Advice needed for Large fully automated house

[CanuckSparky]

Hello All,

I am a new poster to this forum, although I have spent countless hours reading through the mountains of information located on this site. I decided to post a question to find the info I'm looking for a little quicker.

I am an electrician in Canada trying to break the company I am working for into the HA market. I have done some basic work wih HAI and UPB products and like them both. The company I work for has two large houses (7000sqft +) in the foundation stage that we are wiring. I plan on using HAI OMNI II panels in them, but the size and price of these houses make an HAI only install a little insufficient.

This is where I hope to get some input.

1. I can't choose between three front end/software controllers. Mainlobby, CQC, and Convergent Living

The downside of mainlobby and CQC for me is they are PC based and there seems to be alot of set up time involved, time is money. I need rock solid reliabilty for professional installs, no call backs to reboot or fix bugs. On the other hand I love the look of their interfaces and especially on mainlobby all the cool plugins.

Convergent living is linux based seems to be more professional orientated, I don't know though if It can do everything I want it to. (Looking for some input from AnthonyZ Here).

1. Front gate control with video and keypad or HID access
2. Pool/Hot Tub control
3. Some kind of energy management plugin
4. irrigation system control
5. Obviously lighting control, I am using centralite Elegance. Does convergent just use it's interface with HAI or does it have it's own plugin
6. At some of the big tv's in the house I would like to use them as interfaces for the control system. I know convergent has the sidekick, but what would you use to control the sidekick at those locations? (remote, wireless keyboard, etc.) Also I plan on using a Russound CAV sytem, so would I need to put a Sidekick at each tv or could I put them in the rack and transfer the control signals to them?
7. I would like to include some kind of media server that I could have music, pictures, dvd's, etc on and access via the touchscreens and tv's I have made capable. Is there a brand that convergent works well with and has good interfaces with?

I will start with that before I get into A/V and all the little details.

Thanks in Advance

 

[AnthonyZ]

Hello All,

I am a new poster to this forum, although I have spent countless hours reading through the mountains of information located on this site. I decided to post a question to find the info I'm looking for a little quicker.

I am an electrician in Canada trying to break the company I am working for into the HA market. I have done some basic work wih HAI and UPB products and like them both. The company I work for has two large houses (7000sqft +) in the foundation stage that we are wiring. I plan on using HAI OMNI II panels in them, but the size and price of these houses make an HAI only install a little insufficient.

This is where I hope to get some input.

1. I can't choose between three front end/software controllers. Mainlobby, CQC, and Convergent Living

The downside of mainlobby and CQC for me is they are PC based and there seems to be alot of set up time involved, time is money. I need rock solid reliabilty for professional installs, no call backs to reboot or fix bugs. On the other hand I love the look of their interfaces and especially on mainlobby all the cool plugins.

Convergent living is linux based seems to be more professional orientated, I don't know though if It can do everything I want it to. (Looking for some input from AnthonyZ Here).

1. Front gate control with video and keypad or HID access
2. Pool/Hot Tub control
3. Some kind of energy management plugin
4. irrigation system control
5. Obviously lighting control, I am using centralite Elegance. Does convergent just use it's interface with HAI or does it have it's own plugin
6. At some of the big tv's in the house I would like to use them as interfaces for the control system. I know convergent has the sidekick, but what would you use to control the sidekick at those locations? (remote, wireless keyboard, etc.) Also I plan on using a Russound CAV sytem, so would I need to put a Sidekick at each tv or could I put them in the rack and transfer the control signals to them?
7. I would like to include some kind of media server that I could have music, pictures, dvd's, etc on and access via the touchscreens and tv's I have made capable. Is there a brand that convergent works well with and has good interfaces with?

I will start with that before I get into A/V and all the little details.

Thanks in Advance

I've PM'd you with my email address...

 

[IVB]

FYI, Vidabox is a company that packages up CQC onto it's own hardware, and resells it with a bunch of skins. They're targeted towards the professional integrator with the needs you mention.

 

[CanuckSparky]

FYI, Vidabox is a company that packages up CQC onto it's own hardware, and resells it with a bunch of skins. They're targeted towards the professional integrator with the needs you mention.

I have looked at Vidabox very seriously, have a dealer application on my desk. I like the pre-packaged controller with CQC loaded on it, but I am not sure if I am sold on all of their other products. Very nice stuff, but you pay for it too. I'm just don't know if it is worth it to take the trips, pay for the training, set up an acoount, etc. Just so I can buy a pre-packaged CQC controller. Maybe If I do a project where the customer is an A/V nut, then it would be worthwhile, but on what I'm doing right now the customers arn't too concerned about A/V it's just part of the package for them, not the selling point.

 

[IVB]

Well, as long as you looked at it, that's what's important. I actually helped out in their CES booth if you have any questions. I only know a little about the hardware side, i was brought in to help as the CQC expert.

The big issue with Windows PCs as client boxes is that you need to strip out and disable all the extra crap that makes it a "consumer oriented" system, and leave just the stable core. Knowing what to disable and what not to, and to do all the burn-in testing of the hardware is really what you end up paying for with the Vidabox stuff. Like everything else in life, the actual parts is cheap, the knowledge about how to set it up correctly is the hard stuff.