Announcements from EHX 2006 Electronic House Expo

The Expo opens today. If anyone has anything in particular they want more info on, please ask here and either myself or Wayne can go check it out for you. Also have the camera if you want a specific pic. I will only be able to retrieve the info most likely in the evenings.
 
The only Insteon announcement is the already posted SocketLink. The SmarthomePro booth is focused more on SHpro as a pro installer distributor, rather than as heavily focused on Insteon as previous shows. They are showing Insteon & solutions using Insteon (such as Cortexa, mControl & LifeWare). Previously dangled items (ie the thermostat & the FirstAlert smoke alarm) were delayed by their manufacturers for non-Insteon related issues, but are still expected, although no timetable was given. I talked to a pro installer who has done 10 houses with over 100 Insteon switches each with no issues.
 
I hear that z-wave will have a huge presence at the show. I would like to here more about the .net micro framework. Can you stop by the Microsoft Booth 1313A and see what they have to say. I would like some pictures of their booth also.

Looks like the Z-wave alliance is at 724 according to the floor plan. I would like to see tons of pictures from there also and any documents you can grab.

Honeywell (1900,1317G)

Logitech (booth 845)
I would like to know from Logitech (booth 845) if the z-wave support for the harmony 890 will be released soon and if they are going to fix the issues the HS guys were having with not being able to add lights to the remote as secondary. It seems that it can only act as a primary controller right now.

Monster (1119) might also have some z-wave stuff on display.
Nuvo(1809)

ZigBee(1461)
I would like to know how zigbee is comparing them selves to z-wave if they are. Are they trying to compete or are they going after a totally different market. I would like to see any zigbee devices that might be available.

THANK YOU!
David
 
David, I will see what I can find out but I have limited time as I am working in the AO booth. I will talk to Chris Walker and ask him to reply to you also as he probably knows most of these answers already :lol:
 
Any news on the Leviton Z-wave stuff?

I met with Leviton about this yesterday (also met the grandson of the founder).

As of right now, the Leviton swithces are scheduled for early January but will be limited supply.
 
Squintz said:
I hear that z-wave will have a huge presence at the show. I would like to here more about the .net micro framework. Can you stop by the Microsoft Booth 1313A and see what they have to say. I would like some pictures of their booth also.

Looks like the Z-wave alliance is at 724 according to the floor plan. I would like to see tons of pictures from there also and any documents you can grab.

Honeywell (1900,1317G)

Logitech (booth 845)
I would like to know from Logitech (booth 845) if the z-wave support for the harmony 890 will be released soon and if they are going to fix the issues the HS guys were having with not being able to add lights to the remote as secondary. It seems that it can only act as a primary controller right now.

Monster (1119) might also have some z-wave stuff on display.
Nuvo(1809)

ZigBee(1461)
I would like to know how zigbee is comparing them selves to z-wave if they are. Are they trying to compete or are they going after a totally different market. I would like to see any zigbee devices that might be available.

THANK YOU!
David
David,

I began this Wednesday and worked on it off and on through the show.

I wouldn't say that Z-Wave has a huge presence at the show. There was a decent sized booth and a number of alliance partners are showing products. I am meeting there around noon (Thursday) and will have some comments after that.

The overall show attendance seems light compared to last year and the spring EHX in Orlando. Most of the booths were not that crowded Thusrday including the z-wave alliance booth and I'm not trying to single out the Z-Wave Alliance as being uncrowded. I heard comments about the attendance from a lot of companies including some comments from people about reconsidering their attendance in the future.

Monster is showing a lot of z-wave product although I didn't talk to them directly.

I was dissapointed with the Leviton booth. It looked like they are just going through the motions and the overall feel was that it was kind of tacky.. The Cooper Wiring devices booth was a 10x10 towards the back of the hall and also looked kind of disorganized. I have it on my list to speak with both Cooper, Leviton and Logitech. I heard from a third party that Logitech is not announcing a ship date for the H890 Pro controller and I will try and find out what I can.

As far as I can tell, the only Z-Wave announcements so far were around the third gen chips and the addition of Hawking to the alliance. Today Friday there was an announcement regarding the lighting suppliers that are using z-wave although there is nothing new that I can see.

ZigBee - Most of the ZigBee guys are in Europe at a conference there. There was an announcement of a ZigBee controlled Whole House Fan from a company that is not showing here. Eaton is here and one of the guys at the ZigBee Alliance booth yesterday was someone from Eaton that I met at CEDIA. I still like the Eaton HomeHeartbeat system a lot.

Asking the ZigBee Alliance about Z-Wave is like asking the Vatican about the devil. :angry: Their story is that someday everything will be ZigBee and that includes Z-Wave...


What I did see Wednesday:.

Embedded Automation - mControl

I talked with Ted Singh the president. He had me sold when he showed the product running on an embedded PC. This is a key requirement if I am going to have a PC running full time in my system. Low power, no fans, no disk drives and in the basement somewhere.

Cortexa - Not sure what I can say about Cortexa. I like the product, the pricing and the fact that they use embedded Linux. From a DIY standpoint I would step up to Cortexa well before I would try and tackle Life Ware.

Colorado Vnet - Digital Audio over IP and lighting control over IP. Basically high end for the custom install market. They are a customer so I wanted to meet some of the people and get a little better understanding of their business. They had me at "we do our own manufacturing in Loveland, CO" I told Martin of AO that these guys were the most interesting thing that I saw mainly from the design that went in to the product. Definitely not a DIY retrofit product.

Lutron - Lutron is Lutron. There is a lot of good engineering behind what you see on the display.

Exceptional Innovation - life ware

So powerful it makes my head hurt. They are pitching this product to the installer market and I would say it is being positioned against AMX/Crestron and as a tool to integrate a lot of best of breed security, HVAC, lighting, AV products. The interesting thing at the booth is that they had a hands on training setup that uses INSTEON switches for the lighting. I also heard that all the contolled lights at the life ware display were INSTEON.

More Later

George West
 
Just to fill in a bit on the Z-Wave announcements at the show:

1. ViewSonic introduced their new V212 portable touchpanel. One of their offerings in the V212 line is a panel with integrated Z-Wave. It comes pre-loaded with our Z-Wave Compact SDK and runs ThinkEssentials Installer. It's a great installer tool and remote control for the home.

2. Wayne-Dalton showed off their new Z-Wave Ethernet Bridge.

3. We brought out ThinkEssentials Installer again, in advance of the upcoming beta.

4. Phantom Entertainment was there with their Lapboard, which would make a great keyboard+mouse combo. With the right software, you can activate lighting scenes while playing games or starting movies with key combos, etc...

Chris
 
As promised, I got a few pics of the show. I did not have much time and these were taken quickly before the show floor opened, hence the lack of people. You can find them here.
 
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