iPhone 5 Automation Master thread?

That's CQC, not QCQ. Anyhoo, that would have been probably a version 1.x at that time, going by the date of that thread. We are now on 4.2, and it's so vastly more advanced and powerful now that it's only the same product in name really.

There's very little automation on the Mac platform, other than one very high endy product, and I'm not sure if they are even DIY friendly. iPads make good clients but other than for something like the theater, which only needs to do something when you are actually in the theater, you generally need a real PC in the closet handing the backend chores. We do support iPads now via our RIVA interface (remote interface viewer architecture), a third party makes an iOS RIVA client.

If you want to go stand alone look at irule, roomie, they could be an option

^ With both iRule and Roomie you can use the same iTach device. iRule uses iBuilder to allow virtually unlimited customization but may take you some time to get it going whereas Roomie allows no customization to speak of at least as far as layout but is very quick and easy to get going.

The general rule of thumb is:

1. Simple product: Easy to get started and do something fairly simple, but probably won't scale up so well or provide extrensive customization. If what it will do suits your purposes, then you are done.
2. Complex product. Harder to get started, you often start with a clean slate but that's because they are designed for complete customization. So they will likely scale better once you get into multiple users, need to have things running the background doing stuff automatically, react to changes in devices, need to integrate a wide variety of devices, do complex logic, and get into highly specific cusomization.

I have tried all the products mentioned above, CQC, irule and Roomie. CQC has the greatest potential but is also the most difficult to get started with. In the end like most DIyers I had to abandon it. Shame really as it could be a top notch product if the start up process weren't so painful. The simple rule for a DIY product is that the learning curve has got to be pretty flat if one is aiming to target a wide audience.

Unfortunately guys like Dean just don't get it.

I work in the Banking software market and you see the same situation with large multimillion pound trading platforms that are extremely powerful in terms of functionality and scalability, but are a nightmare to configure, being sidelined by more basic offerings which are much more simple to setup. These days a lot of software developers ignore intuitiveness and ease of use at their peril.

Whilst these might sound like a somewhat critical dig at Dean, it is not intended to be, I'm simply frustrated that his product isn't getting the traction it deserves simply because we live in an ipod generation, where most people including myself can't be bothered to even read product manuals. Whilst Dean's comments on the general rule of thumb appears to be correct at face value, the truth is that the products that do excel are those that offer a half way house solution, i.e. easy to configure for the new user, but still powerful and scalable for the more advanced user.

I think CQC being one of the first diy home control solutions could have cornered the whole smartphone and tablet diy control market, not only because it existed before most of the new offerings were even dreamt of but also because it is one of the most robust solutions out there, yet sadly irule probably has a more larger footprint and revenues multiple that of CQC.

Surely bundling CQC with a great "wizard set up option" that could get users up and running quickly but at the same time offer more functionality for the advanced user wouldn't hurt. Most user's control ambitions usually start with one room and then extends as they get more comfortable with the product.

The guys at Logitech realized this concept from the onset and have managed to get great market penetration with what I consider to be an average product.

Finally no software product stands alone without the supporting hardware, CQC has got be more aligned with the applicable hardware and interfaces required to get the product to work.

having said all that based on the current offerings, my recommendation will be Irule, but who knows perhaps we might get a CQC v 5.0 with the intuitiveness and easy of configuration in which case all bets are off.
Edited by sheggsl - 10/21/12 at 11:55am

That's a bit self-serving, Dean. If you want a Mac DYI HA solution, there are at least two players to consider:

http://www.perceptiveautomation.com/indigo/index.html

http://www.machomeautomation.com/doku.php/index

Craig

Hehe, I did a GIS of machomeautomation.com and the GUI looks like it was done by a drunk 5 year old.

http://www.machomeautomation.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/webremotehero.png?cache=

No offense to the developer, I understand it's a work in progress. Maybe he should hire Dean, as a consultant.

We have certainly begun the process of providng an easier means to get started, with our auto-generation system. Here is a video that demonstrates it. I do a pretty nice system from installtion through to nice touch screen interfaces in about 12 minutes. This is just a demonstration of it (and of an earlier version of it), there's more in-depth videos on the web site that go into more detail and that show the latest version of it.

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/Video%20Tutorials/Demos//SpeedInstall.wmv

We will continue to improve on this moving forward and add more functionality.

In terms of the bigger picture being discussed above, you have to remember how limited the DIY market is. Even for a simple product, it's very limited. For a company that just sells an automation software package, it's not really realistic to try to become a real company on the DIY market. Logitech doesn't depend on the sales of iRule, else I doubt they'd have bothered to create it. For them, if it helps sell more hardware then they can justify the cost.

If you accept that premise, then the pro market is where you have to make your revenues, and you can't do that with a simple product. You can provide auto-generation functionality such as above, or various other higher level helper tools, but ultimately under the hood it needs to be fully customizable, and that's why CQC is the way it is. We are DIY friendly, but both don't believe that the DIY market can ultimately sustain us, nor do we want to try to compete at the level, since we'd be competing against companies who don't need to generate their revenues from the software. We'd be like Netscape trying to compete against Microsoft, the former having to sell its software to survive and the latter happy to give it away in order to sell more of other stuff.

Here is the more in-depth one that just looks at the auto-generation system:

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/Video%20Tutorials/Version4_x/Tutorials/80.AutoGeneration1.wmv
Edited by Dean Roddey - 10/21/12 at 9:06pm

Thanks Dean for the update, the wizard certainly looks like a step in the right direction. with regards to your premise, I don't believe the DIY market is as small as you assume. One of the key drivers has been the wide-scale penetration of touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablets. With the proliferation of home entertainment devices, the limitation of IR and the complexity of the average home entertainment setup, there is the underlying demand for a control solution with decent feedback that can be used by the wife or the proverbial mother in law without the huge costs of a Cretron / AMX solution. The general rule is that most people will not be prepared to pay for a solution that costs more than a significant percentage of their equipment. (the value proposition is just not there for most)

However I'm confident that if there were an easy to configure solution out there that probably cost 10% of the equipment costs to get up and running, these will be an attractive proposition to many.

I think one will have to have to take the Apple approach and create the market. Once people come to be aware of the home automation functionality that can be available from their devices, at a reasonable cost compared to the Crestron, AMX and Control4 offerings, I think most will come on board.

Whilst I will not want to challenge your corporate strategy, I wonder whether you have the resources to go head to head with the established players in the pro automation market. My limited understanding is that pro market is very anti diy, and I think it will be difficult to service both segments effectively. The Netscape analogy is an interesting one, however Firefox could be an alternative. They have managed to carve out a niche for themselves in the browser market through an innovative business model.

Furthermore, I don't think a home automation product can survive solely on software without the corresponding hardware and interfaces. Is it possible to partner with the hardware / interface manufacturers like global cache?

Whilst the diy market has many segments I think the largest section are mainly looking for a turnkey solution with minimal tinkering. Most of the users will be lost with a configuration process that takes over a hour to get started.

like your local friendly drug dealer will say "give them a taste to get them hooked". once they are bought into your platform, switching costs will keep most users loyal.

However I think you are in the unique position of having built a very robust solution from the ground up and what is needed now is to look for ways to maximize the penetration of your product. Your business model has got to be different to that of the pro control solution providers. I think it is time to challenge the status quo

But, therein lies the rub. That's sort of in the vein of, if there was a car that performed like a Ferarri, but cost 10% as much and could be serviced easily by the customer, right? If such a car could be created, it would have long since been created because it would make someone very rich, even someone who was already very rich (and in a position to do it) would get a lot richer.

If all the hardware out there was of a sort that was amenable to automagical discovery, connection, and integration, it would be somewhat more reasonable to do something like that. But almost none is. And, even if it is, it's still just devices standing alone and someone would have to figure out how to integrate it all together with minimal user input. And, worse, many of them are just not good for automation at all and will always require more swizzling by the user than they will care to do. People aren't going to sell their stuff and buy new stuff just to make it non-manual configuration friendly, at least not for the major pieces.

Anyhoo, I'm not trying to be overly negative. It's just that it's a tricky market. Our desire is definitely to get into a tight relationship with an established hardware player. They would be able to get us into a branded hardware platform, and provide the development resources to both continue to develop the full product but also provide the simpler setup tools. Those are really two whole different things and trying to do them all myself is pretty tough. And we would allow them to take the next step up the chain and be able to provide a full automation solution, which they may choose to fully expose the power of, or to provide a simplified front end for, as meets their needs.

I dunno about expecting Apple to do anything at all about automation. I doubt seriously that they have the slightest interest in it, for all the reasons mentioned above. They could only put out a very simple product, and that would have them competing in a very low volume and low margin market, which isn't really their thing. If they tried to do anything more powerful, they'd run into the same issues that everyone else done, and they'd no longer just be selling some software, they'd actually have to provide extensive support and probably hook up with some national chain to sell it and support/install it locally. I just can't imagine that they have any interest in such a thing at all.

And, the thing is, having an app really isn't much of an answer. It's what's behind the app that matters, and that will always have all the same complications unless you are going to do something very simple and very limited.

We do of course support both IOS and Android, but it's through our RIVA system, which remotes the graphical user interfaces that you create within our system over to very thin clients on those platforms.

But the point I was making is that it's useless to have iSecurity, unless you have a security system that can be interfaced to, and you know how to connect to it and set it up. Same for lighting. Unless you are willing to figure out all the issues of setting up a Z-Wave or UPB network (and making it actually work reliably), then it doesn't do much good to have an iLighting app. And having those separate apps doesn't provide any integration. And no one is going to rip out their existing system and spend a lot of money probably having a professional install new ones that are iPad app friendly. You have to work with what's there, or pay a pro a fair chunk of money to install new stuff if you have no existing stuff, and as soon as you accept that, then you are right back where you always are.

Even more importantly, how much can you charge for such an app? There'd be almost no barrier to entry for competitors for such simple apps. And that includes people willing to just write them for fun and give them away. Unless the sale of those apps is somehow driving a lot of your own hardware sales, then I don't see how it could really pay off.

On the media server front, Apple doesn't have to make any money from any of that, becasue the whole point of it is to allow them to skim off 33 percent of the bulk of legal digital music sales. So they can afford to just give away the software and pay the developers to create something they give away. So, there again, it pays off because it's just the means to sell something else.

And it also means that they have an advantage on one else does. The purchased music goes straight into their database with full metadata. So they don't have to try to connect to other systems to get metadata or obtain music. That vastly simplifies the process, but it's not something other folks can do.
Edited by Dean Roddey - 10/23/12 at 1:47pm

I've been using a Dune player for quite a while now. It's a hocky puck sized video player as well, which handles HD quite nicely. Basically just ethernet and HDMI connectors and that's it. And there's the Roku of course which is basically the same, but more oriented towards streaming from the net.

If you use the Dune or popcorn hour you should check out 10Muse, for under £15, "$20" it will catalog your entire movie collection on different servers, get meta data and ratings on the PC app, export this to your Ipad via dropbox and launch your movies via 1 click in any room / zone you require. The beauty about it, is that a film library of approx 900 films and 4 different servers can be configured in under 2 hours. This is exactly my point.

We need to distinguish between home theater control and home automation, most folks care very little about lighting and automated blinds etc, however what the market wants is a simple method to control their HT equipment, stream media and have a good whole house audio.

Sonos in its 6 year history has managed to corner the market, it sounds decent, a breeze to set up and quite solid in operation, prior to sonos arriving, a quote for audio distribution to 5 to 6 rooms will likely set you back $15k minimum, now it is possible to achieve this for under $2k. Sonos recently raised an additional $135m in the market to fund further product development, this is a multiple of the market cap of a lot of the dinosaurs that originally occupied this space.

The issue is that technology is cheap and labor expensive, the company that offers the best tech with minimal labor will most likely win the race, however I'm convinced it is going to happen. It is up to the incumbents in the market to get innovative or have a newcomer eat their lunch.

The old adage runs true, market to the rich and live with the poor or market to the poor and live with the rich!!! end game is Volume baby:D