toymaster458
Active Member
Looks like Charmed Quark has released a Beta one-way UPB Driver for CQC if anyone is interested.
UPB Beta Thread
UPB Beta Thread
CQC and UPB
- Thread starter toymaster458
- Start date
kinda hard to believe that has taken so long just to get this far. i wonder if AO had anything to do with this since they are official distributors of CQC, and Martin is a big proponent of UPB. it's hard to know how much business they might have lost since I'm guessing that most people, like me, make their hardware decision first, and then find the software to support it (if they go the software direction).
IVB
Senior Member
True, but given a finite # of resources (aka Dean), who knows how many sales they would have lost by not implementing the other gazillion things that have been put into the 2 releases and 1 beta so far this year.
With UPB, there was an alternate path to solving the problem (ie, use an Elk).
With the stuff done in it's place (ie, integrated audio player so no external programs needed for audio, iTunes integration, internal SMTP email support; popup & popup support; reworked network architecture to make it faster & more robust; etc), there was no alternate route.
With UPB, there was an alternate path to solving the problem (ie, use an Elk).
With the stuff done in it's place (ie, integrated audio player so no external programs needed for audio, iTunes integration, internal SMTP email support; popup & popup support; reworked network architecture to make it faster & more robust; etc), there was no alternate route.
wuench
Senior Member
I think the real question is how many sales did the UPB vendors lose because CQC did not support them.
At least that might apply in my case as I consider Insteon alternatives.
I think the real question is how many sales did the UPB vendors lose because CQC did not support them.
I have a fully UPB controlled house, and won't even look at CQC until UPB is fully supported. (One-way is not full support in my book.) Yes, I have a HAI that can control UPB, and no I don't find "passthru" acceptable when UPB is at the heart of HA.
I think the real question is how many sales did the UPB vendors lose because CQC did not support them.
I have a fully UPB controlled house, and won't even look at CQC until UPB is fully supported. (One-way is not full support in my book.) Yes, I have a HAI that can control UPB, and no I don't find "passthru" acceptable when UPB is at the heart of HA.
Better dust off your reading glasses....From my understanding, 2-way is right around the corner.
wuench
Senior Member
I think the real question is how many sales did the UPB vendors lose because CQC did not support them.
I have a fully UPB controlled house, and won't even look at CQC until UPB is fully supported. (One-way is not full support in my book.) Yes, I have a HAI that can control UPB, and no I don't find "passthru" acceptable when UPB is at the heart of HA.
Better dust off your reading glasses....From my understanding, 2-way is right around the corner.
Yep, play your cards right and soon instead of a UPB controlled house you may have a CQC controlled house...
toymaster458
Active Member
I think the real question is how many sales did the UPB vendors lose because CQC did not support them.
I have a fully UPB controlled house, and won't even look at CQC until UPB is fully supported. (One-way is not full support in my book.) Yes, I have a HAI that can control UPB, and no I don't find "passthru" acceptable when UPB is at the heart of HA.
Better dust off your reading glasses....From my understanding, 2-way is right around the corner.
Yep, play your cards right and soon instead of a UPB controlled house you may have a CQC controlled house...
One-Way is in Public Beta, Device and Link Polling is in Private Beta and Full Two-Way with Events is right around the corner.
h34r:I've always wondered, and maybe the CQC folks can answer for me. Dean has always said CQC was aimed at the professional market first and DIY as a side note. Why has it taken so long to get UPB support, when of all the powerline technologies, UPB is the number one choice of pro's?
Not a knock on CQC by any measure, and the other things added are valuable I know.
--Jamie
Not a knock on CQC by any measure, and the other things added are valuable I know.
--Jamie
I don't want to speak for Dean, but I think his reasoning is that it's all controllable via the Elk (which CQC can control) and he assumes most professional installs will have an Elk anyway.
That being said, I held off on CQC until the Insteon driver was available. I'm not up for replacing my security system with an Elk yet, and I have a feeling that CQC directly controlling my lights is going to be preferable to me anyway. Who knows until my system is "complete", and I have a long ways to go.
Do pro's really install PLC lighting? Given the history, I would expect them not to touch it with a 40' pole.
Do they have much of a choice for existing homes? How big of a project is it to re-wire an existing home for a hardwired lighting system?
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
As mentioned above, I don't think that pro systems generally tend to use systems in the Z-Wave/UBP/Insteon end of the spectrum. They'd be more likely to use something like RadioRA if it's a retrofit, i.e. something that provides the 100% reliability level that makes them feel comfortable that they won't be getting lots of calls about why aren't the lights working.
And, as also mentioned, almost every pro install will have an Elk or Omni panel involved. Since there are many advantages to having both CQC and the automation panel have access to lighting, there will be a strong tendancy to bring the lights into the panel, even if it means losing some functionality. So, regardless of whether they use a RadioRA level system or UPB or Z-Wave, it's pretty likely that CQC won't be the one directly controlling it.
So we just decided to put some other things first in line. However much you might think that not having UPB support cost us, and I'm sure it did some, it's a fraction of what not having really strong media management would have cost us. Media is the biggest driver by far out there. We've just added very tight integration with iTunes so that you can now browse your iTunes media on CQC and do multi-zoned playback from your iTunes media via CQC. That will get us an order of magnitude more attention than the UPB driver will probably.
But, all things in time, and we are now getting to the UPB driver. And yes, the AO folks had a lot to do with that. They told us that they sell many times over more UPB than Z-Wave and really wanted us to support UPB directly because they sell the DIY version of CQC where it's much more likely that CQC itself will need to be in the driver's seat.
toymaster458
Active Member
As a Professional Installer I sell three lines of lighting to fit the budget of the home owner. I agree that UPB is not as good as hardwire but far better than INSTEON and Z-Wave in my opinion. If I am doing a new home I always first try to sell them on a Hardwire system like HomeWorks but if it is an existing structure running wire and or redoing electrical is not always an option. Sure RadioRA is a great choice any day over Z-Wave but some homeowners feel that it is more costly then what they want to invest. This brings us down to Z-Wave, INSTEON and UPB. With the High failure rate of INSTEON it is not a good choice for me to install due to replacement costs, Z-Wave adds a lot of wireless traffic to a house and is generally not excepted looks and feel wise by the homeowners wife. This brings us to UPB which is an economical option, looks and feels good to the homeowners, provides them with lighting control with an expectable reliability for the price they are willing to pay and has a low install cost that does not require patching the drywall. Most of my Installs with UPB do have an Elk but I am getting more and more request for Installations with CQC and them not wanting to redo or add a security system at this time. With working with the Beta UPB Driver I am finding that it takes care of a lot of the short comings that the M1 has with UPB. I plan on adding the UPB Driver on all my installs even if they are using an M1 for this reason. I will still have the lighting programed in the M1 but CQC will be my primary UPB Controller instead of the M1.
