Recent content by George West

In my experience, "hanging out with IVB" -> Definitely a fun time "drinking with IVB?" -> Not for the faint of heart, or so I've heard. The Hilton is a good choice, shorter time from show floor to attitude readjustment. For a CES data point, I made my travel arrangements today. Total out the...

There are days that I think the solar power industry gives the insurance industry a run for its money in the race to the bottom. From the question is it peak power or average daily power you want to install to the wacky way they compute the effective interest rate on the investment (30 yr...

Hey Vivek, Check out www.eia.doe.gov There is a ton of information on average electric rates by state. I took a quick look and didn't see anything specific regarding rate tiers but there may be. There are also some cool charts on uses/sources of energy that are useful for the next time you're...

No kidding. This is the one company that I wanted to meet with this year. The basic module is a linux computer which has four (I think) standard plug interfaces that you plug different personality modules into. Kind of like electronic Legos. The set of modules that Bug Labs sells includes a...

I don't expect INSTEON to "go away" I still use it in my home and I continue to add devices as it makes sense, mainly as I update the wiring and lighting. INSTEON was originally designed to meet the needs of the SmartHome.com customer base and SH can continue to sell the product into that base...

Hey Wayne, Without getting too "inside baseball" about the analyst world, if you get to use an uncalibrated instrument you can prove pretty much anything. If you don't ask the question "hey dude, you ever used UPB?" you might not get a response. Parks is plumping their Connections Europe event...

Mike, Cooper just made an announcement that the product will ship in limited quantities this month with full roll out in 2008. http://www.cooperwiringdevices.com/press/news.aspx?id=24 <Obligatory snarky George comment> Cooper has been re-using this release for at least a couple of years now...

The ZigBee Pro is a more reliable platform. Plus you get to save money by not paying a development team to support a proprietary network that has the same features as ZigBee Pro. George West www.wtrs.net

The deadline for online registration was 8/31. Onsite is still an option. George www.wtrs.net

Digger, my oldest and most trusted friend. I may have been imprecise in the way I worded the statement about an outsourced design. It also may be that you are in such a hurry to find any excuse to bash INSTEON that you didn't read for content very well. I'll let you decide. The design of the...

George here. Well I don't represent either SmartHome or EH and they will have to step up and defend themselves. I will and do stand by the quote attributed to me. First about these awards in general. There are some amazing things you hear sitting around the press room at different trade shows...

Thanks for posting this. It is too cool! George www.wtrs.net

Um, GE didn't adopt Z-Wave, Jasco did. Jasco sells GE branded products under license from GE. They exist so that GE can have a presence in markets where they don't want to spend resources to enter or remain. They do this under some direction/agreement from GE and they have their own product...

Hey Mike, It depends what you want to get out of either show. Here's my quick take: CES - Go to see what you will be buying this Christmas. A lot of HA companies show at CES but they are spread around in the show and you need to do a lot of work to see them. The training is pretty lightweight...

Hey Tom, I'm not sure what either the physical or network layer has to do with the application, which is what is under dispute in this case. The IP dispute here is (among other things) the use of RF to return status of the switch. Lutron successfully defended this patent in the past against...