Homeseer and Radio Ra2

Not to beat a dead horse but I just want to be sure. UPB, Z-Wave and X10 can all be controlled directly via Homeseer. Lutron Radio Ra2 cannot be controlled directly via HS3.
Yes
 
Here main Homeseer mothership has 16 direct serial connections, 7 USB connections plus virtual IP, serial and USB connections.  I am doing more than lighting stuff on the Homeseer box and it feeds my automation hobby.
 
Here though I consider the HAI automation just keeping the heartbeat of the home running.  It's not really automation to me anymore cuz it takes care of itself.  I don't watch it or remote it these days.  It doesn't need my cell phone nor the internet to function. 
 
But if I have the beta HAI plugin for HS3 then I can control the Lutron from HS3 via HAI?
 
Yes.
 
And is this two-way such that if I change the light status of a Lutron light outside of Homeseer that status will update in Homeseer?
 
Yes
 
With all the plug ins that are available for HS3 why isn't there a Radio Ra2 plugin?
 
Because most Homeseer 3 folks are not using RR2.  Do a query here on Cocoontech relating to how many folks are using RR2 here today. 
 
You can automate lighting using many different types of technology. 
 
It is your choice what you want to do.  Whatever it is you do will be a substantial investment and really what you want is something that will be around a while.  RR2, X10, Insteon, Z-Wave, Zigbee and UPB are not going away anytime soon.  Expect though if you want to automate every light in your home that it will be a spend no matter what technlogy you utilize and that is only relating to lighting automation.
 
Especially since it was available for HS2. Is a plug in being developed or is there some technical reason that makes direct communication between HS3 and Radio Ra2 impossible?
 
No
 
You asked yourself on the HS forum.  Blade (Bob's) brother has RR2 and Homeseer.  It is up to Bob to write a plugn and to support the plugin. 
 
Thanks for all the info, guys!
 
So I have another question that I hope isn't a stupid question.
 
I'm not seeing any real slick keypads for Homeseer like the ones made by Lutron and RTI. What I've seen for Homeseer looks very old school, like an old 80's alarm system with chalky backlit buttons. So what I'm wondering is if I can use Lutron Radio Ra2 keypads to trigger things on Homeseer. That is with the situation presented above where I have HAI between HS and RR2.
 
On that note, are there any slick looking keypads for HS? Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. 
 
And what about in-wall touchscreens? Any alternatives to the ridiculously overpriced Omnitouch?
 
So I have another question that I hope isn't a stupid question.
 
I do not mean any disrespect but it is a stupid question. 
 
Keypads have nothing to do with Homeseer. 
 
My personally suggestion is to pick up a copy of CE Pro and look for an automation vendor that will install a package for you whatever you decide. 
 
Personally you will be better off doing this and it will save you some headaches.
 
Note this is a suggestion and you can you do anything you want.
 
Thanks for all the info, guys!
 
So I have another question that I hope isn't a stupid question.
 
I'm not seeing any real slick keypads for Homeseer like the ones made by Lutron and RTI. What I've seen for Homeseer looks very old school, like an old 80's alarm system with chalky backlit buttons. So what I'm wondering is if I can use Lutron Radio Ra2 keypads to trigger things on Homeseer. That is with the situation presented above where I have HAI between HS and RR2.
Not to rub salt in the wound, but CQC will let you do that, since it has direct support for RA2, so you don't have to work through something else.
 
pete_c said:
I do not mean any disrespect but it is a stupid question. 
 
Keypads have nothing to do with Homeseer. 
 
If Homeseer controls my sprinklers and I want a button on a keypad to turn my sprinklers on then the keypad has to communicate with Homeseer. Doesn't it?
 
Dean Roddey said:
Not to rub salt in the wound, but CQC will let you do that, since it has direct support for RA2, so you don't have to work through something else.
 
I've warmed up to CQC but the lack of Android control is a real deal breaker for me. 
 
It's not that there's not any Android support, on the client end I mean. The back end has to be Windows. There is currently a third party Android client that uses our RIVA architecture. It's not as good as the iOS RIVA client, I will admit.

But, we are working towards an HTML5 client which should cover iOS and Android (and other HTML5 compliant platforms.) We hope to get that done in the context of the 5.0 release later this year, but the HTML5 client may still be at the beta stage when we actually do 5.0 (the big ticket item really being a full rework of the admin/tools UI), to be finished off for 5.1. But the HTML5 client will get there. So it might just be an issue of whether you are happy enough with the current RIVA Android client that you are willing to use that until the HTML5 client gets ready.

The Windows client will always be the most capable, because it's just built on the more capable OS by far, and certainly far less limited than working in HTML5. But the HTML5 client should be a pretty nice one for non-Windows users, and It will be a 'fatter' client than RIVA clients, and so will not have some of the limits they do. Given that HTML5 is sort of the only practical cross platform solution, there's not really any other way to go about it anyway. But we will always keep the Windows client as the flagship.

Ultimately, though it has taken a long time, I think that Microsoft's failure to get a 'portable' OS to take hold (aka Windows RT, and CE before that) will end up being a good thing, since machines are getting so much smaller and more powerful. They will effectively end up with one, full featured OS across a whole range of machines (though obviously scaled up and down to match.) That will be a vastly better solution than having one desktop OS and one (much less capable) portable OS.
 
Second time....
 
My personally suggestion is to pick up a copy of CE Pro and look for an automation vendor that will install a package for you whatever you decide. 
 
Personally you will be better off doing this and it will save you some headaches.
 
Let the vendor think for you and pay the company for their efforts. And really quit asking stupid questions.
 
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