So you guys must manufacture more of your hardware in the U.S. than they do? :rofl:macromark said:California company? That's stretching it a bit. The domain is registered to one or their principals (with a California address) but their engineering team, manufacturing team and principal sales force are based in China. They do have a business dev rep in the states though... I'll grant you that!
New Z-wave controller
- Thread starter JimMurphy
- Start date
ChrisCicc
Active Member
LarrylLix said:Paranoia runs high, here.
The fear of competing manufacturers may be more indicative than many phony online reviews.
The only fear I have is for the consumers who got duped into buying an unproven Chinese automation system unwittingly.
I find it interesting that a company that can build such quality smart devices, also acts so shadily on the sales side. It appears to me there is a big gap between the engineering and sales cultures in that company.
Deane Johnson
Active Member
It seems that everyone with a soldering iron is inventing another electronic device with the marketing based on a lot of happy faces on the web page and comments about how the device will do everything. Then, in a few months, or a year or two, it's gone from the scene.
I've gotten to the point where I'm now resisting buying things because I'm fed up with the big promise. As the old Wendy's commercial used to say "where's the beef".
I've gotten to the point where I'm now resisting buying things because I'm fed up with the big promise. As the old Wendy's commercial used to say "where's the beef".
ChrisCicc
Active Member
Like these guys?
2012 Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ninja/ninja-blocks-connect-your-world-with-the-web
2014 Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ninja/ninja-sphere-next-generation-control-of-your-envir
2015: "High Profile Tech Startup Ninja Blocks Goes Bust"
They usually follow the same pattern: over spend on hardware, shortchange software development, deliver a poor user experience.
2012 Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ninja/ninja-blocks-connect-your-world-with-the-web
2014 Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ninja/ninja-sphere-next-generation-control-of-your-envir
2015: "High Profile Tech Startup Ninja Blocks Goes Bust"
They usually follow the same pattern: over spend on hardware, shortchange software development, deliver a poor user experience.
The only fear I have is for the consumers who got duped into buying an unproven Chinese automation system unwittingly.
I find it interesting that a company that can build such quality smart devices, also acts so shadily on the sales side. It appears to me there is a big gap between the engineering and sales cultures in that company.
I don't think this is related to the country of origin. I d agree that the language barrier is a problem. I have products created in the US from people frequenting here with instructions like
"The activation button should be pressed only when the activation should be pressed"
or
"When a problem exists in the setup then a problem is existing in the setup"
or
"when setting up please be sure to set up the unit"
or
"this on/off function when used provided for the use of the function"
"This is the one ...eh?. Please be sure it is ...eh?"
Maybe we can start a "free energy" kickstarter project to make energy from old Australian magnets? With USD, of course.
I saw this the other day and I love it so I'll share it.
"When a man says, 'he will get to it' he will get to it!
There is no point in bringing it up every six months!"
I find it interesting that a company that can build such quality smart devices, also acts so shadily on the sales side. It appears to me there is a big gap between the engineering and sales cultures in that company.
I don't think this is related to the country of origin. I d agree that the language barrier is a problem. I have products created in the US from people frequenting here with instructions like
"The activation button should be pressed only when the activation should be pressed"
or
"When a problem exists in the setup then a problem is existing in the setup"
or
"when setting up please be sure to set up the unit"
or
"this on/off function when used provided for the use of the function"
"This is the one ...eh?. Please be sure it is ...eh?"
Maybe we can start a "free energy" kickstarter project to make energy from old Australian magnets? With USD, of course.
I saw this the other day and I love it so I'll share it.
"When a man says, 'he will get to it' he will get to it!
There is no point in bringing it up every six months!"
ChrisCicc
Active Member
Compare to Russia, for instance, where they are huge on software and great coders. Why the difference? China didn't have much of an internal tech industry until recently. They were building things we designed. Hardware designs were sent there, manufactured, and mated with software developed here.
Russia on the other hand has a long tech industry history dating back to WWII. After the war, the US advanced much more rapidly on semi conductors and hardware. Our machines were faster. To close the gap, Russians became very efficient coders. That's why to this day, so many of the hacks/viruses/worms originated in Russia and former Soviet states.
Russia on the other hand has a long tech industry history dating back to WWII. After the war, the US advanced much more rapidly on semi conductors and hardware. Our machines were faster. To close the gap, Russians became very efficient coders. That's why to this day, so many of the hacks/viruses/worms originated in Russia and former Soviet states.
Wow jkmonroe, so Jim Murphy must be an American, there is no way as a FOREIGNER that I could have that grasp of English.jkmonroe said:
ray: Oh yes, only you Americans can communicate using proper English! :rofl: This is one of the funniest posts that I have read for ages - I may share it with some of my friends on Facebook!A little more about my background - I was born in Glasgow (Scotland), so I communicate using the Queen's English - the original and the best! So I hate to disrupt your bubble that only people from the USA have a good command of English. P.S. where do think the English language was developed? A couple of clues for you:
1) The clue is in the name - English
2) I know this may be challenging but please think of a country outside the USA!
Thanks for the reverse engineering photo link. BTW the photo is of me and was taken in the garden of my Somerset West (South Africa) home. The tree in the background is an Outiniqua Yellowwood, which is something like the Californian Sequoias and Redwoods. I was not aware that some people on the Internet were using my photo or passing them over as my likeness - I will need to investigate this further and see if these imposters will take the photos from their profiles.
Frunple - Jim Murphy is Oomi. I wish I was Oomi, as I think they will go far. I have no connection with Oomi except I have bought a platinum kit from them on the indiegogo campaign!
Deane Johnson - what makes you think that I'm fake, apart from the fact that I took the time to include an Avatar?
pete_c
Guru
Welcome to the Cocoontech forum Jim Murphy.
I apologize as I did not originally welcome you to our little forum here; rather wrote about alternative Z-Wave stuff.
1 - Are you looking to integrate security with automation?
2 - Have you installed a base of Z-Wave switches or any other automation type switches?
3 - Are you looking at new construction or retrofitting old construction?
4 - Have you installed some sort of automation infrastructure?
5 - What made you pick Oomi smart automation and invest $699 USD in their crowdfunding?
They have raised 1.5 million USD now (2065 folks invested) and their platinum kit is $699 USD.
Get immersed in the Oomi experience. You get Oomi Cube, Oomi Touch, Oomi Air, and Oomi Streamer, PLUS your choice of nine Oomi Z-wave accessories (choose between, Bulb, Plug, Multisensor, Door/Window Sensor).
Personally the description does read like many others. The website is nicely done.
The controller is unique.
Oomi Touch is the ultimate controller. "No more of this 'smartphone control makes everything super amazing' nonsense." (thanks, Slashgear) Oomi Touch is stunning. It is encased edge-to-edge in glass with a fully capacitive display and tactile buttons for quick control of your entertainment. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
I apologize as I did not originally welcome you to our little forum here; rather wrote about alternative Z-Wave stuff.
1 - Are you looking to integrate security with automation?
2 - Have you installed a base of Z-Wave switches or any other automation type switches?
3 - Are you looking at new construction or retrofitting old construction?
4 - Have you installed some sort of automation infrastructure?
5 - What made you pick Oomi smart automation and invest $699 USD in their crowdfunding?
They have raised 1.5 million USD now (2065 folks invested) and their platinum kit is $699 USD.
Get immersed in the Oomi experience. You get Oomi Cube, Oomi Touch, Oomi Air, and Oomi Streamer, PLUS your choice of nine Oomi Z-wave accessories (choose between, Bulb, Plug, Multisensor, Door/Window Sensor).
Personally the description does read like many others. The website is nicely done.
The controller is unique.
Oomi Touch is the ultimate controller. "No more of this 'smartphone control makes everything super amazing' nonsense." (thanks, Slashgear) Oomi Touch is stunning. It is encased edge-to-edge in glass with a fully capacitive display and tactile buttons for quick control of your entertainment. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
I must say that reading through the comments of the USA posters in this thread has been a real eye-opener! How you perceive threats from the Chinese, whether by them producing cheap quality products or whether there is a risk of them"spying" on you! The vast majority of technology is being manufactured in China, so non-Chinese automation equipment will be the exception rather than the rule! I have worked in the telecommunication industry, working for a big Canadian company that went bust as well as a Japanese company. My last big contract was working in the BT (British Telecommunication) laboratories as a contractor where the company paying me was one of the 8 preferred suppliers working on the BT21CN network. BT had chosen Huawei as one of these 8 suppliers, probably to encourage the other 7 vendors to bring their prices down a bit!
Huawei and the Chinese firms are "interesting" and there were a few episodes that came up involving Huawei (some good some bad) over the years I was working on the BT21CN network. One thing that was very clear when working with the Huawei engineers was their knowledge level was usually top-notch. Their engineers worked hard and were usually highly qualified. Most vendors had degree educated engineers on their teams, but several of the Huawei guys had PhDs.
As for people listening in to the telecommunications equipment, well there were security tests to show that no "unauthorized" people could access equipment by having passwords changed every 30 days and unnecessary ports were closed. There were also tests to show that "authorized" people (ie lawful intercept) could access equipment and listen into calls, but that is another story!
Huawei and the Chinese firms are "interesting" and there were a few episodes that came up involving Huawei (some good some bad) over the years I was working on the BT21CN network. One thing that was very clear when working with the Huawei engineers was their knowledge level was usually top-notch. Their engineers worked hard and were usually highly qualified. Most vendors had degree educated engineers on their teams, but several of the Huawei guys had PhDs.
As for people listening in to the telecommunications equipment, well there were security tests to show that no "unauthorized" people could access equipment by having passwords changed every 30 days and unnecessary ports were closed. There were also tests to show that "authorized" people (ie lawful intercept) could access equipment and listen into calls, but that is another story!
Thanks Pete. I'm just having fun going through all the comments here!pete_c said:
The set-up you mention is virtually exactly what I was originally planning to do. get a Raspberry Pi2 and Razberry Pi Z-wave module. It would be a cheap but powerful controller, but it would have taken me 100s of hours to program/debug it!pete_c said:
Yes, I will integrate security if I can achieve a good, seamless interface and it makes sense to me to have them integrated. I don't want to spend loads of money and I do like t get good "bang for my buck"pete_c said:
I've just done some Z-wave switches. I also looked into ZigBee and compared both technologies back in 2008 and settled on Z-wave. I'm still happy with my original decision.pete_c said:
Interesting question! My original plan was going to build a new house here in SA. My F-i-L built his house almost 40 years ago and said it wasn't worth all the trouble! I ended up buying a house that was built in 1956. So most of the stuff will be retro-fitted to this house, but there is a 70/30 chance that we will build a new bit onto the house.pete_c said:
I've been interested in home automation for years, but have only previously dabbled with a few Z-wave bits. I was also wanting to down the multi-room audio system and I was going to buy a Nuvo Grand Concerto if I was doing a new-build. I'll probably still do Nuvo if doing the extension.pete_c said:
With Oomi virtually everything seemed to come together in a slick package. The designers seemed to go down the same path that I would have done myself, if I wanted to design an automation controller. They have the Cube as the controller, but have a useful Touch that gives physical buttons to turn things on and off with a screen to see what is going on. You don't need to log into the system on a PC, laptop or phone. They have waited until the 5th generation of the Z-wave chip, which now supports interesting features like encrypting the wireless signal and allowing OTA firmware upgrades. So Z-wave technology seems to have finally come of age and this new company Oomi is using the new chips and creating a system that introduces features that makes the other manufacturers either outdated or not really trying hard enough! Buying on Indiegogo is a risk, as people could take the money yet fail to deliver a suitable bug-free solution. I didn't think that Oomi was that risky because they are using 5th generation Z-wave so hopefully even if they have a few bugs in the software, they can roll-out firmware upgrades to fix any reported problems. I have also been fairly impressed by how Oomi have handled people's questions and asked for feedback - they seem to be proactively asking people what they want and then attempting to meet that demand rather than designing a system and saying "This is how we do it, like it or lump it". $699 is a lot of money, but if Oomi succeed in pull off everything they have currently committed to then I believe I'm going to have a powerful home automation system that is worth much more than $700! Please bear in mind that I'm in South Africa where technology products are crazily expensive and it is sometimes actually cheaper for me to buy Z-wave kit in the UK and pay SA import duty than it is to buy it locally!pete_c said:
pete_c said:They have raised 1.5 million USD now (2065 folks invested) and their platinum kit is $699 USD.
Get immersed in the Oomi experience. You get Oomi Cube, Oomi Touch, Oomi Air, and Oomi Streamer, PLUS your choice of nine Oomi Z-wave accessories (choose between, Bulb, Plug, Multisensor, Door/Window Sensor).
Personally the description does read like many others. The website is nicely done.
The controller is unique.
ykcgk7by0u8jg5dchfvr.jpg
Oomi Touch is the ultimate controller. "No more of this 'smartphone control makes everything super amazing' nonsense." (thanks, Slashgear) Oomi Touch is stunning. It is encased edge-to-edge in glass with a fully capacitive display and tactile buttons for quick control of your entertainment. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
JimMurphy said:Wow jkmonroe, so Jim Murphy must be an American, there is no way as a FOREIGNER that I could have that grasp of English.
Sure - post away and enjoy it. Perhaps me using 'American' was a little much, but the use of colloquialisms was a bit much to pass up. Perhaps I should of used native 'English' speaker.
To answer for others, you did take the time to include an Avatar - but you chose one that appears obviously fake. And it that is you, then others are using your picture.
Regardless, I don't care either way - if you're a shill for Oomi or whoever, then be honest about it and come talk to us, we're a mostly receptive bunch. If you're not, my bad.
jkmonroe said:
So my Avatar appears obviously fake - what makes you come to that conclusion? :rofl: That photo is 100% of me - taken by my wife Renée in front of our Podocarpus falcatus tree in the garden of our home!
Again 100% true - my only connection with Oomi is I have ordered a platinum kit from them! If you are really interested and do some detective work, you could even see my profile on LinkedIn, which confirms which companies I have worked for in the past. I looked at some of these other photos of other people on LinkedIn that appeared to be linked to my photo. None of the links actually had any photos - it seems that it either a Google or LinkedIn bug that appears to be associating the names of these people with my image!
