upstatemike
Senior Member
The HA Technology Comparison Spreadsheet has been published on Google and I have had some folks editing the online copy. This seems to be working well so I want to open it up to more people and provide some general guidelines. This thread will be a place to make suggestions for changes to the layout and content of the spreadsheet. Here is what I am thinking:
TO CONTRIBUTE – Just send me a PM with an email address and what it is you want to edit and I will set you up as a collaborator for the Google spreadsheet. If you suggest a change or correction in a post then it might eventually get done by somebody but the best approach is to do contribute directly.
BEST CASE – If we try to make this sheet show every model of every product then it will quickly become too confused to be useful. I suggest each product should be represented once with the top-of-the-line model, including all options, for a best case comparison. Once folks pick a platform or two to focus on they can get the finer details from the manufacturer’s web site.
SUPPORTED FEATURES – Product features should refer only to those supported by the author/manufacturer. If the feature is provided by a third party who is not actively developing and supporting the feature on an ongoing basis, then it really should not be counted.
FORMATTING – I have some conditional format rules in place to control the cell colors. If a cell contains a Y or a number greater than 0 it will turn green. If it contains only an N it will turn red. I will probably add some colors for NA and Beta as well. If it helps to add some info to help qualify a Y then please add it. Example Y (X10rf) was used to indicate UPB supports wireless RF control but clarifies it further by indicating it does it using X10 RF products.
STATUS – This is pretty straight forward: Y if it has the feature, N if it does not, NA if it does not apply, and Beta if it is available in open beta. I don’t want to see a lot of vaporware listed so anything that is “announced”, “under development”, or “in closed or limited beta” should just be N until it is at least available in open beta.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES – I put this together as a basic framework. It is expected that there are many features worth comparing that are not yet on the sheets. Electricity monitoring, irrigation control, and pool related stuff are all good examples of things that need to be added. Anybody can add a feature as long as it is generally applicable to all of the platforms being compared. Example: “Supports Qnet protocol” would not be a good feature to add if the Qnet protocol is something proprietary to a specific brand. There is nothing to compare.
CORRECTIONS – Some of the original information came from product web sites that were kind of light when it comes to specs. If you see something that is wrong please fix it. If you are changing somebody else’s work please make a post in this thread so folks know what is getting changed and why. Be sure to specify which sheet you are correcting. Example: Don’t just say you corrected something on the Cortexa entry without saying if it was corrected on the software page or the controller page.
FORMATTING – Please don’t make drastic changes to the overall layout of a sheet unless it is first discussed here. I will be making a few final layout tweaks but then I plan to leave things alone unless an improvement is discussed and generally agreed to.
GROUPING – Products are not in any particular order except that I tried to group similar products together for easier comparison. CQC is near Homeseer and VCrib is near Housebot. This was subjective on my part and I’m sure I will hear if something is too far out of wack.
EXAMPLE SYSTEMS – Example systems are meant to be commonly used combinations of products. It will not be practical to put every possible iteration of products on this sheet so lets stick to those most often seen within a given product family. It is also not practical to make an example system too general (Insteon or X10 or UPB or Z-Wave). These examples should show the most common product groupings with the more "all inclusive" product details shown on the other sheets.
TO CONTRIBUTE – Just send me a PM with an email address and what it is you want to edit and I will set you up as a collaborator for the Google spreadsheet. If you suggest a change or correction in a post then it might eventually get done by somebody but the best approach is to do contribute directly.
BEST CASE – If we try to make this sheet show every model of every product then it will quickly become too confused to be useful. I suggest each product should be represented once with the top-of-the-line model, including all options, for a best case comparison. Once folks pick a platform or two to focus on they can get the finer details from the manufacturer’s web site.
SUPPORTED FEATURES – Product features should refer only to those supported by the author/manufacturer. If the feature is provided by a third party who is not actively developing and supporting the feature on an ongoing basis, then it really should not be counted.
FORMATTING – I have some conditional format rules in place to control the cell colors. If a cell contains a Y or a number greater than 0 it will turn green. If it contains only an N it will turn red. I will probably add some colors for NA and Beta as well. If it helps to add some info to help qualify a Y then please add it. Example Y (X10rf) was used to indicate UPB supports wireless RF control but clarifies it further by indicating it does it using X10 RF products.
STATUS – This is pretty straight forward: Y if it has the feature, N if it does not, NA if it does not apply, and Beta if it is available in open beta. I don’t want to see a lot of vaporware listed so anything that is “announced”, “under development”, or “in closed or limited beta” should just be N until it is at least available in open beta.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES – I put this together as a basic framework. It is expected that there are many features worth comparing that are not yet on the sheets. Electricity monitoring, irrigation control, and pool related stuff are all good examples of things that need to be added. Anybody can add a feature as long as it is generally applicable to all of the platforms being compared. Example: “Supports Qnet protocol” would not be a good feature to add if the Qnet protocol is something proprietary to a specific brand. There is nothing to compare.
CORRECTIONS – Some of the original information came from product web sites that were kind of light when it comes to specs. If you see something that is wrong please fix it. If you are changing somebody else’s work please make a post in this thread so folks know what is getting changed and why. Be sure to specify which sheet you are correcting. Example: Don’t just say you corrected something on the Cortexa entry without saying if it was corrected on the software page or the controller page.
FORMATTING – Please don’t make drastic changes to the overall layout of a sheet unless it is first discussed here. I will be making a few final layout tweaks but then I plan to leave things alone unless an improvement is discussed and generally agreed to.
GROUPING – Products are not in any particular order except that I tried to group similar products together for easier comparison. CQC is near Homeseer and VCrib is near Housebot. This was subjective on my part and I’m sure I will hear if something is too far out of wack.
EXAMPLE SYSTEMS – Example systems are meant to be commonly used combinations of products. It will not be practical to put every possible iteration of products on this sheet so lets stick to those most often seen within a given product family. It is also not practical to make an example system too general (Insteon or X10 or UPB or Z-Wave). These examples should show the most common product groupings with the more "all inclusive" product details shown on the other sheets.