Any reason for me to get Homeseer if I am getting an ELK (or vice versa)?

[ghurty]

I was on the phone with honmeseer, where the rep was telling me it is a waste to buy an ELK and Homeseer (being that they do a lot of the same things). That if I wanted an alarm system with Homeseer, it would be better to by a cheaper alarm system.

Being that my main target in this project is to have an alarm system with HA being secondary, is this still good advice? Maybe if I am getting an elk, there is no reason to get a homeseer.

Can you provide me with any arguments as to why I should get both or jut the ELK?


Thanks

 

[electron]

There are some cheaper panels out there which are compatible with HomeSeer, however, the ELK/HAI are very powerful, and their features (even if you focus just on the alarm aspect) trump any cheap panel. In fact, I would go the opposite route, and start with a HAI/ELK panel, and build your system around it. Eventually you can add software if there is a need for it. All IMO of course, but many people use HomeSeer (or any software for that matter) with an ELK/HAI panel (including myself).

 

[ghurty]

What is homeseer adding that the elk doesn't have?


Thanks

 

[wuench]

What is homeseer adding that the elk doesn't have?


Thanks

Well, if you are going to use homeseer (or any home automation software, I am partial to CQC, myself. with just the Elk, then the key benefits are going to be a better interface and more robust rule engine. The Elk is nice but it has limited memory and can't do things like email you which zone was tripped, for example. It can email you that the alarm went of but it can only email you static texts and only supports a few of those. My latest little tweak was to build a guest wireless access point and set it up to announce through the Elk when someone connects to it. No way I could've done that with the Elk alone. Or the Elk can only speak whatever words which are in it's database (with a few custom wave files that have to be input through your phone). So if you want text to speech, you'll need HA software to do that. And some things you just want to leave the Elk do. Read up on some of the threads around here, you'll see a lot of creative ideas and how they were implemented. That's what Cocoontech is all about.

I would say, most people like a layered approach to home automation. They keep security, etc events on the Elk. And then add enhanced ability using the software of their choice. But you don't have to buy everything right away and most software has free trial periods. So I would say, buy the Elk (or whatever automation panel). Set it up, play with it. Then download a bunch of different HA software packages and play with them and see what you like best.

 

[ghurty]

Thank you for the info.

wuench - Is CDC a controller or only an interface, I seem to be getting mixed info. Also it appears to be very expensive compared to homeseer, etc..

 

[personalt]

I agree with wuench 100%... Start with the ELK. I also use CQC with the elk but my core functions I keep in the elk.. I would consider CQC a controller with an interface platform for windows, iphone and android. You can build great custom interfaces with it but it takes some effort.. The rule engine in CQC is top notch.