@ Work:
It's not that I'm not cutting a break, it's a real position on a point regarding their introduction of proprietary wireless products and platform. If they had the same level of variety (and performance) as both GE and Honeywell, whose products they already support, I could see real innovation and would be more inclined to install and sell them. I've had bidirectional wireless for years on the DMP platform and it's the same issues as the Elk product...lack of variety and frankly, I have not seen a case where the performance is markedly different or better. Bidirectional for keyfobs...yes, by all means, that is needed, but then again, why doesn't Elk offer a wireless keypad? All their counterparts do. If I could stop installing LED's to provide feedback to end-users, that would be great, but the cost of another receiver, losing the block of zones, etc. all for a bidirectional keyfob still doesn't completely sell me on their product.
I don't know if I can be sold on Elk's wireless unless they can expand their line to really compete with their contempary counterparts. The only operation factor that I could even seeing myself use in an install would be #5. I'd still be amazed if the CR123's would be able to really provide that sort of life, especially with only 1 being used for security. I guess time will tell. As far as other manufacturers, in the case of GE and Honeywell specifically, they would still need to provide some sort of backwards compatibility for their thousands of legacy installs out there...to move complely to a new platform and not support their existing hardware is foolhearted, where in the case of Elk, they started by using (and later abandoning) another company's product, then coming out with their own flavor that supported that company's product (later, both frequency variables), then coming out with another unit that supports another vendor's product.
While it's nice that Elk is open platform per-se for wireless, I would've rather seen them put some R+D engineering elsewhere (how about multiple 2 wire fire or addressable fire). It seems like they're dragging more of the Ness line and devices that already existed and just getting them through the NA regulatory. Keep in mind, the Navigator and much of the M1 line is rebadged Ness. Why do you think the Navigator keypad only fits on a horizontal electrical box? Whether or not the M1 line was a collaboration between the two companies, I couldn't tell you.
