My wife; my HA partner.

[123]

I've mentioned in other posts that my wife is Director of QA when it concerns our home's automation system. She also has a high tolerance for my programming errors as witnessed by the fact we remain married after being awakened at 3:00AM with a house-wide announcement: "Premise speech is initialized!" (the server rebooted after an extended power outage; I continue to forget to eliminate that @!#! message).

She was in fine form this morning with the following comment about my Environment Canada weather module.

We've had a cool, rainy Spring and the first few days of summer have been wet and dreary. Todays' forecast shows rain icons for the next few days. With a grin she said: "Are you sure you programmed this thing with sun icons?".

 

[felixrosbergen]

Good to hear your able to maintain a good WAF balance...mine has been pretty good so far..she really like the Whole House Audio and enjoys the convenience of the automatic outside lights and all the lights going off at bedtime.

She was the one insisting we get an alarm..which got me the ELK...

The next step is to conveince here to let me cut a hole in the wall for the ELO.

 

[beelzerob]

Oh, I think she'll like it. My wife *loves* our kitchen touchscreen. She frequently goes out of her way to remind me again how much she likes it. Now THAT'S buyin!

But I agree with 123....my wife is the one who makes all my HA endeavors possible (and enjoyable!). Especially all the wiring she helped me do in mid-winter!

 

[Sacedog]

Agreed. She loves a lot of the HA that I do, and sometimes rolls her eyes at some other things. Ultimately, if she is happy with it, so am I.

 

[IVB]

Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs are the two people most responsible for convincing my wife to tolerate my HA endeavors. I'll let you google them if you're unaware of how powerful those two are...

 

[Neurorad]

You guys are lucky bastards.

 

[electron]

That's one heck of a price to pay

 

[tmbrown97]

My wife loves the stuff. Last week we were in the kitchen and it was too warm - instead of walking down the hall to the thermostat she went to the livingroom and used the ElkRMS on the PC. Now with the eeeTop she's even quicker to bring things up on the touch screen.

Problem is - she doesn't think it's worth $5/switch for lighting control - let alone the $70-ish. She doesn't think a touchscreen in the wall is worth more than $50. And, it doesn't matter what i buy her - Whole House Audio would pay for plane tickets to Maui. She'd rather go there than hear music in the morning. She'd go once a month and never let me get my stereo if she had a choice because it would always be her preference.

So - things show up; things disappear... we don't talk pricing. I'm "borrowing" a lot of equipment - or I say "don't worry about it" when she asks cost - or worst case, she only gets part of the total. Only way I can make it work.

 

[SnyperBob]

So - things show up; things disappear... we don't talk pricing. I'm "borrowing" a lot of equipment - or I say "don't worry about it" when she asks cost - or worst case, she only gets part of the total. Only way I can make it work.

Yeah, my wife used to ask what stuff cost. Then after a while she just told me to not tell her anymore. This includes costs for car repairs, performance mods for my hotrod, H/A toys, etc....

As long as the bills are paid and we aren't spending savings, she's happy, lol

 

[sic0048]

My wife loves the stuff. Last week we were in the kitchen and it was too warm - instead of walking down the hall to the thermostat she went to the livingroom and used the ElkRMS on the PC. Now with the eeeTop she's even quicker to bring things up on the touch screen.

Problem is - she doesn't think it's worth $5/switch for lighting control - let alone the $70-ish. She doesn't think a touchscreen in the wall is worth more than $50. And, it doesn't matter what i buy her - Whole House Audio would pay for plane tickets to Maui. She'd rather go there than hear music in the morning. She'd go once a month and never let me get my stereo if she had a choice because it would always be her preference.

So - things show up; things disappear... we don't talk pricing. I'm "borrowing" a lot of equipment - or I say "don't worry about it" when she asks cost - or worst case, she only gets part of the total. Only way I can make it work.

Hopefully all those things will grow on her. If you had asked her if she would like to control the thermostat via computer, she probably would have looked at you strangely. Now she loves it. I suspect the same would go for whole house audio and lighting controls. Even if see doesn't listen to music that much, she might enjoy voice annoucements (weather or number of missed calls when returning home, etc).

Every person has their own triggers. I'm just glad my wife's triggers aren't Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs!

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs are the two people most responsible for convincing my wife to tolerate my HA endeavors.

Maybe you can get them to become Cocooners! (We do have a rather fashionable logo)

 

[tmbrown97]

Maybe you can get them to become Cocooners! (We do have a rather fashionable logo)

NOOOOOO!!!! Then the wife might want to visit the site - and we'd all be in trouble!

 

[gfs]

so why is it that my HA breaks down when I am NOT at home????

 

[AnthonyZ]

so why is it that my HA breaks down when I am NOT at home????

Ugh....I know that scenario all too well...

 

[JeffCharger]

so why is it that my HA breaks down when I am NOT at home????

Ugh....I know that scenario all too well...

That's what we have remote control software for!