CQC vs Elve user comparison

[greymatter]

Hi Guys!

Well I have spent the last couple months playing around with elk and CQC and was about to drop the cash on it, however at the last minute, a friend mentioned that before dropping that kind of $$$ for my CQC license given its current state of flux that I should at a minimum take a look at Elve as an alternative. Now first off, I am more of an open source kind of guy but have been able to justify dropping the coin on CQC since having played with the trial for the last 40 days and finding out just how open of a framework it truly is. I have it installed and all device drivers talking as they should, as well as a basic template built and functioning so its ready to go as is(minus the license of course ;-)). Now from my initial investigation and at least on the surface both overlord controllers seem to offer a very similar set of device drivers as well as functionality but was wondering if anyone who has experience with both applications could lend me their personal experiences and talk me into or out of taking another 40 days to really dig in and evaluate Elve first hand.

Thanks Fellas!

Todd

 

[scriptx]

I used Elve and wrote a Window's Media Center driver for it a while back. I am not using anything now and starting to work on a whole new system (ex got the last one). I haven't used CQC so I cannot give a direct comparison.

I personally liked Elve for a number of reasons. The biggest reason was that it made sense to me and I had it up and running with my Elk, Lights (X10), and J River Media Center (JRMC) in a few hours. As a comparison, I spent a day with Homeseer just attempting to get JRMC working. I did get it working but not 100%. It did strange things like setup the album cover as a device etc. which didn't make sense. As a software engineer in a prior life, Elve was designed well in contrast to many DIY systems. The data structures, driver architecture, etc. are excellent.

The one drawback I didn't care for, and it may be addressed by now, was the thin client keyboard (iPhone app) and creating screens for touchscreens. I found it frustrating and just ended up using their stock screens. Other systems excel in this one area, which I considered second priority to having software that just worked and made sense out of the box.

I'd give it a try, you might be surprised at how quickly you have it up and running.

 

[etc6849]

I would give Premise a try as it has a very open framework, and users have posted about 25+ open-source modules to work with all kinds of devices (including a module for the Elk M1G and the VRC0P (z-wave)). If you're a programmer or know vbscript, you can do anything with Premise. The best part is it's free too!

It's definitely as powerful as Homeseer, Elve and others. That's not to say the other options you mentioned aren't useable or worth exploring, but why spend the money when Premise has a well thought out and expandable class based framework?

Some neat things about Premise I like are: it has a free SDK, you can use minibroker to integrate with other programs, optional vbscripting inside the IDE is very easy to learn, it can be integrated with any device assuming you know the necessary protocol, if you're a new to HA there's wizards for creating new device types, it's 100% stable and will run for years without a crash, and was built with openness in mind.

http://www.cocoontech.com/wiki/Premise

http://www.cocoontech.com/forums/index.php?showforum=51

 

[Frunple]

I used Elve and wrote a Window's Media Center driver for it a while back.

You wouldn't happen to still have that driver, would ya?

 

[etc6849]

Scriptx, if you're sharing, I'm interested in your driver provided it can act as a media center add-in or has some two way functionality. At any rate, I'd be very interested in taking a look at your source code (assuming you'd let me modify it for Premise ).

I made both IR and IP based modules for controlling Media Center from Premise. The IR version is found under Premise Downloads. I haven't finished the IP based module yet, but I'll share that source code under Premise Downloads when I'm done as well.

My plan for the Media Center IP based module is to use it to gather metadata and hopefully album covers too. The module works by using vmccontroller (google to find the codeplex site) to send comnmands to/from my Premise server and my HTPC over IP.

However, what I'd really like is a MC add-in to control Premise objects (such as my lights and HVAC) from within Windows Media Center.

 

[greymatter]

i am working on getting Elve installed, ran into some issue with the defaut ports or something, am researching more...

I took a look at premise, it looks interesting, what does it use for GUI design, is it only web based? I am very interested in integrating a touchscreen asap and more to follow if I can get the wifey hooked, shouldn't be too hard.

 

[etc6849]

It can be made to work with anything. It's default web pages that are automatically generated use activex or html and are fully customizable. You can build your own site in flash or ajax and control Premise that way too. It's also open enough to where you can build an iphone or android app to work with Premise.

I took a look at premise, it looks interesting, what does it use for GUI design, is it only web based? I am very interested in integrating a touchscreen asap and more to follow if I can get the wifey hooked, shouldn't be too hard.

 

[scriptx]

Regarding WMCE driver. I turned the source over to Johnny, but I don't know if he has done anything with it. I used WCF for communication between WMCE and the driver and a freeware MP3 tag library. I believe he'd want to rewrite those to use his own TCP protocol and MP3 library (pure assumption on my part).

I'll share the code I have. There are two parts, one that must be on the MCE computer and it is two way (returns album art, song, DVD info, etc). It provides the remote interface. You'll want the Premise driver to communicate directly with that. The only thing it doesn't do is Shuffle and Repeat. You'll have to connect to WMCE hosted windows media player process to do that since WMCE doesn't provide an API to set/query those from a plugin. It is a bit of pain to do in .NET, but I think I have some code that'll do it from another project. PM me your address and I'll zip it up and send it to this week sometime (likely Thursday evening).

 

[iostream212]

I have dabbled with both and I feel the learning curve was a lot less with Elve than CQC. CQC I was watching all the sample tutorials and felt that by the time the trial was up I still didn't really know what I was doing. With the Elve system I was up and running very quickly. Also touch screen designs I had in my head for years I was able to create quickly and easily. The software is only going to get better too. Thats why I decided to jump on the $99 intro price. For what it does and what it will do that's a no brainer for me.

 

[Dean Roddey]

It's a very powerful product, not necessarily for the casual user. It's for those who want the power, with some cost in complexity. Though it's actually not that complex either. We are working towards providing more helper tools as well though. And of course it's highly robust, which for many people is the most important thing of all.

 

[iostream212]

It's a very powerful product, not necessarily for the casual user. It's for those who want the power, with some cost in complexity. Though it's actually not that complex either. We are working towards providing more helper tools as well though. And of course it's highly robust, which for many people is the most important thing of all.

Well then why don't you offer an entry level price point into the system? In all honesty a $199 bronze level package was not available when I was shopping for an HA software controller. Besides, wasn't this supposed to be free anyways?

 

[Dean Roddey]

We went through a lot of turmoil to change the whole pricing model just to do that, i.e. to have an entry level price point of $199. It's a very tricky situation to deal with these types of pricing models. Everyone has their vested interests, us, DIY customers, pro customers, pro installers, resellers. It's hard to balance all those interests, but we think we've done it fairly well at this point.

 

[ano]

I use CQC and it is certainly robust and comprehensive. What it isn't is easy to use, and while videos may be great when you are learning a system, try to use videos as a reference, it just doesn't work. A product this extensive needs guides that are extensive as well, not 6 or 7 page flyers. CQC needs to be made easier to use AND it needs better documentation, and either one is not an excuse to not to have the other.

Elve is much easier to use, and looks quite robust, but it is also quite new and when you dig in deeper, there are definitely many parts that are missing. For the length of time that it has been available, its quite impressive. Still Elve has many unknowns. Will it still be around in a year or two? And if you ask me Elve is quite a bit overpriced for its stage of evolution. To me it still feels like a beta product, but in a year or two it could be great. The question becomes, do you want to pay full commercial product price now for a "beta" product and hope it matures into that commercial product in a few years?

With CQC, you can be pretty sure that it will do what you want, but figuring it all out is time consuming, can be frustrating, and you may well give up before your system really does all you want it to.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Well, of course there are very extensive technical documents about all aspects of the product. But they are reference documents, not how to guides or anything. The videos are intended to be more of the how to and the technical documentation provides the hard core reference info. Clearly there could be other things in between those two and we'll do what we can.

And, to be fair, many people don't really find it that complicated. It just seems like some people click with one approach and some click with another. Some people immediately get CQC's approach and it makes sense to them, and some don't. And the same with other products as well of course.

 

[SomeWhatLost]

as a fairly long time CQC user, I am probably a bit biased, but I am convinced CQC is the best...
that said I never tried Elve... it wasn't around when I was looking for a HA app... and now that I found CQC I have no reason to look...

anyway, I would think the most important thing would be to just download Elve and try it out... Every HA app has its own way of doing things... pick the one that makes the most sense to you...


oh, and for what its worth, I love CQC videos...once you watch them, everything just 'clicks' and you can go through and configure things pretty quickly...