Cortexa vs. Hometroller: A start

Hyde7306

New Member
I have been looking for information on home automation. My home (about 4,500 sq ft) is under construction and it is time to choose some path. I am thinking that Cortexa with Insteon is a place to start... and from there I would follow the path that Cortexa recommends. Some interesting reading I found here - http://www.lightscamerahome.com/thermostats.html, and some threads on this site regarding Cortexa, but not a lot of stories of people who have actually gone down this road.

1. Any new/recent insights into Cortexa from those who have installed it?
2. Is Hometroller an alternative?
3. Before I pull the trigger, any other paths I should look into?

Thanks
 
I have been looking for information on home automation. My home (about 4,500 sq ft) is under construction and it is time to choose some path. I am thinking that Cortexa with Insteon is a place to start... and from there I would follow the path that Cortexa recommends. Some interesting reading I found here - http://www.lightscamerahome.com/thermostats.html, and some threads on this site regarding Cortexa, but not a lot of stories of people who have actually gone down this road.

1. Any new/recent insights into Cortexa from those who have installed it?
2. Is Hometroller an alternative?
3. Before I pull the trigger, any other paths I should look into?

Thanks

First of all I am from HomeMediaPros, (www.homemediapros.com) company mentioned in release. I came across the post via google searching on press release. Some of you raised some good points. If you care to read let me try to give our position on it:

1. Reliability - yes if you have noise on power line you will have reliability issues. You need to take the noise out and have quite a few devices in the home to act as repeater. We do not do installs on less than 6 devices per 1000sq/ft. Ony then it functions about right. Filters are a must on all of your power surge protectors or else even the number of devices will not help. Feel free to email if you have issues I will try to answer with real experience in large installs.
2. Regarding press release; The facility had over 30 light switches and caters to elders. More specifically they are adult day care. The challenge there was getting the system to match to their routine of activities and keep the two story building with the minimal lights on needed for that activity. Now here is some more data: The project cost was about $3,000K. They were already using fluorescent lights. They also have 4 HVAC units that now linked to motion and activity sensors. Which means the room with no activity increases temperature by few degrees and whet activity is scheduled it cools down right before.

We are very honest company and before sending out a press release placed watt meters on each of the circuits for 10 days before and after the project. We do it for free for all of our customers to help us understand how they use their energy. (We are Energy Star Certified Partner). Once we learned what are the top consumers we try to automate for reduction in use.

Ok before I get to far; to the person who started this thread: Yes you can save money if you have honest and reliable system designer. It will take about a year to pay for itself sometimes more. Make sure you hire a licensed electrician to do your work, and make sure they are Energy Star Partner. this will ensure that the design process they adhere to has been tested by others.

Please feel free to send us an email [email protected]

Last note on Cortexa.... I am not sure its prime time yet. We have done a few now and seem to get call out to go and work on them. I dont want to put down or market any brand here in forum. But feel free to email us.

Thanks for your feedback guys and support
 
Ok before I get to far; to the person who started this thread: Yes you can save money if you have honest and reliable system designer. It will take about a year to pay for itself sometimes more. Make sure you hire a licensed electrician to do your work, and make sure they are Energy Star Partner. this will ensure that the design process they adhere to has been tested by others.

Are you suggesting hiring a licensed electrician (vs. doing it yourself) to install his automation system or are you saying that you need a licensed electrician that is "Energy Star Partner" certified in order to save the maximum amount of money with an HA design?
 
I have been looking for information on home automation. My home (about 4,500 sq ft) is under construction and it is time to choose some path. I am thinking that Cortexa with Insteon is a place to start... and from there I would follow the path that Cortexa recommends. Some interesting reading I found here - http://www.lightscamerahome.com/thermostats.html, and some threads on this site regarding Cortexa, but not a lot of stories of people who have actually gone down this road.

1. Any new/recent insights into Cortexa from those who have installed it?
2. Is Hometroller an alternative?
3. Before I pull the trigger, any other paths I should look into?

Thanks

I would think Hometroller should certainly be considered as an alternative. One advantage... use a spare PC running Homeseer to set stuff up and verify you can do what you want before investing in the Hometroller hardware. When you are comfortable with your choice then migrate to the Hometroller platform.
 
Why bother with Hometroller?
Just use any pc with the homeseer app, it'll be a lot cheaper with the same functionality.
If you want to have the "smaller" sized pc like hometroller, you can put your own box together with a mini-itx mainboard for around $600.

Cortexa should be a great system....unfortunately, its not. A lot of bugs that just dont seem to get fixed or it takes forever to get them fixed.
They should open up the system to its owners and I would bet they would be surprised with the programmers that would make that system better.
 
Why bother with Hometroller?
Just use any pc with the homeseer app, it'll be a lot cheaper with the same functionality.
If you want to have the "smaller" sized pc like hometroller, you can put your own box together with a mini-itx mainboard for around $600.

Will the $600 PC run XP embedded and HSSentry for reliability?

Will it only use 22 watts of power?

Does the $600 include the price of Homeseer?
 
Why bother with Hometroller?
Just use any pc with the homeseer app, it'll be a lot cheaper with the same functionality.
If you want to have the "smaller" sized pc like hometroller, you can put your own box together with a mini-itx mainboard for around $600.

Will the $600 PC run XP embedded and HSSentry for reliability?

Will it only use 22 watts of power?

Does the $600 include the price of Homeseer?

It'll run whatever you put on it.

It'll use as much power as you want it to.

No, hardware for $600 or so.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/
 
Cortexa should be a great system....unfortunately, its not. A lot of bugs that just dont seem to get fixed or it takes forever to get them fixed.
They should open up the system to its owners and I would bet they would be surprised with the programmers that would make that system better.


Frunple - What do you currently use? Did you purchase Cortexa and then get rid of it because of the bugs? Which bugs were the worst? Thanks very much for the information!!
 
Cortexa should be a great system....unfortunately, its not. A lot of bugs that just dont seem to get fixed or it takes forever to get them fixed.
They should open up the system to its owners and I would bet they would be surprised with the programmers that would make that system better.


Frunple - What do you currently use? Did you purchase Cortexa and then get rid of it because of the bugs? Which bugs were the worst? Thanks very much for the information!!

I actually installed one for a friend, which turned out to be a mistake.
If you intend to get one, ask them a lot of questions... a LOT of questions!!
Talk to Rod Stevenson, make sure you say what subsystems you want to use and listen to what he says, he will probably subtlly steer you towards the subsystems that actually work with the system.

I guess the biggest complaint would be the DSC alarm system. The cortexa will stop logging from the alarm which causes it to stop triggering off of the alarm zones. The only way to correct it is to powercycle the alarm system. Cortexa says the trouble is on DSC's side and they are working with them to correct it. I hope they do quick because my friend lives almost an hour away and its getting old driving there just to powercycle every few days.

Another bug is with the Nuvo audio systems. You cant raise the volume past -10. Cortexa goes -xx to 0, 0 being the loudest. It will not let you increase into single digits.
Z-wave is not supported at all, but they say it is....
Theres a few minor "annoyances" that should be easily fixed but they take their time getting to them.

I would say the system can, and will, be fantastic when its all ironed out.

Bottom line, as long as you use the subsystems they want you to, you would be fine.
 
Cortexa should be a great system....unfortunately, its not. A lot of bugs that just dont seem to get fixed or it takes forever to get them fixed.
They should open up the system to its owners and I would bet they would be surprised with the programmers that would make that system better.


Frunple - What do you currently use? Did you purchase Cortexa and then get rid of it because of the bugs? Which bugs were the worst? Thanks very much for the information!!

I actually installed one for a friend, which turned out to be a mistake.
If you intend to get one, ask them a lot of questions... a LOT of questions!!
Talk to Rod Stevenson, make sure you say what subsystems you want to use and listen to what he says, he will probably subtlly steer you towards the subsystems that actually work with the system.

I guess the biggest complaint would be the DSC alarm system. The cortexa will stop logging from the alarm which causes it to stop triggering off of the alarm zones. The only way to correct it is to powercycle the alarm system. Cortexa says the trouble is on DSC's side and they are working with them to correct it. I hope they do quick because my friend lives almost an hour away and its getting old driving there just to powercycle every few days.

Another bug is with the Nuvo audio systems. You cant raise the volume past -10. Cortexa goes -xx to 0, 0 being the loudest. It will not let you increase into single digits.
Z-wave is not supported at all, but they say it is....
Theres a few minor "annoyances" that should be easily fixed but they take their time getting to them.

I would say the system can, and will, be fantastic when its all ironed out.

Bottom line, as long as you use the subsystems they want you to, you would be fine.
Great knowledge to have. Are you a user of HomeSeer? Do they suffer from issues that I should be aware of? Are there any advantages Cortexa has over HomeSeer? Thanks again - it's very helpful to speak to someone who has gone down this road before.
 
Hyde,
I don't believe Homeseer has the specific issues identified with Cortexa, but like all other apps, has it's own.
One of the differences is that Homeseer (and Mainlobby and CQC) are more open to users changing / fixing things on their own. Cortexa is intended as more locked down, which strategy has it's pros / cons.

Frunple has a good idea, design the system as a system. Use what works together. Unfortunately, this also means that existing hardware might not fit into that mix. The software that has more established drivers, or the ability for you to create your own as HS, ML and CQC provide gives you much better odds of getting reuse out of existing hardware, some of which maybe very expensive hardware - more expensive than the automation system and most definately, software.
 
Cortexa should be a great system....unfortunately, its not. A lot of bugs that just dont seem to get fixed or it takes forever to get them fixed.
They should open up the system to its owners and I would bet they would be surprised with the programmers that would make that system better.


Frunple - What do you currently use? Did you purchase Cortexa and then get rid of it because of the bugs? Which bugs were the worst? Thanks very much for the information!!

I actually installed one for a friend, which turned out to be a mistake.
If you intend to get one, ask them a lot of questions... a LOT of questions!!
Talk to Rod Stevenson, make sure you say what subsystems you want to use and listen to what he says, he will probably subtlly steer you towards the subsystems that actually work with the system.

I guess the biggest complaint would be the DSC alarm system. The cortexa will stop logging from the alarm which causes it to stop triggering off of the alarm zones. The only way to correct it is to powercycle the alarm system. Cortexa says the trouble is on DSC's side and they are working with them to correct it. I hope they do quick because my friend lives almost an hour away and its getting old driving there just to powercycle every few days.

Another bug is with the Nuvo audio systems. You cant raise the volume past -10. Cortexa goes -xx to 0, 0 being the loudest. It will not let you increase into single digits.
Z-wave is not supported at all, but they say it is....
Theres a few minor "annoyances" that should be easily fixed but they take their time getting to them.

I would say the system can, and will, be fantastic when its all ironed out.

Bottom line, as long as you use the subsystems they want you to, you would be fine.

Just to explain a few things. As the Cortexa grows so does its connecting partners. On the NuVo stuff we found out that NuVo changed the protocal on us, which happens to us all the time. Connecting partners are always changing there protocals without us ever know until it reaches our customers. On DSC we are trying to get this fixed with them. The DSC stops sending data overtime, so the only way to fix this is reboot the security panel and not the Cortexa. The only time the Cortexa talks to DSC is if the user changes the arm state from the Cortexa. This again seems to be an issue with the DSC new boards. On Z-Wave we only support the old stuff that is not sold anymore, so we are going to take this off our list until we add the new Leviton stuff. The bad part about the controler is that everyone blames the controler and not the connected devices.


Thanks
JBDWW
 
Cortexa should be a great system....unfortunately, its not. A lot of bugs that just dont seem to get fixed or it takes forever to get them fixed.
They should open up the system to its owners and I would bet they would be surprised with the programmers that would make that system better.


Frunple - What do you currently use? Did you purchase Cortexa and then get rid of it because of the bugs? Which bugs were the worst? Thanks very much for the information!!

I actually installed one for a friend, which turned out to be a mistake.
If you intend to get one, ask them a lot of questions... a LOT of questions!!
Talk to Rod Stevenson, make sure you say what subsystems you want to use and listen to what he says, he will probably subtlly steer you towards the subsystems that actually work with the system.

I guess the biggest complaint would be the DSC alarm system. The cortexa will stop logging from the alarm which causes it to stop triggering off of the alarm zones. The only way to correct it is to powercycle the alarm system. Cortexa says the trouble is on DSC's side and they are working with them to correct it. I hope they do quick because my friend lives almost an hour away and its getting old driving there just to powercycle every few days.

Another bug is with the Nuvo audio systems. You cant raise the volume past -10. Cortexa goes -xx to 0, 0 being the loudest. It will not let you increase into single digits.
Z-wave is not supported at all, but they say it is....
Theres a few minor "annoyances" that should be easily fixed but they take their time getting to them.

I would say the system can, and will, be fantastic when its all ironed out.

Bottom line, as long as you use the subsystems they want you to, you would be fine.

Just to explain a few things. As the Cortexa grows so does its connecting partners. On the NuVo stuff we found out that NuVo changed the protocal on us, which happens to us all the time. Connecting partners are always changing there protocals without us ever know until it reaches our customers. On DSC we are trying to get this fixed with them. The DSC stops sending data overtime, so the only way to fix this is reboot the security panel and not the Cortexa. The only time the Cortexa talks to DSC is if the user changes the arm state from the Cortexa. This again seems to be an issue with the DSC new boards. On Z-Wave we only support the old stuff that is not sold anymore, so we are going to take this off our list until we add the new Leviton stuff. The bad part about the controler is that everyone blames the controler and not the connected devices.


Thanks
JBDWW

JB - Thanks for the information. I do want to use Insteon for lighting... as for the other subsystems, I am open - are there specific subsystems that you recommend more than others?
 
Back
Top