CQC does not effect or change any system files, its basically a program within a program and doesnt spread to unknown places"

Now I understand thats not what it said but it was a comforting statement that assured me as long as CQC wasnt open, there was no CQC to worry about, 1 minute later my Laptop tried to go into standby to save battery and DING " The service'CQC Application Shell' is preventing the machine from entering standby. Try stopping this service and try again"

Well Alt-Cntrl,Del and looky what we have here, CQC running, so I end task and five minutes later DING...." The service'CQC Application Shell' is preventing the machine from entering standby. Try stopping this service and try again" you had to be there but I got a good laugh out of this....sort of

Also I must admit it took me 5 minutes to understand the user name was Admin, this is kind of explained in the tutorials but not as clearly as it could be, lucky thing I have a router thats setup the same way and just tried Admin and it took right off. If you could change the tutorial to something like " Open the Admin user acount by typing Admin in the user name and then enter password you created", I talked to one guy that plain gave up trying the program because he couldnt sign in, I would have never figured it out either had I not dealt with this on routers before. We arent all programmers here, Im a newbie delux.

I had to get rid of it for now until I figure out the fix for the standby issue but it wasnt addressed soon enough in documentation for me to proceed with the trial. Also am I understanding theres a $100 a year fee for plugins? And to get everything it costs $2400 and theres no support other than forums?
Dean,

If you are listening, we geeks may think these types of complaints are silly, but I believe this type of stuff is the single biggest drawback for the consumer. To use an analogy (and blow off some steam in the process), I go to AT&T's website last night to find out about ordering faster service. It insists it wants a telephone # to proceed. So I put in a fake one with the right area code. It insists they don't show that area code as an account in their system. So I begrudgingly put in the correct #. It tells me "sorry, but the plan you are on does not qualify for any special upgrade pricing" and gives me the option of "continue" which takes me back to the main page. All I wanted to do was look at their fricking plans but could find no way to do so. So I clicked away...to their competitor.

I've installed CQC a couple of times and it has been fairly painless for me but that's because I do this stuff every day. It should be made less painless for a consumer. I know you are big on security but I think 90% of consumers could care less - do you really need to require a password? Couldn't you create an install wizard that does not require ANY password to start and allows people who want passwords to create them, so that those users that do not want them don't have to have them? Just like Windows does for the user that does not want to type a password at logon? And the other issue Mark mentioned actually caused me to uninstall it from one machine because I could not get the service to turn off no matter what I did and much like Mark I had just installed it on a computer to play with it and did not want it running at all times. Good (running all the time) in one sense for a dedicated computer where you always want to make sure CQC is running, but it seems like it does need to be addressed. IF it can be addressed without compromising the product. I realize that there may be some options you don't want to give people if they could stop the software from operating properly.

Mark, you'll find is that Dean listens to feedback and often incorporates it into the product.

Mark P

11-02-06, 08:58 PM

Yes QQQ,

These were my first 2 encounters and I am far from an expert but can kick around in the sand a little and figure a couple things out, if not I have a guru a phone call away that explains things in english not syntax.

I honestly want the best app here and trying to get info on Cinemar and CQC since it seems to come down to these 2 products, I have Cinemar working on 98% of what I want it to do as of now. Insteons working very well, Easy as pie interface for building some state of the art menus, the CallerID thing is VERY useful beyond anything I have seen, someone calls, from 30' away I can see a picture of that person on my screens to see if I want to answer or not, if no picture than large writing. The Weather lobby is extremelly powerful and correct with wind directions , speed, barometer....etc, 100s of little peices of info. Security Cameras on every page if need or wanted, Clients anywhere in the world using Hamachi, it goes on and I havent even started the theater yet but played with USB-UIRT and it worked for a hard to control remote.

I wish the two owners would list the plus's and minus here right now to help me understand which is the best in english and not automation speek. I already bought Cinemar and have no trouble getting CQC if it is as good as it gets but I would like examples in real time with events I understand. I know Cinemars 15 - 20 hour support ( I hope these guys get 4 hours of sleep) is a huge plus for me being a newbie and the twon support gentelmen understand Im a dolt and speak to me understanding I am an automation dummy. A webex may serve no purpose if its a geekfest of ascii and I am lost in the first second. I can say whatever I end up as the final solution will get some pretty decent coverage to many, many people increasing sales when the articles in multiple subscriptions explain the ease and funtionality of the system.

IVB

11-02-06, 10:05 PM

CQC is $495 now for the full package, $895 once V2.0 goes beta. It's $95/year for minor upgrades. There are no charges for drivers or graphics packs or anything.

The $2400 is what the non-DIY'er will pay. As you're obviously a DIY'er, you get the mega-discount. It's the same software.

As far as pluses and minuses, Cinemar is better if you want plug-n-play and to be up within a few hours, don't mind paying for that, and have no need for a distributed control environment.

CQC is better if you want extensibility and/or distributed control from any node on your system.

QQQ

11-02-06, 10:12 PM

CQC is $495 now for the full package, $895 once V2.0 goes beta. It's $95/year for minor upgrades. There are no charges for drivers or graphics packs or anything.

The $2400 is what the non-DIY'er will pay. As you're obviously a DIY'er, you get the mega-discount. It's the same software.
I don't know how this is being packaged but from a marketing point of view (i.e. what the actual verbage is if I look on the website) but the way it is being described in this thread sounds almost ridiculous even if the concept is not. The $2400 price should be the "Gold Support" package (or whatever) with a list of what that consists of such as "unlimited support and 8 hours of setup" or something like that. As it is it is not being presented in a way that imparts value. My 2 cents.

Dean Roddey

11-02-06, 10:45 PM

Well Alt-Cntrl,Del and looky what we have here, CQC running, so I end task and five minutes later DING...." The service'CQC Application Shell' is preventing the machine from entering standby. Try stopping this service and try again" you had to be there but I got a good laugh out of this....sort of

It's a network distributed program. Most of it is running in the background. You can't just kill the programs, they are running under a service whose whole job it is to restart them in case they get stopped. You have to stop the service to get rid of it, as discussed in the tutorial.

Normally, in a real installation, those background programs would only be running on a server in the closet, which of course would never go to sleep. You'd only install the standalone interface viewer client on a laptop or non-administrative client type machine. The standalone viewer mode doesn't include anything but the interface viewer, and makes that machine able to access graphical interfaces.

You don't want a server that's providing the backend for your automation system to go to sleep, definitely.

Also I must admit it took me 5 minutes to understand the user name was Admin, this is kind of explained in the tutorials but not as clearly as it could be, lucky thing I have a router thats setup the same way and just tried Admin and it took right off. If you could change the tutorial to something like " Open the Admin user acount by typing Admin in the user name and then enter password you created",

When you installed it, it asked for a password for the initial admin account. The instructions on that page where you entered the initial password indicated that the user name for that account is Admin.

I've installed CQC a couple of times and it has been fairly painless for me but that's because I do this stuff every day. It should be made less painless for a consumer. I know you are big on security but I think 90% of consumers could care less - do you really need to require a password? Couldn't you create an install wizard that does not require ANY password to start and allows people who want passwords to create them, so that those users that do not want them don't have to have them?

You can set CQC_USERNAME= and CQC_PASSWORD= in the environment and then you don't need to log in. I guess there could be an option in the installer to set those for you or something.

I had to get rid of it for now until I figure out the fix for the standby issue but it wasnt addressed soon enough in documentation for me to proceed with the trial. Also am I understanding theres a $100 a year fee for plugins? And to get everything it costs $2400 and theres no support other than forums?

If you are doing it DIY, then the price (right now) is $495. That includes everything (all drivers, what you are calling plugins) plus upgrades for the next year. There's a $95/year fee from then on that gets you any upgrades for that next year.

It'll go up to $895 for the full package once 2.0 goes out (which isn't too far off.)

IVB

11-02-06, 10:47 PM

You can set CQC_USERNAME= and CQC_PASSWORD= in the environment and then you don't need to log in. I guess there could be an option in the installer to set those for you or something.

That would be nice. Right now I manually set those with the admin userid & pw on every machine I install CQC on since I don't have any security concerns. No way would anyone other than me actually run anything but the interface viewer.

Dean Roddey

11-02-06, 10:51 PM

I don't know how this is being packaged but from a marketing point of view (i.e. what the actual verbage is if I look on the website) but the way it is being described in this thread sounds almost ridiculous even if the concept is not. The $2400 price should be the "Gold Support" package (or whatever) with a list of what that consists of such as "unlimited support and 8 hours of setup" or something like that. As it is it is not being presented in a way that imparts value. My 2 cents.

There are two versions, DIY and professional. The DIY is cheap because it involves very few legal obligations on our part, and the people buying it aren't making money off of it. The pro version comes in two flavors, the core automation one and that plus the media system, for like $1700'ish and $2600'ish. This version the end user would never buy. It's purchased through an installer. It is effectively the 'gold support' package, but not to the end user directly, it's via the installer. It's the 'if you are having a problem at a customer site, we will stop whatever we are doing and help you fix it' package.

This is all explained in the Integration Partner program documents. We will not support any installer who works outside of our system and just buys the DIY package and installs it for people. If the installer wants support from us, they have to sign up as an IP, and they have to buy the pro system to install for their customers.

QQQ

11-02-06, 10:58 PM

When you installed it, it asked for a password for the initial admin account. The instructions on that page where you entered the initial password indicated that the user name for that account is Admin.
Make it in HUGE RED BOLDand MAYBE people will see it. I'm deadly serious. The problem is that our eyeballs are subjected to so much unneeded info and advertising in all forms that we have learned as humans to filter out an incredible amount. I was at the store a few weeks back and got frustrated because the automatic checkout machine would not work. The lady at the store walked up to me laughing and pointed out the sign that was written in bold marker that was attached to it that said OUT OF ORDER. But I am so used to seeing sales signs about coupons and such attached to the checkout that I totally blocked it out. Ditto on software screens. I hit next and don't read the verbage. That's what 90% of your users will do.

I just had Outlook give me a message two weeks ago that said my file had grown too large and I had to delete some items. But each time I tried to delete items I got frusrated because the message popped up again to lock the screen. After about 3 minutes I noticed that in the body of the message that it told me to hold down control while I deleted, but because the first sentence said "you need to delete some messages" my automatic reaction was to start deleting and read no further. If you sign up for Google BTW, they do this (big bold messaages) on a lot of stuff. They make you go to a screen with some big bold stuff and some cute verbage that says "we know you hate this stuff but this part is important and we really need you to read it"...

Dean Roddey

11-02-06, 11:08 PM

We could always have the installer include a pop quiz 8-)

Mark P

11-03-06, 12:25 AM

We could always have the installer include a pop quiz 8-)Im toast

Mark P

11-03-06, 12:41 AM

It's a network distributed program. Most of it is running in the background. You can't just kill the programs, they are running under a service whose whole job it is to restart them in case they get stopped. You have to stop the service to get rid of it, as discussed in the tutorial.

Normally, in a real installation, those background programs would only be running on a server in the closet, which of course would never go to sleep. You'd only install the standalone interface viewer client on a laptop or non-administrative client type machine. The standalone viewer mode doesn't include anything but the interface viewer, and makes that machine able to access graphical interfaces.

You don't want a server that's providing the backend for your automation system to go to sleep, definitely.

When you installed it, it asked for a password for the initial admin account. The instructions on that page where you entered the initial password indicated that the user name for that account is Admin.Maybe this is where a DIYer like myself can offer up a little bit of info. First I plan a "real" installation that works properly by having clients on every single computer accessable starting with a laptop that goes everywhere with me and when I am home sits in the "sweet spot " of activity so many will use it, because itsa laptop it will need to say battery at various times and will need standby. Stand alone costs additional money and is not required when you have EOs and Saharas and Tough books scattered about, why add more screens to the mix? In the theater I will be using a 7" or tablet kiosks new 10" due in March, this needs to go into standby and possibly hibernate during movies mostly with quiet scenes considering these all have hard drives and fans. These will be going out to the pool, hanging out on the deck, saddled up on Tennesse Walkers, who knows. What I do know is I am going to do some crazy stuff regardless and going into standby is a must since 90% of my touchscreens are wireless tablets regardless of how unprofessional it is

QQQ

11-03-06, 01:06 AM

Mark,

From an automation standpoint it is an absolutel NECESSITY that there be a service running and at all times. As long as you have the service running on a dedicated PC that is always kept on, which is exactly what you want for a reliable automation system, you do not have to have it running on any of your other machines that you want to use as controllers, whether a laptop ot wireless tablet etc. Without this architecture, it would be another DIY toy so to speak (i.e. like most of the other $100 software out there) and be totally unreliable. This is just like Crestron or AMX and relates to why their systems are reliable. They run on a dedicated server that is on at all times.

My point earlier was that maybe Dean would want to give users some advanced way to turn it off ONLY for folks who just wanted to do some testing with a PC or whatever. But that may not be a good idea. The way he has designed it now is for maximum reliablity, which is HUGE in automation, especially the higher end he is aiming for.

IVB

11-03-06, 01:12 AM

This might be a vernacular issue, getting back to that ease-of-use thing QQQ was talking about.

Standalone Viewer doesn't mean you cannot use a laptop, rather it's one of the install options when you first put CQC on that box. If you select Standalone Viewer, only the CQC Interface Viewer will be installed, with no background services to prevent hibernation.

If you ony install the Standalone Viewer, you won't install any of the other programs. The "cost" of being able to hibernate is:
- You cannot start the Media Repository Manager, put a CD in the drive and have it automatically rip&upload to the server
- You cannot use the Admin Interface to add new drivers/users/etc
- You cannot use the Interface Editor to change your interfaces
- You WILL be able to use the Interface Viewer to pull up the interfaces and control your system, which is 99% of what you'd do on a regular basis.

This does bring up an interesting question for Dean - given that it's obviously possible for the InterfaceViewer to NOT use a process or service to access the server, can you set it up so that the InterfaceViewer never uses that service, regardless of what you install? Then, a user like MarkP (or me) could keep the CQC service stopped, still use the IV, allow the box to hibernate. Then, if the user wanted to use the Media Repository Manager/etc, we could just start up the CQC service.

QQQ

11-03-06, 01:19 AM

This might be a vernacular...

- All you can do is use the Interface Viewer to pull up the interfaces and control your system.
Which speaking of vernacular, "all you can do" might unintentionally suggest significant limitations. In this instance, "pull up the interface and control your systems" means pretty much everything.

IVB

11-03-06, 01:32 AM

Which speaking of vernacular, "all you can do" might unintentionally suggest significant limitations. In this instance, "pull up the interface and control your systems" means pretty much everything.

Good point. I edited the post above to read "- You WILL be able to use the Interface Viewer to pull up the interfaces and control your system, which is 99% of what you'd do on a regular basis."

Mark P

11-03-06, 01:56 AM

I have a dedicated server that stays on all the time, has nothing to do with my clients not being able to standby or hibernate and I did choose for them to be the CQC Interface Viewer only, according to the instructions. Thats why I am confused why a client is somehow thinking its a server even when I thought it was shut down and off.

IVB

11-03-06, 02:15 AM

Oh, that reminds me of something i've been meaning to tell Dean.

Did you choose "custom setup", then select IV only, or did you select "Standalone Viewer" on the first screen?

I noticed that when I select "custom setup", then select IV only, the services get installed and I cannot hibernate. Using the Standalone Viewer option removes that problem.

Dean Roddey

11-03-06, 03:37 AM

In order to get the standalone viewer mode, you ahve to pick it on the first installation panel. It doesn't really try to figure out that, if you choose custom and then only select the viewer out of all of the stuff that it should do the standalone mode.

I will probably make the standalone mode a little broader in an upcoming release, where it wouldn't be just the IV, but a full 'standalone client tools' type configuration where you could run various client tools in a standalone mode. I thought of doing it for 2.0, but there were so many other things to do.

But, in the meantime, for any sort of wireless tablet, you probably will just do the standalone IV mode and it'll then shutdown without any problems. If you did the regular custom install and just picked the IV, then uninstall it and install again in the standalone IV mode and it should be fine.

To uninstall, open the CQC Command Prompt and run the CQCUninst program (I'm going to put the uninstaller on the start menu for 2.0.)

Mark P

11-03-06, 10:31 AM

IVB

11-03-06, 11:19 AM

Hmmm,
Is 2.0 different than 1.6 in the respect that I am going to dedicate a couple weeks to 1.6 and then things are going to be different the way I approach designing graphics and inputing commands? The way I read the answer is no, but cant you just DL the Beta now and get on with things. I understand that theres probably a bug or two but who better to be a beta tester than a newbie and Im sure theres a bug or two in 1.6.

Your 1.6 stuff will work just fine, but the command support is V2.0 is much much better. If you can handle a few bugs here/there, you'd be better off using the beta. I was going to post a "do any of the new 2.0 folks want a webex on sunday am" over on CQC now anyhow. They're typically 8:30am PST as that's when we've gotten the most participation.

Also, can I work on setting up the "Client" or stand alone viewer while in another location far from the server. I guess what I am asking, is your client software like Cinemars in the way that I could shut MLserver down for a month and completely finish all my screens and commands in Mainlobby, then turn on MLServer and everything works?
There's only 1 server program in CQC, and that's what your main server runs. There's no need for multiple programs as it's an infinite whole-house license, no licensing issues requiring that.

Hence, you run CQC, finish up all your screens, and then any PC with the IntfVwr works. Also, you could install everything but the master server on your laptop, use that for development, stopping/starting the service at will. (i have a simple batch file I posted over on the CQC forum if you want to use the start menu to do this).

Mark P

11-03-06, 11:28 AM

You have a link to the Webex and any thing I may need to participate ( software, etc) I will be there Sunday morning to watch but not participate since its possible I wont even have the software loaded

Mark P

11-03-06, 11:30 AM

Mark P

11-03-06, 11:49 AM

Oh and I almost forgot, Mainlobbys menus are Flash based and theres literally millions of Flash buttons and such at your disposal in Flash forums. I have not dug too deep into CQC yet but I am not finding any templates I can use yet that have animated buttons with cool dimmed buttons with mouseover effects, maybe that will be in the Webex if I may vote for a topic on Sunday.

In all honesty a USB-UIRT plugin takes care of about 80% of a huge Library of plugins ( anything IR ) but I am still wanting to know the "most powerful" aspect layed out in simple terms a DIY dummy like me can understand

smoothtlk

11-03-06, 11:56 AM

IVB, If there is one (and only one) server, how does one control hardware in two remote locations? Is that a different software component than what Cinemar calls a "Server"?

robertmee

11-03-06, 12:43 PM

IVB, If there is one (and only one) server, how does one control hardware in two remote locations? Is that a different software component than what Cinemar calls a "Server"?

There is one and only one Master Server...All other clients on the network talk to this server. You can hang hardware off of any client and it ports the control back to the Master server. As an example, I have a Master Server sitting on a Dell PC in my home theater. It has no physical hardware (yet) hanging off of it. My plans are to eventually have it serially control my Sony 400 DVD changer (getting repaired), Denon AV processor (need to upgrade my 3802 to a 3803) and Grafik Eye. It will control the Projector via IR (no serial control). Other than no hardware, it does have the Horoscope Driver and JRMC drivers.

Now, I have an old PIII PC sitting in my whole house audio rack in another room. This PC has the following hardware wise:

An internal modem for callerID capture
An external sound card for text-to-speech announce across the whole house audio system
A serial connection to my Caddx Alarm panel
A serial connection to my touchscreens (through a matrix KMV and cat5 extenders)
A serial connection to my Nuvo Concerto audio system
Hosting ZoomPlayer for mp3 playback through the Nuvo

On yet another PIII PC, I'm running my Geovision DVR surveillance and serving motion video to the Master Server.

Finally, on my office PC which stays on all the time, I'm serially controlling my family room Plasma TV just because they are near each other and it's convenient.

That's the beauty of CQC. I don't have to string another serial cable to get back to the Master server. I can use whatever PCs I have nearby, since they are on anyway. And, I can go to any PC and manage all drivers, events, schedules, Interface deveopment, etc. back to the Main Server. All the info is stored on the Main Server, but I don't have to be there to use it. And, I don't have to map drives or create shares. And I don't have to move bits and pieces around from one machine to another.

Not sure if that answered your question, but that's been my experience.

Dean Roddey

11-03-06, 01:34 PM

am guessing I am finding out the differences between Cinemar and mainlobby very fast. In Cinemar the Server is rarely touched ( atleast so far, load a plugin, set it up with in a few seconds with a setup menu and your done) Now you go to your Client MLobby and do all the dirty work which can be done anywhere on the planet.

Both have their pluses and minuses that I can see, Mainlobby, when youre done on one Client you rip a disc of the Mainlobby data and transfer to all clients and have to resize for different screen sizes, not a huge deal but slightly cumbersome.

CQC is fundamentally network based. If you are on a client drawing an interface, when you press Save, it's now available to any clients on the network immediately. That's why the Master Server is always there and always running, because it's the central storage for all interfaces, images, macros, event configuration, etc... You can work from any client because the client is just a front end to the Master Server from a configuration standpoint, and changes made are immediately available.

It's just a completely different way of approaching things between the two products. If I notice something I want to change on an interface, I can bring up the editor, change it, save and it's done. I don't have to gather up the files and spread them around to multiple clients.

Oh and I almost forgot, Mainlobbys menus are Flash based and theres literally millions of Flash buttons and such at your disposal in Flash forums. I have not dug too deep into CQC yet but I am not finding any templates I can use yet that have animated buttons with cool dimmed buttons with mouseover effects, maybe that will be in the Webex if I may vote for a topic on Sunday.

CQC doesn't do much in the way of interface animation. It's not Flash based, it's image based. There are tradeoffs either way. Flash allows for animation at the expense of overhead and having to do your design within an external tool that's not integrated into the system. CQC doesn't provide animation but it's very light weight on the interfaces and the design tools are fundamentally integrated into the system, hence the Save and it's available immediately difference.

Dean Roddey

11-03-06, 01:38 PM

IVB, If there is one (and only one) server, how does one control hardware in two remote locations? Is that a different software component than what Cinemar calls a "Server"?

As mentioned there's a Master Server, which is a one time thing in the network. But there is another component called CQCServer, whcih is one of the background processes you can optionally install on any machine. You tell it what drivers you want it to load and it sucks them down from the Master Server and loads and runs them. You can manage any of these CQCServers from anywhere, and load/remove drivers on them and see the status of drivers, control logging verbosity and so forth.

You can also load CQCServer on the Master Server and anyone running in a single machine configuration is of course doing that. Or you can have no device control on the Master Server and run CQCServer on other machines, according to what works best for you. A common scenario might be MS in the closet, running CQCServer and controlling all the HA type stuff, then another PC in the home theater that's running just CQCServer and the client tools and controlling the theater hardware and providing media browsing and such.

Mark P

11-03-06, 01:56 PM

Did you answer my question about different screen sizes and resolutions on the clients? Am I correct in 'ass'uming that if I have 2 different clients that have 2 different screen sizes that I make most graphics to fit the majority, pull that design into the "oddball" of the bunch, redesign the backgrounds and static images and re-arrange my " widgets" appropriately and hit ' save' and the CQC server will save that info for THAT particular Client? If so then that is pretty sweet. At some point I will have all screens the same but for now I have a Panasonic toughbook hanging over my shoulders that likes to be an oddball.

Mark P

11-03-06, 02:12 PM

Also I have a poolhouse with a Jandy Aqualink controller, 100 zones of rainbirds in 2 seprate control boxes, some pretty intense amped fence lighting ( waiting for Insteon to develope more than 1000w 15 amp product)

Now the problem, I have no wire between the home and poolhouse thats 150' away but I do have Insteon communicating which may be able to deal with ELK M1. Im thinking my best option is to build a cheap PC and place it in the poolhouse and use the wireless network to communicate everything that way ( Jandy has a PC software that connects via serial or they have an actual serial adapter with Crestron, AMX RS232 commandable features)

Understanding robertmee correctly I can just have that PC in the poolhouse integrated at all times to the " server" in the house and have full control over all those devices on a wireless network? I do NOT what to enter passwords and "log in" to different users and such.

So far Cinemars MLServer ( as I understand it) is loadable on multiple PCs, 1 in the stables, 1 in the pool house, one in the guest home and they switch back and fourth appropriately in the Clients command strings. Can CQC do all this without passwords and " sharing" sort of like a "remote access" between multiple machines operating different hardware throughout the ranch as long as I have wireless connection? I can place signal enhancers in the 3 rail vinyl fence, its got power and fairly waterproof, it may freeze a couple times a year but....

IVB

11-03-06, 02:32 PM

So am I understand that everything is done on the "server itself" as far as commands and graphics and such? If so I guess this could be done through "Remote Access" using a laptop.

I am guessing I am finding out the differences between Cinemar and mainlobby very fast. In Cinemar the Server is rarely touched ( atleast so far, load a plugin, set it up with in a few seconds with a setup menu and your done) Now you go to your Client MLobby and do all the dirty work which can be done anywhere on the planet.

Apologies, I may be confusing you here with my choice of words. I never work "on my server", either directly or via VNC or RDP. I always work on my laptop. I've installed the full suite of functionality on that laptop, so all I do is start/stop the service using a batch file when I want to muck with interfaces/events/etc.

The point of CQC is that it is a network-distributed architecture, and as mentioned before, the only "true" one as you don't have to copy files around from machine to machine. You cannot work "anywhere on the planet", but you can work "anywhere in your network". One minus to CQC's network architecture is that you cannot work on your interfaces on a laptop or in a hotel, but given the upside of true client/server, that is a minor inconvenience.

Both have their pluses and minuses that I can see, Mainlobby, when youre done on one Client you rip a disc of the Mainlobby data and transfer to all clients and have to resize for different screen sizes, not a huge deal but slightly cumbersome.

That is the price to pay for a non-network distributed architecture. You have to transfer to all clients.
However, you will still have to deal with different screen sizes, and it's harder than it is for MainLobby as there's no dynamic way to do this.

CGQ, your server has to remain on during all setup and I am not sure how different sized Clients deal with the screen size variations
Net net: Either build different templates (pita), or do what I did: Design 800x600 screens, and render on bigger machines with a black border.

I know, it's an unattractive option there, but I look at it as the price to pay for the superior graphics abilities (which others can explain better than I).

smoothtlk

11-03-06, 02:34 PM

Ok, so it's really a nomenclature difference. There still is a piece of software that sits on any PC that you want to talk to hardware. CQC calls this a "CQCServer" and MainLobby calls it a "MLServer 3 Zero Client" (which is the same software as the "Primary" MLServer that accepts client connections). CQC has a "Master Server", and MainLobby has a "Primary MLServer 3".

" harder than it is for MainLobby as there's no dynamic way to do this."
IVB, It's simple bat file to "dynamically" distribute the files. The new MLWMI plugin also has this capability to update any file on any client from the server. I have been managing my installation since Day 1 like this. Takes a button push.

IVB

11-03-06, 02:35 PM

Also I have a poolhouse with a Jandy Aqualink controller, 100 zones of rainbirds in 2 seprate control boxes, some pretty intense amped fence lighting ( waiting for Insteon to develope more than 1000w 15 amp product)

Here's a link to the publicly available Jandy Aqualink driver. (http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=2318)

Understanding robertmee correctly I can just have that PC in the poolhouse integrated at all times to the " server" in the house and have full control over all those devices on a wireless network? I do NOT what to enter passwords and "log in" to different users and such.

I *think* the answer is yes,absolutely no issues with passwords and logins.

So far Cinemars MLServer ( as I understand it) is loadable on multiple PCs, 1 in the stables, 1 in the pool house, one in the guest home and they switch back and fourth appropriately in the Clients command strings. Can CQC do all this without passwords and " sharing" sort of like a "remote access" between multiple machines operating different hardware throughout the ranch as long as I have wireless connection? I can place signal enhancers in the 3 rail vinyl fence, its got power and fairly waterproof, it may freeze a couple times a year but....
Yep. And again, if you have multiple CQCServers, it's the same price: $495 now, $895 later.

IVB

11-03-06, 02:37 PM

IVB

11-03-06, 02:43 PM

Ok, so it's really a nomenclature difference. There still is a piece of software that sits on any PC that you want to talk to hardware. CQC calls this a "CQCServer" and MainLobby calls it a "MLServer 3 Zero Client" (which is the same software as the "Primary" MLServer that accepts client connections). CQC has a "Master Server", and MainLobby has a "Primary MLServer 3".

Yep. Only difference is the pricing model.

With CQC you pay a single price upfront that's higher than MainLobby for almost all functionality (there's 6 optional modules) , which allows you to create infinite servers.

With Cinemar, you pay a lower price upfront, then buy additional licenses as you add more devices.

Both are entirely legitimate pricing models, it's up to the user as to how far they'll extend their setup to determine which is more cost effective.

smoothtlk

11-03-06, 02:43 PM

MarkP, don't forget you can change the toughbook Display settings in MainLobby including X and Y scaling, and X and Y shift and display resolution. Takes 5 seconds to change. And, you can design your scenes one time and use on several devices. Now, good UI design says that the size of the display should affect the design choices of the scenes. Smaller the screen, the fewer and larger the buttons.

But to go from a desktop to a laptop shouldn't make a difference. Jumping from a desktop to a Rad I/O single gang touchscreen makes a big difference and a scene redesign.

mcascio

11-03-06, 02:59 PM

The point of CQC is that it is a network-distributed architecture, and as mentioned before, the only "true" one as you don't have to copy files around from machine to machine. You cannot work "anywhere on the planet", but you can work "anywhere in your network". One minus to CQC's network architecture is that you cannot work on your interfaces on a laptop or in a hotel, but given the upside of true client/server, that is a minor inconvenience.

MainLobby/MLServer is a client/server architecture.

If you prefer not to have scenes locally on the client - not a problem with MainLobby at all. Save your scenes in a shared folder on the server. You can even load them via MLServer's Web Server. It's that easy! :)

QQQ

11-03-06, 04:06 PM

Also I have a poolhouse with a Jandy Aqualink controller, 100 zones of rainbirds in 2 seprate control boxes, some pretty intense amped fence lighting ( waiting for Insteon to develope more than 1000w 15 amp product
Why wait :)? For such situations you simply use a very small high voltage panel that turns on and off with a relaythat you trigger with a regular light switch, in this case an Insteon switch. These are available at most electrical distributors. This is done all the time when someone needs to trigger 30 or 40 amps of outside lighting on and off.

In other words, power runs to your Insteon switch, and also to the panel that powers the outside lighting. The Insteon than connects to an input on the panel that triggers it on and off and flips a large relay on and off.

p.s. just to clarify, by "panel" I am not referring to an electrical panel.

Mark P

11-03-06, 05:44 PM

Why wait :)? For such situations you simply use a very small high voltage panel that turns on and off with a relaythat you trigger with a regular light switch, in this case an Insteon switch. These are available at most electrical distributors. This is done all the time when someone needs to trigger 30 or 40 amps of outside lighting on and off.

In other words, power runs to your Insteon switch, and also to the panel that powers the outside lighting. The Insteon than connects to an input on the panel that triggers it on and off and flips a large relay on and off.

p.s. just to clarify, by "panel" I am not referring to an electrical panel. Thanks, now thats some great info!

IVB

11-03-06, 05:52 PM

MainLobby/MLServer is a client/server architecture.

If you prefer not to have scenes locally on the client - not a problem with MainLobby at all. Save your scenes in a shared folder on the server. You can even load them via MLServer's Web Server. It's that easy! :)

Well, with a non-techie wife and kids, there's no chance i'm sharing my interfaces folder. Too error prone, plus it opens up virus issues since that folder is available to all computers on the network. Even with McAfee and up-to-date protection, i've noticed 2 viruses in the last 2 months. Thank god the server is protected from up on high.

I personally prefer CQC's approach of using network ports for communication to avoid such issues. But just b/c that's right for me doesn't mean it's right for everyone.

smoothtlk

11-03-06, 06:32 PM

A webserver is on a network port...

LathanM

11-03-06, 06:58 PM

Well, with a non-techie wife and kids, there's no chance i'm sharing my interfaces folder. Too error prone, plus it opens up virus issues since that folder is available to all computers on the network. Even with McAfee and up-to-date protection, i've noticed 2 viruses in the last 2 months. Thank god the server is protected from up on high.

This is a little OAT but...
To words will eliminate that problem, file security. With as many system as you are running are you just doing peer to peer? If so look into biting the bullet and adding a 2Kx domain controller. Maintaining file security under peer to peer is a pain. All the clients really need is read access to any scenes or ava clips. I am a little spoiled working in IT but the time savings is worth it. Being able to push apps (SUS and group policy) and files to clients is one of the biggest joys. Even better is no local admin rights for users, clears up allot of the virus issues. No admin access means no ap or virus install. Running as a user instead of an admin combined with host file preloading and AVG and you can have a virtually bombproof system .

Best of all it is really easy to setup. Anyone that has spent as much time on their system as most of us here could set it up 15 minutes.

IVB

11-03-06, 07:02 PM

Let me begin with this massive caveat: I'm no techie, i'm no network guru, so I don't really know details here, but:
Doesn't that mean opening up http access to that machine?

And again, i'm no techie, but if i were writing a virus, scanning for ports accepting http traffic would be on my hitlist.

Like I said, perhaps i'm just a nervous nellie, but given that my server is dang important, actually contains all my financial info as well as my home automation stuff, I prefer to use a secure port as opposed to something that open.

EDIT: BTW, can you use http to build/edit interfaces? I have 2 machines that I use to build my interfaces, neither of which are my server.

IVB

11-03-06, 07:09 PM

This is a little OAT but...
To words will eliminate that problem, file security. With as many system as you are running are you just doing peer to peer? If so look into biting the bullet and adding a 2Kx domain controller. Maintaining file security under peer to peer is a pain. All the clients really need is read access to any scenes or ava clips. I am a little spoiled working in IT but the time savings is worth it. Being able to push apps (SUS and group policy) and files to clients is one of the biggest joys. Even better is no local admin rights for users, clears up allot of the virus issues. No admin access means no ap or virus install. Running as a user instead of an admin combined with host file preloading and AVG and you can have a virtually bombproof system .

Best of all it is really easy to setup. Anyone that has spent as much time on their system as most of us here could set it up 15 minutes.

1) oy, i didn't understand a word you just said, but I feel like I should learn it. Not because of CQC, but b/c of the rest of my stuff.
2) 2 of my clients need write access to my templates, as I use them to build the interfaces.
3) 3 of my clients need to be able to run the other CQC programs (i.e., event manager, admin interface, media repository manager), as I use them to administrate/extend/control my system.

LathanM

11-03-06, 07:36 PM

No problem on the network stuff it can get confusing. Windows has 2 main levels of permission, users and admins. Users can run programs but can't really install them. Admins have total control of the system. By default Windows has users logon with admin permission. Great for simplicity but horrid for security. Think of it like giving the keys to a Ferrari to a begining driver. The chance of carnage happening are pretty high. Switching the user to a user level permission makes it tougher to install apps but really you don't install new apps daily. Now that begining driver is in a bumper car. You can get some good jolts but no real damage.

The permissions are based on the user logon and not the machine so your logon would have admin rights. The rest of the family would have user access. They can still get to everything from any machine, they just can only change things you allow them to.

That is the 10 second explaination of logons and permissions.

You can do this now with the software you already have but you have to manage each machine separately. A domain controller would let you do the same things for a central location. If I get some time this weekend I will write up a best practices FAQ for home networks.

smoothtlk

11-03-06, 08:21 PM

"Doesn't that mean opening up http access to that machine?"
No, it does not.
A webserver does not have to be on Port 80. As a matter of fact, Cinemar's isn't on port 80
Port 80 is typically a INTERnet server. We are talking about an INTRAnet server (private LAN).

Dean Roddey

11-03-06, 09:02 PM

QQQ

11-03-06, 10:16 PM

Dean Roddey

11-03-06, 10:22 PM

We've actually been seriously considering that sort of architecture.

QQQ

11-03-06, 10:27 PM

It is not as expensive to implement as one might imagine but setting it up is not for the faint of heart. It took me about 3 days overall, mainly to distribute everything onto different nodes which are all required to communicate for security protection. Each node is redundant so if one falls off line, one other node holds a mirrored backup protocol and takes over, but the beauty is that no node ever knows more than two protocols of the 64 in use, so there is complete protection. And it can pretty much scale exponentially.

IVB

11-03-06, 11:36 PM

LathanM

11-04-06, 02:20 PM

I don't want to get too much into this, but a shared directory is nothing close to the level of control and sophistication that working through a back-end server provides.

There's no control over simulataneous access for one. All enterprise level systems work via servers so that they can manage access to the content, not just in terms of security, but in terms of coordinating access so that people don't step on each other's toes. If you are writing it when I'm reading it, I'll either get an access violation error, or worse I'll read some half updated file.

Secondly, if you walk up to a machine that's logged in as someone who only has read access at to the shared directory, and you want to make a change, you have to log out and log in as someone else. With a server based system, you just start up the client tool, it asks you to log in (to the automation system, not to Windows) and if you have administrative privs, you are in and you can edit away.

Thirdly, a general purpose tool won't know anything about security within your automation system. It can only know whether it can access a file or not. With a server based system, using tools that are integrated into the system, the tools understand the security of the automation system. CQC has four levels, each of which grants particular levels of access. It doesn't matter what Windows account you are in, CQC enforces its own security system, via it's own tools.

These types of things are reasons why serious multi-user systems don't depend on shared files generally, but work through server based interfaces.

Interesting but a little over thought for the environment. Most of the systems you are describing are used for group colaboration where you have several people working on the same project, accessing the same resources and making real time changes. The odds of having 2 people accessing the same resources at the same time and modifying them is fairly low for most HA projects. The simple alternative is to have a staging area and a production area. I do this all the time with web apps and server clusters. Apps move from development to staging, staging to production. This does put a delay in publishing changes to all users but makes for great simplicity. This is how I do all my development at home. I have a replication script on my server that I run whenever I want to push updates to the clients. The script check does version checking and reports any error back to me by email. Granted my system is a little more robust than most users, actually better than some of my clients (Citrix server w/ Wyse terminals and touchscreens for the clients, 3 file servers, 1 Zimbra mail server, 2 domain controllers and a VMWare server box running 4 server instances) so I have a little more control than most but a simplier manual process is easy to implement.

Logon security isn't as big an issue either. Most clients are going to stay logged in as the same user all the time. For example kitchen, livingroom or entryway terminals aren't really used for modifying scenes. Doing it at the system level is a perfect solution in this area. Complete central security is great and I am all for it but it isn't the only option. I commend you design work in choosing backend database style content control system. Chalk it up to design differences. each has its advantages and disadvantages. :)

LathanM

11-04-06, 02:30 PM

Without turning this into a flame war, can any of you list your preferred HA software, and why?
Thanks,
Andre

WOW! This thead ahs certainly gone farther than I though it would. For product options and feature list, to user communities and company support, to network/environment design and security. This forum never seems to amaze me.

For those that haven't read the entire thing there is allot of good information here but it really comes down to what you want to get out of your system. Make a list of your pie in the sky plan and work back from there. So what if your first choice doesn't do everything. None of them do everything and all are limited by the skill of the person programming the system. :D

Dean Roddey

11-04-06, 03:42 PM

Interesting but a little over thought for the environment. Most of the systems you are describing are used for group colaboration where you have several people working on the same project, accessing the same resources and making real time changes. The odds of having 2 people accessing the same resources at the same time and modifying them is fairly low for most HA projects.

I disagree. we sell a product designed to scale up to quite substantially sized homes. It's quite possible that multiple users are interacting with the product at any time while the installer is connected remotely and working on the system and cannot be there to coordinate updates with the users.

Your scheme can be made to work of course. But it's not in the same league as a product like CQC, which is designed for the professional market, not for the hobbyist market. For the folks using our product, 'over-thinking' on our part is considered a good thing.

audiblesolutions

11-04-06, 04:23 PM

Anyone using a back end server is so 20th century. I prefer a Unix server running on a grid (preferrably composed of server farms comprised of modular card based blades) using shared sheath distribution in a 128 bit macro based and enforced security protocol where passwords are distibuted on different nodes to prevent a single instance of a compomised user from affecting the rest of the system.

I had to try overhard to overcome a defensive urge to write this in hex and reassert an ego need to compensate for my complete and total lack of comprehension of any of the network backbone designs the wise man was suggesting. One of the few joys of playing here is the significant IT talent participating. I make few pretentions to being network certified and as the good poet might suggest I have enough knowledge to be dangerous, as my experience with network topologies is generally confined to convincing these black souls running IT that my systems existing on their infrastructure will not compromise their security. But card based blades? shared sheath distribution? The only sentence I understood was the 128 bit security, based upon primes? Other than that I have not a clue and then to suggest later that it is rather a simple matter of setting up? Humility may be good for the soul but I'm going to go back and figure out how to write my own code for an Adagio and regain my ego.

Alan

QQQ

11-04-06, 04:46 PM

Alan,

It was pure gibberish. And Dean played along. I just wanted to see how long it would take before someone would question it.

LathanM

11-04-06, 05:29 PM

I disagree. we sell a product designed to scale up to quite substantially sized homes. It's quite possible that multiple users are interacting with the product at any time while the installer is connected remotely and working on the system and cannot be there to coordinate updates with the users.

Your scheme can be made to work of course. But it's not in the same league as a product like CQC, which is designed for the professional market, not for the hobbyist market. For the folks using our product, 'over-thinking' on our part is considered a good thing.

I guess I am too much of a data center guy when it comes to system maintenance. Production changes while users are on a system have never set well with me. Scheduling does wonders.

So how is CQC loading files that it requires this? Are the files always open once a client connects or are you using a db model with shared queues for data access? Are your clients constantly updating the entire scene or just variables in the scene? For example if I load a background image in a client then change the background file does the change happen instantly? does the client poll the image? does the server send a data updated notification to the client to pull the new image? does the server just push the change to the client? If it is anything other than a push from the server then no coordiantion is needed with users. The updates will be retrieved whenever the client calls for the new changed image or scene. Unless you are pubilshing large files (5MB or larger) on slow drives over slow connections it is unlikely that users will even be impacted if they try and access a scene you are writing to. The server OS should be able to handle any issue with file access.

It is not a pro vs diy issue just 2 different takes on the same problems, file access and file modification.

Dean Roddey

11-04-06, 07:02 PM

So how is CQC loading files that it requires this? Are the files always open once a client connects or are you using a db model with shared queues for data access?

Various data has various access models. One scenario is the log server. Clients are constantly accessing it to log infromation, and any particular client can be monitoring the data being logged or searching it, plus it has to roll over to prevent the log file from growing forever. Plus you can monitor the data going to it in semi-real time, and do it efficiently, because the log server caches the previous X items and serves them up with very little overhead.

You could implement that with just a file that everyone looks at, but I would never do that. It would put the onus on a remote client to manage rollover while other clients back off, and what happens if the network hoses during the rollover or update and so forth. So we use a log server to allow all clients to log to a central log file that can be cleanly shared. And you'd really start getting serious contention for the log file if you just let every client directly log to the file and have others monitor the data going to it.

Changes to something like an interface are not pushed out immediately, since that would be disruptive and confusing to the client if it changed underneath them. They will pick up the change the next time they access it.

Changes to back end configuration, like drivers loaded on a remote machine or scheduled or triggered events and such are immediately pushed out to the remote machine as soon as you commit them.

You are also assuming that the only way data is being accessed is by a user, but in a system like CQC that isn't the case. There is access going on all the time by background services or even threads running the background of a client program that's not being accessed by the user at that moment, the log server being an example.

There is also the location abstraction provided by a server based system, particularly one like ours which uses a name server so that back end services can register themselves in a single place to be found by everyone who needs that service. Instead of having various network paths hard coded into clients, all they need to know id a single address, of the name server. Everything can be moved around and clients can find them without change.

Then there's our media repository, which does have long updates when CDs are ripped and uploaded, and which other clients and servers are regularly accessing, either directly by the user or automatically during playback. There are substantial complexities to managing a media repository, and doing a distributed one is even harder. Our repository manager client (and any media browser clients) work through our repository server to coordinate access to the media repository.

Anyway, a shared directory is a reasonably workable simple solution, but it's not in the same league. Would anyone buy a database product these days where the clients directly manage the database file on a shared drive? It's not that it couldn't be done, it's just so old school that it's unacceptable today. Even if you could make the same access pattern arguments against that database, no one would do it. There are too many advantages to a client/server based architecture.

LathanM

11-04-06, 07:27 PM

That answers my question. I was wondering if you used a database model or not. So everything is stored at the database level, images, media, symbolic links to files, etc. Interesting, so you are using a full content management system. What backend DB are you building on, MSDE?

Scratch that last question. I will ask for more detail on your boards. We have pulled this one too far off topic. :)

Dean Roddey

11-04-06, 07:58 PM

It's all custom stuff of our own.

miltimj

11-19-06, 05:17 PM

I guess I am too much of a data center guy when it comes to system maintenance. Production changes while users are on a system have never set well with me. Scheduling does wonders.
That's because you seem to be a sysadmin, not a DBA. Dean is favoring the database approach, you're favoring the (file) system approach.

This thread taught me a ton - I'm looking forward to playing with the CQC tutorial. I had previously been eyeing Cinemar, but really don't like the pricing model. It reminds me of the programs that catalog DVDs (similar to DVDProfiler) where if you want to catalog books, or CDs, or recipes, or whatever, it keeps adding on the cost instead of an all-in-one pricing model. Just my personal preference, though, as IVB has said.

Dean, will you give a little warning prior to announcing the 2.0 release so that we have a last chance to get the earlier price? I'm in the situation that I won't be able to even start practically using the software for another 6 months, but if I decide that I like the interfaces, etc, it may be worth it to get it now at 40% off compared with 6 months from now.

IVB

11-19-06, 05:43 PM

He literally just last night announced a 3 week warning.

I'm going to put up a post in a bit asking if newbies want a webex tutorial/setup assistance session in the next week or so, where they learn a little more details about what CQC does. If you login from the machine you'll use as your master server (at least temporarily, anyway), we can kick start folks into action.

LathanM

11-19-06, 08:44 PM

That's because you seem to be a sysadmin, not a DBA. Dean is favoring the database approach, you're favoring the (file) system approach.

Gulity as charged :) . At one time I managed a group of DBAs though so I understand his POV.

Versa

12-31-06, 06:26 PM

I have to say that I have been a longtime homeseer v1.6 user and it has been extremely good and quite a bit cheaper then the competition. I am now contemplating upgrading to homeseer 2.x and it looks like they upped the price a decent amount but it is still well under the competition.

Homeseer++

mbarr1

01-01-07, 01:46 PM

Dean Roddey

01-01-07, 02:29 PM

It can be done, but you will need to put in the time, else you'll waste more money making mistakes than you'd have spent getting a pro to do it. Another option of course is to just farm out the hardware part of it, i.e. get professional help on what to wire and the running of the wiring, then do the rest yourself.

IVB

01-01-07, 04:42 PM

There is a ton of great info in this thread and thanks to all who provide their experience. My situation is that I have little network experience(I can setup my wired/wireless network at home, but thats it) but after receiving quotes between 50 and 120k for HA, I would like to do it myself. I want audio and hd video distribution, along with dvd distribution, security, etc. Is this reasonable given my experience? What type of wiring to run to each location?(I'd like touch screens all over).
Appreciate any replies.

I replied in your other thread, those quotes seem like they're generally accurate given that HA could mean many things, plus labor is a huge bit.

That said, you could DIY for cheaper as you could get 2nd hand touchscreens and eBayed parts. Plus you'd save on labor externally.

However, as also mentioned in that thread, to do "the whole thing" is easily hundreds of manhours, esp if you have to run the wires yourself. The elk automation panel with the various security and automation bits is about 60-70 of my runs, which is 150-200 hours in just running wires. Get a pro to do all that, and the rest is the more "value add" of the DIY bit.