Here is an alternative to the GE. It uses X10. It is very similar in concept. It uses a single 20 amp circuit, has 4 zones, 8 programmable scenes, preset dim levels, adjustable ramp rates, and so forth:
http://www.pcslighting.com/LM1-LM4.htm
http://www.smarthome.com/images/2366dgm.gif
http://www.smarthome.com/images/2366C-big.jpg
http://www.hometech.com/acrobat/spm_2_1_981123.pdf
It sells for about $260 or so street (MSRP $299), and you do not need to buy any switches since you can use X10 to control it all. Unlike the GE you would not install this in your room since it has no direct controls. You would install it in your equipment closet instead or right at your panel which has the circuits for your lighting.
If you want switches, they have nice quality slave switches which can be had for about $30 each and available in several colors (ivory, almond, white...unfortunately no black).
For a very slick (but not so cheap) installation you can put the two following transmitters in a double-gang box:
http://www.pcslighting.com/SmartTransmitter.htm
http://www.smarthome.com/images/23796_big.jpg
Of course, you don't have buttons labelled A thru L, you can custom order buttons with any text on them you want. These transmitters fit the product well since you can program it so that A thru D apply to your 4 zones, and E thru L jump to your programmed 8 scenes. So from this spot you will be able to turn all lights on or off (it remembers the previous settings), dim any of the 4 zones independently, or jump to any of the 8 scenes.
These transmitters can also be programmed to send macros up to 16 commands for each button. For example, let's say you only have 6 lighting scenes. You could then use the other two to make one of the buttons "startup" your theater, and nother "shutdown" your theater. This leads to a very polished jaw-dropping installation if you mount these right at the entrance to your HT and on your way in kick thigs off with a push of a button and on the way out shut it all down.
If you startup/shutdown sequences grow in complexity such that a single 1-way transmitter with 16 maximum commands is too limiting, then you can still have the buttons trigger your sequence to a central controller which carries out the complex macros. Form the users / homeowners perspective, nothing changes with how you use the system. For example, some devices allow you to poll them to see their status so you can make truly smart conditional macros. You would need a separate central controller to do this.
The only thing I don't like about those switches is they are not 2-way, and therefore their light status can be wrong (however, al I will explain below the engineers did this for a VERY good reason). For example if you turn on the light at the keypad it lights up that button, but if you turn it off wth an X10 PLC command the button light stays on. This is one reason they make an optional remote so you could use that instead of an X10 remote (or any universal remote th X10 IR gateway)...but the problem with that is you need infrared line of sight and typically you don't have it. As such, what I usually do is disable the button light feature.
I do think the engineers made the right choice here though. You could indeed have MANY of these keypads installed in a house, and each additional X10 receiver "sucks" signal strength out of PLC commands. If you have more than 3 or 4 (and your smart controller needs to count as one), then you start to have reliability problems. Even if you use amplifier / repeater / couplers (which I install with all my automation jobs), once you hit 6 or 8 X10 receivers you still can have problems especially in larger homes. I've done homes which have that many of these keypads, and if they had been 2-way, the whole system would have been quite unreliable.
The ideal solution would be if PCS had both 1-way and 2-way versions of this keypad. The Smarthome KeypadLincs have this, but in my experience this unit has significant reliability issues compared to the PCS units. I have actually spoken with PCS about this and they said reliability and cost were a primary concern. 2-way units would cost several hundred dollars each and would be open to abuse, so they avoided the whole problem by using 1-way only and putting in the "no button light" feature. I think they made the right call.
- Rhino
