HAI Price increase!

[ano]

I'm not defending HAI/Leviton, but they do have products that few other companies make, and they are generally pretty feature rich.  The OmniStat2 is quite flexible. The panel is O.K. and HAI has continued to add new features.  You have to admit they support more standards than anyone. State-of-the-Art in 2013? Not really.  But they also have very little competition.  They know the market quite well, and if they thought it was worth it to redesign the Omni Pro II, I'm sure they would have. The reality is they probably don't feel there is enough money in it for them.
 
The propriety systems out there are troubling, but I say give them a few years and they will be gone, when they realize there isn't enough money in it for them either.

 

[Automate]

... market is being saturated by these poor excuses for HA that won't be reliable or integrate with anything (ADT, Verizon, AT&T, and whatever others that are packaging up crappy excuses for HA).

 
This report says "The number of operators offering home automation services using a residential gateway grows to 44% by 2014"
ttp://www.fiercecable.com/press-releases/multiscreen-video-delivery-residential-gateways-fast-growing-trend-shows-in

 

[neillt]

Well, the real problem is what they are selling as "home automation" and what most here call "home automation" are not the same thing.
 
The cable companies are offering a "really long range remote control".

 

[etc6849]

$1146 for just the Omnipro II board?!?  That is crazy.
 
The Elk M1G appears to be the hands down best option now.  Elk not being innovative is partially true, but who doesn't connect their M1G to a PC any ways?
 
I like my M1G and don't care if it has a slow processor or very little memory.  All it is to me is a bunch of inputs and outputs, along with a speech module and some nice flush mounted keypads.  My PC does all of the processing (occupancy tracking via door and motion sensors, lighting control, email notifications, triggering output relays, etc...).
 
Using a PC, you can even control what text is displayed on the Elk keypads (I have mine show weather and time) and one can integrate the keypad buttons to trigger things in a third party HA system!  The integration you can do with an M1G over RS232 is seriously top notch and very reliable.  123 made the Elk M1G Premise module using the protocol.  Everything has been rock solid for years now!

 

[rsw686]

$1146 for just the Omnipro II board?!?  That is crazy.

 
Where did you find that? The place I bought the HAI OmniPro II part # 20A00-2 for right under $1k is now $2,250.

 

[ano]

Where did you find that? The place I bought the HAI OmniPro II part # 20A00-2 for right under $1k is now $2,250.

The sad part is if you look at the components on the board, it's 1990's technology at best. Most of the components have long been discontinued.  As these parts get scarce, the prices do go up, and that may be part of the price increase.  It's so expensive because its so old.

 

[neillt]

Hence why an IP centric OmniPro3 really need to start making an appearance.

 

[pct88]

I will say that there are very few devices I have ever purchased that offer the level of flexibility that the OmniPro II does, and even after almost a decade of use it continues to have new software functionality added.  I attend the ISC East security industry conference every year, and the Omni and Elk products remain the primary offerings that seem to fit this need.  
 
I will defer to Leviton and HAI concerning their business operating costs and pricing strategies, but $1250 (Amazon) as of today does not seem outrageous compared to the benefits it offers, or what it would cost for me to assemble hardware to provide similar functionality.

 

[JonW]

Hence why an IP centric OmniPro3 really need to start making an appearance.

 
Their next gen definitely needs better IP support.  They need string handling functions to receive, parse, assemble and transmit character and binary/hex data for both IP and serial interfaces.  Adding the string handling would open up all kinds of interfacing options.

 

[neillt]

Their next gen definitely needs better IP support.  They need string handling functions to receive, parse, assemble and transmit character and binary/hex data for both IP and serial interfaces.  Adding the string handling would open up all kinds of interfacing options.

 
Or at least just text variables... call them "text flags" or "text user settings" or whatever... but when I have HaikuHelper doing the heavy IP lifting, sometimes it would be nice to store that in the panel somewhere....

 

[jwilleke]

Who would raise prices on an electronic product that has had no "real" upgrades in 10 years.
 
The OPII finally got an EEPROM so we were not milked $30.00 for upgrading firmware.
Same number of I/O points.
Added more serial ports (Why no USB ports)
 
And not a small increase nearly 30%.
 
Their proprietary screen prices are more than an IPAD.
(I mounted my IPAD2 on the wall and use it with the Haiku)
 
I am done with HAI !!
 
Now, any suggestions on what to replace it with?

 

[swaggy]

Crestron?
 
<ducks for cover>

 

[jdk972003]

Honestly at this point you would be better served spending the same cash on a software solution like CQC or HS3 running on a relatively cheap atom platform and combine it with a simple DSC alarm panel.
 
I am considering doing just that and selling my suddenly very valuable OPII board.

 

[pete_c]

Here I am content with the HAI OPII board (#1 and #2) and its current connections to the serial & IP touchscreens, UPB, X10 (now XTB), Omnitstat2, Z-Wave, Russound all functioning with very quick responses and never skipping a beat.  I never pay attention to it; as it just works. 
 
I have one of two HS2 boxes in which is built on a Foxconn Atom D525 modded a bit with a PicoPSU (with a battery charging circuit) and two slot hot swap drive cage which I utilize.  The other is using a BCM "commercial" style motherboard.  I do have issues with the "simple" one with few hardware connections and with the "not so simple" one with the multiple IO devices on it.
 
IE: a hardware disconnect of the z-troller will make the software/Z-troller disfunctional until the PC is rebooted.  I have though now turned this into a bit of a phone managment box using the W2C device and removed those functions from the primary HS box as it was sometimes tripping up and causing some WAF grief.  (something as simple as the thermostat turning itself on to 90 F at whatever randoms times can cause some WAF stuff too.)
 
On the second box I have some 18 serial connections plus XX HSTouch connections.  Old HS2 just looses memory until it doesn't run any events and if I leave it be it will reboot itself (BSOD).    I do have it controlling the touchscreens (standby, wol, screen off, screen savers et al). 
 
New HS3 is still a bit buggy(I purchased it) (and evolving) and will it will some time yet for a production version that you can utilize everyday box; unless you want to be a "test" participant or just wait a couple of years(?).  The architecture of the software is totally different and will allow the "plugins" to run autonmously somewhat from the core HS.  That said I am doing that today with one plugin that was rewritten to run independantly of HS on my little Linux Seagate Dockstar; now maybe two years 24/7.  Today this application is linked to the HS page and can be controlled by HS but is not at this time and runs just fine by itself. 
 
I currently (and its a WAF) prefer that the HAI panel control (automate) its connectivity autonomously and quickly and with no glitches at this time; but that is me and my personal opinion.  The house is relatively soundproof with solid core doors.  I do hear some loud dialog between the wife and the parrot (they do not like each other) and then some software HA glitch which triggers some odd TTS debaucle or this or that.