HAI Launches Hi-Fi by HAI Whole Home Audio System

[upstatemike]

So now I am taking another look at HAI as perhaps the most plug-and-play automation system available.

Maybe until next month when the other guys come out with their new leapfrog feature. All systems will have their pros and cons and things that appeal to some and not others. To me, while this is certainly nice, it is nothing you can't do with other panels and standard Nuvo or Russound equipt.

Also, while I am not a big audiophile and I do not have a whole house system yet, I would think one of my requirments would be to have metadata info available at the keypad. Especially when listening to radio - I'd like to know what channel I'm listening to at a glance - not guess blindly about presets.

I agree about radio stations but for that you can buy a Russound tuner with the dedicated keypads that plug directly into it for just that purpose. My problem with most whole-house systems is that the scenario of controlling a bunch of stuff locally from a keypad just doesn't play out in real life. I sometimes want a remote volume control but not always, and almost never want to be messing with source equipment remotely.

My preferred scenario is a console with a keypad for each zone right next to the source equipment. I turn on the system, pick the rooms I want on, and preset the volume for each room all at once. If I enter a remote area and change my mind about the volume then a local volume control linked to the master is handy, but not needed in every zone.

If I got a regular Russound system I would likely mount all the zone keypads on the equipment rack and run a second keypad to the 3 or 4 zones where I feel I might want one.

I can also use remote sources with a regular Russound system using Cat5 audio extenders and such. This system is just cool because it has that already built-in. It might not support multiple keypads on 1 zone though so maybe it won't actually do what I need and I would have to stick with a standard Russound system anyway.

 

[DavidL]

Cinemar just added support for the Hi-Fi HAI system in our new MainLobby Server 3 MLHAI plugin. The plugin has been in beta for a couple of months and is pretty close to release.

 

[upstatemike]

But HAI is certainly a lot cheaper...

EDIT: Not that much! I just saw this:
http://www.electronichouse.com/poty/14692.html

Now I'm excited again!!! (sorry to hijack this thread)

How do you integrate ZON stuff with an automation system?

 

[Ripper99]

The Russound products are reliable(more expensive) and provide metadata at the keypads, I currently have the Russound ST2-XM which also has a built in AM/FM tuner and all info from the tuner can be seen on the keypads and stations can be custom named.

The XM tuner provides channel, artist, track metadata.

I also have the new Russound Ipod dock and it provides Artist, Album, Track, Playlist metadata to the basic UNO-S2 keypads

I don't think just being able to choose a zone and hear music is very optimal and you need to be able to change channels easily and also see track data from things such as satellite radio so you can know who the artist is that just played.

A new CQC Russound RNET driver is being worked on and all this info can be fed to touchscreens if you choose..the driver will also allow you to access your CQC music repository from a UNO-S2 Russound keypad and you will be able to control thousands of albums from any keypad if you wish...basically it will act similar to a Russound SMS3 system with no hard drive limitations.

 

[Steve]

So now I am taking another look at HAI as perhaps the most plug-and-play automation system available.

Maybe until next month when the other guys come out with their new leapfrog feature. :lol: All systems will have their pros and cons and things that appeal to some and not others. To me, while this is certainly nice, it is nothing you can't do with other panels and standard Nuvo or Russound equipt.

Also, while I am not a big audiophile and I do not have a whole house system yet, I would think one of my requirments would be to have metadata info available at the keypad. Especially when listening to radio - I'd like to know what channel I'm listening to at a glance - not guess blindly about presets.

I agree about radio stations but for that you can buy a Russound tuner with the dedicated keypads that plug directly into it for just that purpose. My problem with most whole-house systems is that the scenario of controlling a bunch of stuff locally from a keypad just doesn't play out in real life. I sometimes want a remote volume control but not always, and almost never want to be messing with source equipment remotely.

My preferred scenario is a console with a keypad for each zone right next to the source equipment. I turn on the system, pick the rooms I want on, and preset the volume for each room all at once. If I enter a remote area and change my mind about the volume then a local volume control linked to the master is handy, but not needed in every zone.

If I got a regular Russound system I would likely mount all the zone keypads on the equipment rack and run a second keypad to the 3 or 4 zones where I feel I might want one.

I can also use remote sources with a regular Russound system using Cat5 audio extenders and such. This system is just cool because it has that already built-in. It might not support multiple keypads on 1 zone though so maybe it won't actually do what I need and I would have to stick with a standard Russound system anyway.

I think I would want the opposite . I would want all the source equipment in the closet with just keypads in the rooms with the ability to fully control the sources from the distributed keypads. And that means having metadata distributed. Whether that is accomplished with the vendors own keypads, or something like rad-io's with my own interface through CQC doesn't matter, but that is the concept.

 

[upstatemike]

A new CQC Russound RNET driver is being worked on and all this info can be fed to touchscreens if you choose..the driver will also allow you to access your CQC music repository from a UNO-S2 Russound keypad and you will be able to control thousands of albums from any keypad if you wish.

All well and good but my music repository is a Slimserver and SlimServer is not supported by CQC or Russound.

 

[markthomas]

How do you integrate ZON stuff with an automation system?

Zon is one of the most flexible systems out there. There is a built-in RS-232 port, PC configuration software, an optional Ethernet LAN interface. There's also IR input, output, learning, and a built-in library--it can control and be controlled via IR.

More features of their "smart hub" (they call it a Zone Router) here:
http://www.zonaudio.com/products/ZR-98.php

expandable to 1000 zones.... amazing.

Update: Looks like there's a few new systems with different hubs. I don't know the capabilities of the one I linked to earlier. I'll do some research...

 

[Ripper99]

All well and good but my music repository is a Slimserver and SlimServer is not supported by CQC or Russound.

It will be supported soon with CQC, a member named Jonathan who recently wrote the Insteon driver for CQC is working on a Slimserver/Squeezebox driver as of a few days ago.

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showp...05&postcount=76

 

[upstatemike]

All well and good but my music repository is a Slimserver and SlimServer is not supported by CQC or Russound.

It will be supported soon with CQC, a member named Jonathan who recently wrote the Insteon driver for CQC is working on a Slimserver/Squeezebox driver as of a few days ago.

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showp...05&postcount=76

Interesting! My biggest gripe about Russound type audio systems is that walking over to a keypad and squinting at a tiny LCD diplay for meta dat was never a practical paradigm in my mind. The problem with Slimserver was a great display that is under supported by automation systems.

If this plugin gets to the point where CQC can take metadata from say a Russound tuner and display it on a Squeezebox display then that would be something! Looks like you will be able to use a universal remote relayed through Squeezebox instead of a keypad for zone control within a room and that would be excellent!

Of course CQC has moved beyond the reach of my budget, but maybe someday I will win the lottery or something!

 

[upstatemike]

How do you integrate ZON stuff with an automation system?

Zon is one of the most flexible systems out there. There is a built-in RS-232 port, PC configuration software, an optional Ethernet LAN interface. There's also IR input, output, learning, and a built-in library--it can control and be controlled via IR.

I asked the question wrong... What existing automation systems or software currently supports the ZON audio sytem?

 

[opie]

Not to go off topic but it seems like the topic has changed anyway.

Maybe I misssed it, but I haven't seen anyone mention the Elk+Russound option. They just announced this at CEDIA and it's not quite ready but looks really nice. There is an "Audio" button in RM now that has a very nice interface to a Russound CAV or CAM.

I will try to get some pics today of the screen.

 

[upstatemike]

Not to go off topic but it seems like the topic has changed anyway.

Maybe I misssed it, but I haven't seen anyone mention the Elk+Russound option. They just announced this at CEDIA and it's not quite ready but looks really nice. There is an "Audio" button in RM now that has a very nice interface to a Russound CAV or CAM.

I will try to get some pics today of the screen.

I didn't know about the Elk+Russound pairing... Does that mean an M1 will work with the Russound-made "HiFi by HAI" unit?

While you are there could you get some more info on the new Elk touch screen security camera interface? Will there be a way to display a camera on the screen in response to a rule? That would allow a motion sensor or doorbell press to switch on the door camera view which would be very cool and would put it on par with the HAI Omni Pro II.

 

[opie]

I didn't know about the Elk+Russound pairing... Does that mean an M1 will work with the Russound-made "HiFi by HAI" unit?

While you are there could you get some more info on the new Elk touch screen security camera interface? Will there be a way to display a camera on the screen in response to a rule? That would allow a motion sensor or doorbell press to switch on the door camera view which would be very cool and would put it on par with the HAI Omni Pro II.

Sorry Upstatemike I didn't see your reply until after I had been to the show so I didn't ask. I believe the new HAI unit is actually made be NuVo and not Russound. In any case, RM will only control A CAV or CAM and share info from other RNET devices. Not all Russound products speak RNET so that's why the CAA and such would not work with this new ELKRM feature.

As far as I know you can not control RM with a rule but I may be wrong. These new RM features are still in development so maybe they will add that ability. You are right though, that would be a nice feature.

Photos of the new interface can be seen at this thread.

 

[upstatemike]

I believe the new HAI unit is actually made be NuVo and not Russound.

Oops, got that mixed up. Stargates support nuvo but probably won't work with the HAI unit either.

 

[Mike]

You may also wish to consider if you are doing this yourself, UpstateMike. HAI never seemed to be DIY friendly (if that is what you were planning). Not sure if that has changed.