CASAWORKS, HOMESEER, HOMELOGIC???

[Isaac]

Hi has anyone tried any of these hardware controllers?

CASAWORKS CIELO
HOMESEER HOME PRO
HOMELOGIC?

THEY ALL SEEM TO DO THE SAME THING.. ANYONE HAS TRIED ONE, ARE THERE ANY GOOD??

ARE THEY BETTER THAN AN OCELOT OR HAI OR ELK BECAUSE THEY ARE IP BASED AND YOU ONLY NEED STRUCTURED WIRING AND EASY CONFIGURATION TO AUTOMATE YOUR HOME.

ANY HELP WILL BE GOOD FOR ME.. AND GLADLY APRECIATE IT.

 

[tech-home]

Elk will be IP based because of the ethernet add on card.


I think its really a choice. I started with HS and just recently installed ELK m1gold. I moving alot of stuff to the m1 to free up resources on my HS server to make it more reliable.

 

[Isaac]

but my question is

does anyone know how reliable are the ip based hardware controllers such as

home logic
homeseer por 100 (still not out yet)
CASAWORKS CIELO

or should I stick with the other ones

hai, elk, ocelot?

does anyone know if you can achieve the same things with all of them?

 

[electron]

Homeseer Pro is a mini-itx machine, loaded with XP embedded and HA, so technically it's a stripped down PC, but it will be very reliable. I don't know about the others tho.

 

[tech-home]

Any hardware stuff is not as flexible as software but more reliable.

ELK/Homeseer/Ocelot is very powerful combination much more flexible then anything I can think of.



home logic
homeseer por 100 (still not out yet)
CASAWORKS CIELO


I have no expirence with any of the above. Homeseer Pro will be nice but I would much rather use my own computer so I can upgrade it as often as needed. It's meant to be for installers. A simple out of the box solution.

 

[electron]

I totally agree, I would select the Elk as well, and I am already using my Ocelot for all the critical stuff now.

 

[jlehnert]

I think you are mixing apples and oranges. The "reliablility of IP controllers" part of the question is correct, but the "compared to HAI/Elk" is not.

The HS Pro and Homeworks (I'm not familiar with the Ceilo) would work in conjunction with the HAI/Elk. You need the HAI/Elk as the eyes and ears of the system, while the HS Pro/Homeworks controller is the brains. The HS Pro and Homework systems are not burglar/fire alarms. Yes, the HAI/Elk are very good controllers by themselves, but as BrianD mentions, they don't have the flexibility of the software based controllers.
I'm just starting to play with the M1 Gold that I bought for training, but I can tell you that if you wanted to put the clause;

(IF movement detected AND the porch lights are off, AND the alarm is armed in night mode AND it's between 11 PM and 5:00 AM AND tomorrow is trash day, PLAY "wake up because the damn coons are in the trash again!")

into an OmniPro II, make sure you write your will first.

And yes, both HAI OmniPro II and the Elk M1 Gold are theoritically IP accessable. At EHX, Homelogic was demonstrating itself connected to a IIRC Omni II system.

Edit. I looked at the clause above and figured out a way to do it in 3-4 lines so it's not that difficult, but you see my meaning.

 

[Isaac]

ok i understand if u want to have alarm you have get the combintation

of ocelot, elk, hai, or something with homeseer soft and a computer or home logic or home seer pro 100

but if I only want lights, audio and video??

can I achieve that in a reliable way with the homeseer pro, or homelogic??

 

[elcano]

Hi,

I was looking information on how to start my home automation system with initial emphasis in security. Based on the information above I should start with something like the Elk M1G (eyes of the system) and integrate with a system like the Homeseer Pro100 once I'm ready for full automation (brain).

However there's a post that mention that a good combination is a Elk/Homeseer/Ocelot. Where do the Ocelot fits once you have the other two systems? I mean, I was readying about the Ocelot and it is impressive, but why would you need it in additio nto the other two?

Thanks for your reply.

 

[tech-home]

Alot of people use the Ocelot as a IR controller but can be used for much more. I mainly use mine just for IR. There are other cheaper IR solutions though.

Some have it connected to their HS machine to reset it incase of a lock up. Just one example.

http://www.appdig.com/


I also use this in cojunction with MainLobby. I was refering more to a overall Home Security/Home Automation setup.

 

[Guy Lavoie]

The reason that a lot of people with PC based automation systems use the Ocelot is that it gives you an interface to many different types of hardware devices, like relays, digital and analog inputs, temperature sensors, etc. Then there is the IR capabilities, and the important fact that it can run standalone "If then" logic with high reliability. Once you have that, the PC based system becomes much more of a convenience access to your system for things like web control, voice recognition, phone interfaces, etc but without having the PC mandatory for critical things like security and energy management. As several people have said, a program like Homeseer combined with the Ocelot can make a very powerful combination.

 

[elcano]

Does the Elk M1 system come pre-programmed with the same popular Burglar Alarm options that other advanced Alarms systems bring? I was looking at the GE Advent Home Navigator and it looks very interesting. It says that it can integrate with automation systems, but I have not found enough documentation to understand how easy is it to integrate it with systems other that the expensing ones metioned in the literature (Creston/AMX).

Returning to the Elk M1, I would not like to spend hours to program what other systems include as a baseline. Is this the case with the M1?

Also, I found a lot of info about expansion modules for the Advent Home Navigator (door sensors, motion detector, I/O boards, etc.). The Elk site has many specialized accesories, but nothings about the basics sensors for a home alarm. Should I buy those accesories elsewhere? Are they compatible?
Thanks.

 

[tech-home]

You can by most sensors and they work with Elk.

When programing Elk is very easy to do with the computer and the Elk program ELKRP.

Don't know much about the other panel your talking about.

But rules are very easy to create with Elk.

Send me a email at

[email protected]

Reference Elk

I'll send you a useful attachment.

 

[jlehnert]

I was looking at the GE Advent Home Navigator and it looks very interesting.

Comparison, GE Advent = Kia, Elk M1 Gold = Ferrari. I looked at the Advent at EHExpo, and it's a good BASIC system. It's designed for the "Borg" (one of the large national alarm companies, ie ADT) to install into tract housing. Get in, install it, get out, collect outragous monthly monitoring fees. It does not have a fraction of the capabilities of the M1.