Hi all,
I was using HomeSeer 10-12 years ago, but life got busy and I kind of moved away from it. It was really cool, but the system (not HS's fault) had enough issues and I didn't have time to deal with them the wife eventually had it removed. Back then the at least my biggest issue was at least the things I was wanting to do weren't very "plug and play" :) Seemed everything required Oscelot and ADICON modules, manually setting jumpers, configuring resistors, etc. I move stuff to roughly and some wires become loose and things stop working, etc :) Z-Wave seemed to just be taking off and the few of those I had certainly were nice. Or the PC running it stops because of a power failure and doesn't auto-start again when power comes back.
I'm now about to start a new home build (5k sq ft) and certainly will be including some sort of automation system. Nothing too fancy. Security (alarms/video) will be the priority, then control of lighting, blinds, HVAC as secondary. Some audio/video distribution may also be in the cards (at least planned for even if I don't do it up front).
I guess my core question is do people here think HS is now "plug and play" enough that a lazy person such as myself can get it working with a really high level of reliability or would I be better off with other solutions such as Creston?
I'm a software developer at heart and really love the option to customize everything from hardware to software, but to keep the wife happy with the new system having it "just work" will have to be the priority.
What do you guys think? I guess I'm hoping for a rock solid, simple plug and play system where I have the option to tinker if I want to, but not require a lot of tinkering to get it setup or keep it working. Any consensus if HS is the best choice for that now?
Cheers!
Tony
I was using HomeSeer 10-12 years ago, but life got busy and I kind of moved away from it. It was really cool, but the system (not HS's fault) had enough issues and I didn't have time to deal with them the wife eventually had it removed. Back then the at least my biggest issue was at least the things I was wanting to do weren't very "plug and play" :) Seemed everything required Oscelot and ADICON modules, manually setting jumpers, configuring resistors, etc. I move stuff to roughly and some wires become loose and things stop working, etc :) Z-Wave seemed to just be taking off and the few of those I had certainly were nice. Or the PC running it stops because of a power failure and doesn't auto-start again when power comes back.
I'm now about to start a new home build (5k sq ft) and certainly will be including some sort of automation system. Nothing too fancy. Security (alarms/video) will be the priority, then control of lighting, blinds, HVAC as secondary. Some audio/video distribution may also be in the cards (at least planned for even if I don't do it up front).
I guess my core question is do people here think HS is now "plug and play" enough that a lazy person such as myself can get it working with a really high level of reliability or would I be better off with other solutions such as Creston?
I'm a software developer at heart and really love the option to customize everything from hardware to software, but to keep the wife happy with the new system having it "just work" will have to be the priority.
What do you guys think? I guess I'm hoping for a rock solid, simple plug and play system where I have the option to tinker if I want to, but not require a lot of tinkering to get it setup or keep it working. Any consensus if HS is the best choice for that now?
Cheers!
Tony