Here's some bio info on the guy from his site:
Steve Kirsch, 42, was chairman and founder of Infoseek Corporation, a leading Internet navigation service. But Disney acquired Infoseek on November 17, 1999. That meant that Steve was out of a job, looking for work. In other words, he became one of the "unemployed in Silicon Valley."
Failing to find suitable work at reasonable pay, he started Propel.
Prior to Infoseek, Steve founded Frame Technology in 1986 and Mouse Systems in 1982. He has been involved with the Internet since 1972 when he worked with the "father of the Internet" Vint Cerf and others at the first ARPANET node as a systems programmer while attending high school. He has BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT
So it sounds like he's relatively tech saavy, and that the video was done tongue-in-cheek to me.... but is representative of actual problems he had whenhe first set it up, hopefuly it's working correctly buy now.
My guess, having a tech background, the guy dove into the process and picked all the equipment himself, having regular old electricians and such (not custom automation installers) install everything for him and thought he could figure out all the logic himself. Looks like it didn't work... I bet if one of us had unlimited rsources and tried to do everything at once without first learning what does and does not work, we'd end up withthe same results. I myself had many preconceptions about what would be cool and great to have whenI started and now know that I'd be a fool to automate certain things, or autmate certain things via a specific technique.
He could probably hire some pros to come in and selectively replace equipment (using what he already has as a good base) and have the system 100% reliable. Judging by all the junk in the house (ladders, boxes, etc.) he hadn't even moved into the house yet. Hopefully all his issues are resolved by now.
JMHO...
