CQC Price Increase in 3 Weeks

[Squintz]

TCassio,

If you would like a quick look at CQC again I would suggest joining our next monthly webinar. I don't know when you last looked at CQC but over the last few minor releases it has gained a lot of power. Dean, has implemented a very nice event systems which allows for scheduled and triggered events. Most of the event programming is done with point and click type interaction. So it is very simple to build complex events. He has added IF THEN ELSE flow control and lots of other good stuff. These features were available back in the 1.4 - 1.6 days I think but you had to manually program much of the stuff. With the new 2.0 most of the stuff is point and click.

I would be happy to give you a call and allow you to remote into my PC and give you a tour of CQC 2.0. I think I know what you are talking about when you say CQC "was" lacking on the home automation end of things. That has all been changed recently.

There is still limited support for x10 and the z-wave support is slowly improving. But there are a lot of other lighting options available that CQC does support. Insteon support has been added by one of the CQC members and is in it's final public beta testing phase. With out trying to explain the entire product, CQC can do IR, automation panels, a/v processors, contact closures, multi disk media changers, irrigation controllers, anout 7 different lighting protocols, ton of media players, caller id, SMS, web server, thermostats, and the list goes on.

In all there are over 100 drivers and the list is growing every day. So you might want to take one more look at CQC. I am not saying look with the intention of buying. I am simply asking that you look again so that you can see that what you may have tried in the past is no longer the case now.

 

[ctay]

My belief is the way to win in Home Automation is to grow the market. The problem you face is that an extremely flexible product like CQC also brings with it that much more complexity. The average Joe is not likely to be able to install CQC, throw in a couple of PCL switches and happily control his lights.

Simplicity will grow this market. How to make a simple AND flexible product is the difficult part. I think that the only way to make it work is to make it ala cart. You want to control your Zwave switches? You'll need our back bone product and the Zwave add in. You want to control your Zwave stuff and integrate your security system? You'll need the back bone, Zwave and the security suite. You want it all? Buy the full product at $900. The bonus is you can start slow if you want with a small initial investment.

Then go market the hell out of it.

Everyone on this board really has the duty to market Home Automation in general. It is like any hobby out there. I got into RC planes because I saw some guys flying and started asking questions. I would never have bought a $300 Transmitter and $500 plane right off the bat to get into it. However, I did buy an Air Hogs Aero Ace (a really kick ass $30 plane that ANYONE can fly and have a lot of fun with). How did I find out about the Aero Ace? The first guys I talked to told me about them and encouraged me to go get one.

The point is tell your family, friends, whoever about your HA system and how easy it would be to start off small. The more people that are interested in HA, the greater the market, and the cheaper things will get for all of us.

Chris

 

[IVB]

The lack of lighting control...

Sorry, not understanding that comment. There's absolutely support in CQC for the upper end lighting controls that folks with a serious HA system would have. For example:
- Clipsal C-Bus
- Lutron GrafikEye
- Lutron Homeworks
- Lutron RadioRA
- Vantage

There's also limited support for X-10 and Z-Wave.

Sure, it doesn't come with Insteon support from Dean, and Dean's never hidden the fact that it's a low priority for him given that most upper end folks would stick with Lutron/Vantage/UPB. He's planning on doing a UPB driver post-2.0 launch.

With the comments I've read about on this forum about Insteon, I think it's smart for an HA package to start by supporting the stable protocols first, then move on to the broader market.

The lack of ... along with a lot of other aspects of HA

This I don't understand at all. Please give an example of an aspect of a "true" HA system that is not there.

 

[Digger]

I looked at CQC months ago. I thought it looked like it had a lot of potential and I like what people have done with it.

Unfortunately its to expensive for my budget even at the current price. With the new price going into effect I doubt I will ever get it now.

I can't disagree with the Insteon comment. Its a lower end product line and it has a lot of problems still. I doubt that anyone who can afford a better system would dive into it now. If I had more money for this hobby I would have gone with a better lighting system myself.

Anyone know the lottery numbers?

 

[damage]

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?

don't forget there is no jds driver...

 

[toymaster458]

As Dean has been saying from Day One Doller One that CQC is focused on the Professional Market. He is in the process of creating a system that is compareable to Crestron and AMX but also selling to the DIY'ers where other do not. If all you are looking for is a basic, cheap solution then CQC is not for you. But if you are Hard core into Automation and Media Control then CQC is worth a look.

 

[Dean Roddey]

As Dean has been saying from Day One Doller One that CQC is focused on the Professional Market. He is in the process of creating a system that is compareable to Crestron and AMX but also selling to the DIY'ers where other do not. If all you are looking for is a basic, cheap solution then CQC is not for you. But if you are Hard core into Automation and Media Control then CQC is worth a look.

Well, to be fair, I was fairly confused early on about what market to target, and kind of waffled a bit this way and that. But, in the last year or more, we've decided that the professional market is the only way to really survive. But, having said that, we've fought attempts to quit selling a DIY version because we do want to make it available for those DIY folks who are looking for more of a pro-sumer type of product.

 

[Dean Roddey]

My belief is the way to win in Home Automation is to grow the market. The problem you face is that an extremely flexible product like CQC also brings with it that much more complexity. The average Joe is not likely to be able to install CQC, throw in a couple of PCL switches and happily control his lights.

I would have to disagree. Not that you have to grow the market, since obviously you do, but you have to grow the right part of the market for your product. There are various products out there that provide super-simple automation for a few lights that don't require any PC or any software. Z-Wave with a remote control can do that.

But, most folks, once it goes beyond that, are not going to hack it, no matter how simple you make the product, because so much of automation has nothing to do with the controller, it has to do with the controlled, and you cannot simplify that all that much by making the controller simpler. So you would end up with a highly inflexible product that would never float in the professional market (i.e. the large potential source of revenues is not available), but which the average person could still not actually install because they still have to figure out serial ports and serial cables and A/V cabling and standards and what products to use and all that.

 

[ctay]

Dean, have you given any thought to allowing users to purchase upgrades as they come out instead of locking into $95 a year? That is the only hang up for me right now. I just worry that I will get my system setup, stable and happy and see no need for a upgrade yet still be paying $95 a year.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Squintz]

I am not trying to debate about the $95. I just want to share my point of view with you. Unlike other software Dean provides all of his plug-ins(drivers) for free. The only exception to this is when the driver does not exist and you want to pay him to make development of the driver a priority.

So the $95 is not just for the upgrade. The $95 is a way for Dean to make an income which will make sure that his product stays arround. My guess is that if he charged on a per-upgrade basis then the cost for an individual upgrade would me more that $95. So say you go an entire year without upgrading and not requiring any support from Dean. Then on the 13th month you decide you like a certain feature that has been added and you want to purchase an the upgrade. Does it make sense to pay $95+ for a single upgrade when you can get the upgrades as they become available?

I am not sure if you are familiar with CQC so I will say this. Dean puts out releases with substantial feature additions almost monthly. He is very fast and does a great job communicating the progress of the releases to his customers. And best of all the releases are stable. So it makes more sense to me to pay the $95 which does a couple things.

1) Provides Dean with a steady source of income which will allow him to spend the money on developing CQC into a better application.
2) Provides you with free upgrades as they come out. Upgrades include any new images, drivers, and base software improvements. So there are no hidden fees.

Other software companies make their money by charging you for plug-ins and graphics and additional features and all kinds of stuff. You don't have that with CQC. I think it was IVB who said that it would have cost him $1500 to use another program to do everything CQC does now for $495 soon to be $895. So it will take of 6 years at $95 for CQC to cost you as much as other products do.

I am happy to pay the $95.

 

[Digger]

1) Provides Dean with a steady source of income which will allow him to spend the money on developing CQC into a better application.
2) Provides you with free upgrades as they come out. Upgrades include any new images, drivers, and base software improvements. So there are no hidden fees.

Other software companies make their money by charging you for plug-ins and graphics and additional features and all kinds of stuff. You don't have that with CQC. I think it was IVB who said that it would have cost him $1500 to use another program to do everything CQC does now for $495 soon to be $895. So it will take of 6 years at $95 for CQC to cost you as much as other products do.

The numbers make sense. While I typically go for lower cost products because of limited funds for the "hobby" you do get what you pay for.

I could have gotten an alarm panel for $150 but I sprang for the ELK a year ago at around $500 and cant complain. It is very reliable and the free firmware upgrades etc make the panel cheaper in the long run. It can also do more than any other panel (except maybe HAI's but that is way out of my league price wise). I also like ELK's support and have never seen any HAI support.

Based on comments in this thread I guess I should rethink things about CQC and try and come up with the money if I can.

 

[ctay]

then on the 13th month you decide you like a certain feature that has been added and you want to purchase an the upgrade. Does it make sense to pay $95+ for a single upgrade when you can get the upgrades as they become available?

Having not used CQC I can't really say how likely it is that I will want a upgrade for a new feature. It sounds to me as though it is a complete product that is very stable so it is hard for me to justify $95 a year if I don't see the need for fixes or upgrades. However, I'm sure like most things once you start using something you always find things you want different and I will probably want an upgrade. I'm not altruistic enough to want to pay $ to make sure the designer is able to make a living... I know that may sound hard, but I'm just interested in the product... :unsure:

Anyway, I was trying to compare Apples to Apples with Main Lobby and CQC so I posted what I would like to do over at Main Lobby's forum and waited for a response as to what I would have to buy get it done etc. No replies. I posted something similar over here a got a bunch of replies from CQC people including the designer. This is has pretty much sealed the deal for me, I'm just hanging on the maintenance fee...

Chris

 

[IVB]

However, I'm sure like most things once you start using something you always find things you want different and I will probably want an upgrade.

ctay, if you buy CQC, I will personally guarantee you that it will seduce you so much that you will inevitably begin looking around your house for new stuff to integrate b/c you can easily do so for free.

And if you get stuck, there's a forum with a bunch of folks who post as much as I do. By now, your post would probably have started a flame war between us about what hardware/etc is best for you, each offering so many opinions you'd be confused.

Then you could go to the CQC chat room and find even more debates.

Stop thinking of it as a maintenance fee, start thinking of it as the cover charge to the cult :unsure:

 

[Squintz]

ctay,

I am glad you can see the light. Did you know that the $95 maintance fee is included for the first year?

So you would have an entire year to decide if you want to pay for additional upgrades. I am sure Dean would come up with a reasonable price for upgrades if you only decide to upgrade once is a blue moon. But you have to keep something else in mind. Say dean releases 40 upgrades between now and the time you want to upgrade CQC. Lets say you don't upgrade for 2 years. (Highly unlikely like IVB said) Everyone else has paid their $95/year to support the development of the product and then you want to upgrade. It would not be very fair if you got all the benefits of all 40 upgrades for less than what we paid for the yearly support would it?

So at best I would think that if you came to Dean in two years that it would cost you about the same as if you had just paid the yearly fee.

If you crunch some numbers the $95/year breaks down to about 26 cents a day or about 8 bucks a month. A small price to pay for the quality of software and support you will get. Again, you have an entire year to decide if you will ever need to upgrade.

I am speaking from a users point of view. You would certainly want to get in touch with Dean to figure out what his plan is. I guess it is easier for current users to justify the cost. Perhaps you should just start off using the 30 day trial and make sure CQC is right for you first. To most of us CQC is like a big toy. We just love to play and tinker with it to no end. It is very flexible and your imagination is pretty much the limit.

You should join the web conference this sunday. IVB is doing an introduction for new and potential users to get them up to speed. I will be there also to help answer questions.

 

[Steve]

Chris,

I know exactly how you feel, I felt the same way. I wrestled for weeks because I could not see the value in a $95 annual fee. At the end of the day, I thought about all of the other products out there that charge much more. Hell, Intuit practically makes you repurchase Quicken every year at a slight discount. Larger $500 plus packages maybe give you a 50% discount for annual releases, etc. So, when I really thought about it, guaranteed fixes, new releases, etc, at a roughly 80% discount is not a bad deal at all for a professional level product. There used to be a company logo that said 'Never Stand Still', I think that applies here and you will almost certainly find a new feature or addition you want, even if its relatively minor.