CQC Price Increase in 3 Weeks

Squintz

Senior Member
This was just released by CharmedQuark, LTD. It basically is saying that CQC 2.0 will be released in 3 weeks unless some bug is uncovered between now and then. The users, including me, have been beating on this beta for a few months now and it is very stable. The price will jump from $495 to $895 when CQC 2.0 is released. So if you are sitting on the fence you need to decide soon.

The planned release of CQC 2.0 is now set for December 10, 2006, unless at such time some new technical issue has arisen to prevent the release. The recent betas have been going well with just a few issues left to deal with, and documentation left to do.

The purpose for this warning is to allow anyone who wants to get on board before the price rise that will occur on the day of the official release to do so. See the previous thread before this one for details on the new pricing structure, but the bottom line is that you can get in for $495 (for the whole package, core components and all optional components) until 2.0 is released, then it goes to $895.

So if you are interested in getting in on the pre-release price, be sure to do so before then. The 2.0 version is already in very late beta stage and quite stable, so if you buy before the 2.0 release date you can go ahead and get started with the 2.0 version and just skip the 1.6 version.

Resources:
The Official Announcement
NEW! Licensing Policy
Whats New in 2.0!
 
I have been struggling with a practical way to use touch screens in my house for awhile now and have come to the conclusion that a good solution (for me) doesn't yet exist at a price point I am willing to pay. I am therefore deferring any use of touch screens in my Home Automation system until at least early 2008. I also don't expect to incorporate any home theater stuff into my system before that time.

So my question is: If I purchased CQC now, could I really do anything with it? Don't you really need to use touch screens to leverage CQC or are there folks using it without the graphical interface?
 
Sure. I didn't actually have a touchscreen for nearly 6 months. I used a regular PC, but there's also a huge amount of non-UI functionality.

I personally do the following. You may be able to do this via your current (stargate? ocelot?):

1) Scheduled Events. I do my HVAC/irrigation through this. I turn the heat up by 5 degrees at 7:15 on M/W/F, and 7:30 on T/X/S/S (pre-school on m/w/f).

2) Triggered Events:

2a) Handle my IR commands via my MX850. Right now it's mostly HT stuff - intelligent send of Play/pause/stop/next/prev to either CD/DVD/TV, based on TCP knowledge of what's playing. I could also have it do any HA control I have, i'll probably do lighting via the remote once I install the zWave stuff this week.

2b) Automatically turn off all amps, turn down heat if security system is armed away. Automatically arm maglock if security system is armed-stay.

3) PDA control of security/HVAC through cellphone when i'm not at home. Ok, this is technically a GUI app, but not a touchscreen and not what I think you were saying.

Potential Future:
a) Take an action on doorbell or telephone ring;
:huh: turn appropriate lights on if motion in the entry or driveway.
c) announce name of callerid through any HT speakers that are on.
d) Cellphone control of lighting, maglock so I can arm & disarm remotely.
e) On an intrusion event, blast the speakers and lighting to get the dude to go the heck away. If motion ceases for 2+mins, then only turn them off. (nextalarm will page me so I can check the CCTV over the PDA to see what's happening, and I can turn it all off via the PDA app if it's a false alarm).

There's much more, but that's what comes to mind quickly.
 
I don't have any touch screens. I am using CQC for advanced logic. I have also built a web site using the CQC server so I can monitor the homes status from work. I have to admit that I really want a touch screen simply because they look cool. But you do not need one to get your monies worth.

I personally would like to use my tv and a remote for control. I am usually wanting to control the house while watching TV. With the new Media Repository in 2.0 you could build nice interfaces and launch audio/videos (given you have the right audio/video distribution equipment). I plan to get a sony 777 changer for my DVDs and then later get some type of whole house audio device. CQC has lots of options for those.

You should visit the CQC forums and post your needs and let us help you fiure out if CQC will meet those needs.
 
I just hope that by the time that I really need something like CQC there will be 3-4 competing packages almost as good as CQC at 10-20% its price.

Or better yet, an easy to use open source solution. :huh:
 
elcano said:
I just hope that by the time that I really need something like CQC there will be 3-4 competing packages almost as good as CQC at 10-20% its price.

Or better yet, an easy to use open source solution. :huh:
Your lips to gods ears. The best way to spur innovation is by having lots of competition. Of course, it's not like CQC is going to stand still; if the last 14 months are any indication, far far from it.

Thee's always something like Girder & NetRemote. It's finally caught up to what CQC was 18 months ago. From what i've been reading, it's a very strong DIY competitor, I wouldn't be suprrised if it the market resolves into 2 serious options: Girder/NR for the consumer, CQC for the pro-sumer (or pro).
 
I would not hold your breath. It would take a pretty big effort to build something as good as CQC. I think its worth every penny.
 
He's correct though. Anyone looking to build something this serious is going to need to build a company to take it forward. In a market where the customer base is probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands (meaning DIY + professional home installs), instead of in the hundreds of millions (a la Windows), you cannot charge $100 and survive. And what matters moving forward is the size of the new customer market, which is way smaller than that.

A big problem is, and I'm not trying to be cynical or talk down to anyone, just being honest, the less you charge for it, the more it'll cost you to support every user because you will get more and more casual users who require more support. So you take it hard on both ends, you make less and it costs you more to make less and you have customers who get more and more pissed off if you don't spend $500 of time to get a $100 from them, becasue they are less understanding of the realities of automation.

That doesn't apply to all customers of course, like the ones who hang out around here. But that's a miniscule market. In order to just start to build a real company at $100 a pop, you'd have to be bringing in a hundred thousand customers a year (or the equiv with new+upgrades), which is probably pretty easy if you sell a software DVD player, but a lot harder in the automation world, which is as at least as comlexity limited as price limited. And there just aren't anywhere near a hundred thousand customers right now for this type of product. It's probably more in the tens of thousands and many of them are already taken.

And it doesn't apply so much of course if you are selling a very specialized program that does just one thing. But when it's something very broad and very flexible, like CQC or any other product that plays in this market would have to be, it very much does apply. So you are actually better off in the end charging 8 times as much and having 4 times fewer customers. And even then you aren't going to be driving a Ferrari any time soon.

And of course there's the problem that if you want to build a real company, you avhe to get into the professional market. Then you have the problem of someone who installs your product professional clearing $10K or $20K on a job and paying you $100. That's just never going to work, so you have to charge a professional price for professional installs, and if your DIY price is ten times less than the professional price, you will basically end up with people just buying the DIY product and installing it anyway and you still only get $100. The DIY price has to be close enough to the pro price that the professional won't take the risk to save the price differential.

Anyway, don't get me started. You just have to consider the realities of the market when you talk about the cost of a product. And you have consider what it will take to make that product viable long term, and that means having a real company, and that means making real money. If the company doesn't survive, what point is there in buying the product at any price? A few have already gone down the drain.
 
IVB said:
elcano said:
I just hope that by the time that I really need something like CQC there will be 3-4 competing packages almost as good as CQC at 10-20% its price.

Or better yet, an easy to use open source solution. :angry:
Your lips to gods ears. The best way to spur innovation is by having lots of competition. Of course, it's not like CQC is going to stand still; if the last 14 months are any indication, far far from it.

Thee's always something like Girder & NetRemote. It's finally caught up to what CQC was 18 months ago. From what i've been reading, it's a very strong DIY competitor, I wouldn't be suprrised if it the market resolves into 2 serious options: Girder/NR for the consumer, CQC for the pro-sumer (or pro).
For $900 I will stick to DIY.... NR2.x and G5 will become a very decent platform..... always room for more than one solution....

My Now Playing skin has everything I need in a GUI touch screen interface.... Music, IR & Slink control of equipment, light control, CID log, weather and digital photo frame. That skin has been downloaded over 5000 times between the two versions...

For me its the DIY that makes it fun.... from what I have seen many people using CQC are still doing their own graphics... so its not like CQC users are not spending time doing their skins....

(NR was already brought up so I was not trying to go OT)

John
 
Squintz said:
I would not hold your breath. It would take a pretty big effort to build something as good as CQC. I think its worth every penny.
Your to CQC as Rupp is to Homeseer.... I guess I speak for Netremote... we all have our favorites...

So tell me what does CQC do that makes it so much better than Mainlobby suite or Netremote??

John
 
I'm not going to get into an argument here. I don't know what Netremote and ML does. I do know that they recently lost a few of their customers to CQC. So CQC must be doing something right. This thread was simply a friendly warning that the price of CQC is going to increase and if you want a copy before it cost $895 you can still do that at least until December 10, 2006.
 
I looked at CQC a couple of times and have passed even though I liked the technology. I don't know if CQC is considered a Home Automation system or a Multimedia system. Reasons I passed is due to the lack of the Home Automation end of it. The lack of lighting control along with a lot of other aspects of HA. For a product that costs $500, soon to be $900, it should have everything needed to build a true HA system. For me to spend that kind of money and have to rely on an end user to produce a driver (Insteon support) for this product is crazy. I am not knocking the product, as I said I liked what I saw. But now with the price increases, CQC will be very difficult for me even to consider.
 
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