New User and EHX questions?

opie

Active Member
I am a new integrator and have found tons of great information on this forum and figured it was time I introduced myself and asked a question.

As stated, I am new but not new to Automation. I have had X-10 in my home for 10 years or so and have more recently been working with Insteon and others. I recently had an opportunity to leave my career as an Airline Pilot and have been studying very hard to become a independent professional integrator. As part of my education I will be attending EHX in Orlando next month. I would like some feedback as to the value of the boot camps versus confrence training and free Vendor Classes. I am really only interested in one boot camp and several of the conference sessions. I don't have a huge budget for this show but want to make the most of my time. I dont think I need the very basic stuff but am more interested in the workflow of installing a system and how to be efficient.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I have tons more questions but will try to not ask too many at once.

Thanks in Advance
 
Welcome to CocoonTech! Since you will be coming to EHExpo, please sign up here and join us for dinner and maybe more. Where are you from?

Ask all the questions you want and give us as much detail as you can as I think you will find the BootCamp to be a very personal question.

Which class(es) are you considering? What systems or software do you plan on installing?
 
Thanks for the welcome.

I live southwest of Denver, CO and serve Denver and the surrounding suburbs.

As far as the BootCamp, I am planning to attend the Retrofit/Remodel session on the 30th. My target market is existing homes and this seems to cover a lot of areas that would help my workflow.

The other conferences I am considering are:

Selecting and Designing User Interfaces
Business Management for Small Integrators
Secrets of Reliable IR Control

Will a Showroom Enhance Your Business?
Emerging Technologies in Home Networking Control
CE Integration Business Startup
Secure New Customers With A Warrior's Marketing Plan

I am also planning to attend the free sessions from NuVo, Russound and ELK.

I initially plan on installing ELK and HAI systems. I have attended a few training sessions from HAI, but I really like the price/feature ratio of the ELKs. I feel comfortable with Lighting Control and HVAC. I want to expand with multi-room audio/video and security. I have also received a demo on the Cortexa system and am planning to take a closer look at it at the Expo.

Software wise I come from the Mac side and have been using Indigo for a while in my house. I bought a windows machine a few months back and have played with some demo versions of HomeSeer, ELK RP, HAI PC Access, UPStart and a few others. At this point I would rather stick with hardware based solutons initially.
 
Sounds like you've done your homework.

The only comment would be to make sure that you leave yourself enough time to go through the floor show. If you want to really have a chance to go through and look at the exhibits, plan on a minimum of 6 hours or more. The floor show is open Thursday (9-6), Friday (9-6), and Saturday (9-2). If you take a boot camp, that shoots down one day. Take a few manufacturer classes, and puts a good dent in a second day, leaving very little time for the floor show. I made the mistake of trying to do too much last year, and ended up paying for a boot camp that I skipped.
 
jlehnert said:
The floor show is open Thursday (9-6), Friday (9-6), and Saturday (9-2). If you take a boot camp, that shoots down one day.
Expo Hours
  • Thursday, March 30 10am - 6pm
  • Friday, March 31 10am - 6pm then dinner
  • Saturday, April 1 10am - 3pm
Some of the boot camps, etc start on Tuesday, so some do not interfere with the Expo, but some do.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

Maybe I'm just better off skipping boot camps this year and leaving myself flexible; that would save some of money too. The boot camp I want to take on the 30th overlaps a few other shorter sessions I want to take anyway.

(jlehnert Posted on Feb 27 2006, 10:44 PM)
Some more information about EHX

Thanks for the pointer to the other thread. I did a search before I started this thread on EHX but didn't find that one.

Thanks Again!
 
Opie,
Make sure you visit Cinemar in booth 1741 at the show. Last row in the back on your way to the concession stands. Would love to show you the latest in Home Automation and Media Management software.

EDIT, updated booth number.
 
WayneW wrote
Expo Hours
Thursday, March 30 10am - 6pm
Friday, March 31 10am - 6pm then dinner
Saturday, April 1 10am - 3pm

GAH! I was reading from the EHX pamphlet when I wrote that, and still got it wrong. I have dyslexia must. ;) Either that, or I'm getting old. :D
 
Just a quick update to David's post above.

The Cinemar booth is now #1741.

Hopefully we'll see some CocoonTech visitors.
 
Back
Top