(oops hit submit too soon)
Just got these items on Friday and have had the weekend to play around with them.
first off a few quick notes about the 10P:
now a few quick comments about my experiences with the Automation Studio sw:
Now the gripes:
Just got these items on Friday and have had the weekend to play around with them.
first off a few quick notes about the 10P:
- the 10P runs XP embedded, and the image isn't locked down, so you can install additional apps (e.g. PC Access or other windows apps) if they fit in the internal 4GB CF card.
- the 10P feels a little bigger than i had imagined it would (not heavy just large-ish). overall the construction is solid, the screen resolution is 800x600 and the screen seems pretty responsive.
- the hard buttons don't seem to do anything by default. you can assign functions to them using Automation Studio.
- the build of XPe doesn't seem to include support for WPA2. i upgraded my home wifi to WPA2 a long time ago and support has existed within XP for even longer. the XPe build does include a 3rd party wireless utility and i was able to establish a WPA2 connection using it instead of windows' wireless networking. unfortunately when i reboot the 10P it doesn't reconnect
- the built-in USB ports are useful, keep a USB keyboard and mouse as they may come in handy.
- if the omnitouch pro sw on the 10P tries to connect to your HAI OPII and you don't have connectivity, it sits at the "Connecting" screen indefinitely. there isn't any way i could find to abort or cancel. with a keyboard you can hit ALT-F4 or launch the task manager and kill the process.
- the UI updates can be a bit sluggish. for example when i attempt to control the volume of my NuVo GC through the 10P, increasing or decreasing the volume takes forever. there's a long latency for the initial and subsequent updates.
now a few quick comments about my experiences with the Automation Studio sw:
- it's not very polished IMHO. the sw is prone to throwing exceptions; while i'm sure this is because of something i'm doing wrong (e.g. not having set the controller info prior to starting to mess around), the user experience here could be better. PCAccess is a much more mature and stable product.
- i wish HAI had included some 'blank' task buttons in addition to the various image gallery items. the buttons along the bottom all have a nice look to them (gradient and shadow and all), but if i wanted to create a new button and page (e.g. for "Irrigation") it's very difficult for me to create something that has a consistent appearance.
- it's really nice to be able to customize the contents of the various lists (Units, Buttons, Messages, etc). It's always bugged me that with the Omnitouch my UPB-controlled sprinklers were listed side by side with my UPB lighting (scene and level options, lightbulb icon and all), or that my list of buttons and messages included items used by my automation and not meant for someone to select interactively.
- when I select an item in the Canvas and right click on Action or Properties, i think it should bring the Project Explorer window to the foreground. it's really annoying having to find that window buried under the others (i'm doing this work on a laptop with 1024x768 resolution so perhaps this usability nit isn't apparent if you're using a large screen).
- I would love a multi-level undo feature. there were various points where i broke the functionality of the existing templates (e.g. the object panels and object lists would show nothing) and the only way i could figure out how to recover was to start over.
- the built-in simulator is very nice. that said i did notice a problem with my 'main menu' buttonpanel disappearing periodically from the simulator.
- it's really nice to be able to program the 10P (and presumably the 5.7e) to be able to take actions upon various system events, e.g. send email when user X disarms the system. that should have been built into the OPII from the start AFAIAC.
- the built-in XPe image for the 10P includes IE as its browser. IE is pretty far behind the times, and I would love to use something else e.g. Firefox or Chrome. While I can see how to launch IE (incl. w/ a particular URL) as an action in Automation Studio programming, it's not clear to me whether that extends to any programs besides IE and the built-in keyboard app.
- the documentation for Automation Studio is pretty sparse. There is a Worthington webinar that seems pretty long but I really /hate/ having to watch videos to learn what I need to: they're hard to fast-forward, only indexed to a limited degree, and are inevitably not well paced for me. I have this problem with several vendors in the HA space so this isn't unique to this product.
Now the gripes:
- I've noticed that the 10P Audio panel shows ~the same display as my current Omnitouch 5.7 but all the buttons don't work! Specifically: the MENU, <<, and >> don't seem to do anything when my Ipod or MusicPort sources are selected (but these work fine from my Omnitouch 5.7!). Can someone from HAI confirm that this has been tested and/or is supposed to work?
- ..and the kicker: I spent a few hours yesterday and today customizing the built-in template screens using Automation Studio and successfully updated my 10P. I saved very frequently and tested everything in the Simulator. When I uploaded my work to my 10P everything came over great. This evening when I launched Automation Studio again to make a few more tweaks, I opened my project file and while the "Device" is there, the "Design" is nowhere to be found! It appears like I lost my hours of work and I can't find a way to download the current design from the 10P itself. While I know how to recreate my work and I could probably do it faster this time around, I'm quite hesitant to invest more time in this product before I know that my work is safe. Does anyone from HAI have any suggestions to help me determine if my work can be recovered or if I can somehow download my templates from the 10P?
