What is wrong with CQC?

[Dean Roddey]

To add to that, I have multiple tablets, PCs, and phones in my house. My kis have iPads. So to select music with Sonos, I select whichever device is closest. I've got a couple of older tablets too that are rarely used and likely will buy some of the cheap Windows tablets at some point. To me, the per device charge doesn't make a lot of sense now-a-days. If I have to pick a device based on whichever ones have the CQC client on it vs which device is closest, then I'd likely say CQCs days are numbered in my house. I've had that thought since before I even purchased CQC but figured it would work itself out...and I've got way more devices in the house now than I did 2 years ago.

 
I put forward a proposal a couple pages back about upping the client limits, and if that would be helpful. I was proposing just adding three to all the tiers, so three would be the minimum, silver would be six, Gold would be nine, and so forth.

 

[Dean Roddey]

So here is my list.  What would the right purchase be?
 
Xantech ZPR68 with Extender (10 zones total)
SageTV (Server, one client and one extender)
Amazon FireTV
Pioneer Rcvr
Outlaw Audio Pre & Amp
Epson Projector
LG TV
HTPC
AM/FM Tuner
iTunes (I need to be able to run at least 2 streams simultaneously to different zones)
Volumio on a RaspBerry Pi for internet streams, although it could be something else, like Squeezebox.
UPB
Global Cache GC100 to control all of the IR stuff
Asterisk PBX
 
3 Tablets and 2 Phones.  One PC with a touchscreen currently.  How many clients is that?  Is it 6?  I am still unsure if each device is a client, or if they were all Android are they one?

 
Some of those things are either not related to drivers per se, or things for which there is no current support  (the FireTV, Asterisk, Volumio, and HTPC.) So that leaves nine devices (assuming the tuner is something we have a driver for.)  You'd likely end up with a few more at some not too distant point (new drivers that support the stuff you currently have that are not supported now, or something new), so assume a bit more than that.
 
You would need six clients, as you'd suspect.
 
In the current scheme, that would be a Gold system. If we implement the expansion of client capacity I indicated above, then Silver would cover it (since that would be 6 clients for Silver.) Silver would be plenty of drivers, twice what you currently need, so lots of room for growth.
 
Of course if you got a Gold system, that also comes with a free year of upgrades as well, Bronze and Silver don't get that. Someone might complain that's just more complexity but pretty much all companies do that sort of thing. Buy more and you tend to get more perks.

 

[Dean Roddey]

The reason it's impossible to tell you how many drivers you need without consultation is because of the various ways hardware interacts with automation systems. In the introductory document I'm working on, in the early section that's non-CQC specific, just about automation systems in general, I try to layout the handful of ways that almost all devices connect to automation systems, and what that means in terms of device drivers. There's always one driver per connection to a device, it's just that some devices are unitary and some devices are hubs or gateways that the automation system talks to, which in turn control other things. So an Elk, Omni, RA2, Hue, Z-Wave, etc... it's just one driver because there's one connection to a box and that's all the automation system talks to.

 

[dgage]

I put forward a proposal a couple pages back about upping the client limits, and if that would be helpful. I was proposing just adding three to all the tiers, so three would be the minimum, silver would be six, Gold would be nine, and so forth.

Dean,
 
I don't envy you and I don't necessarily have a problem with what you are proposing, it would actually fit me well at this point in time.  But I'll throw this out as food for thought.  Here are the devices I have in my 2500 sq.ft. house + basement with 4 people in the household, in my mind a modest house considering the cost of home automation.  And actually, at this point, since Riva went away, I don't even know how to run CQC from my phones or tablets so I'm not close to a client limit but if I were to really turn my home automation over to CQC, which should be the goal, then I'd potentially run into client capacity issues.
 
2 phones (soon to be 4 when my kids get older) Win Phone and Android
4 tablets (iPad, 2 iPad Minis, cheap Android)
4 laptops
2 dedicated 27" touchscreen computers on 1st and 2nd floors (primary CQC usage) (may be 3 if I ever finish the basement)
Plus Windows Media Center PC and CQC PC
 
I have a tech happy household but I don't think I'm out of bounds with other potential CQCers.  Do I need to run CQC on all of these devices?  Maybe not.  But it is nice to being able to control our Sonos system from any of my devices without worrying about client count...of course, I'm paying for the Sonos hardware so might be slightly different but still pertinent.  I can also purchase one copy of a piece of software for iOS and have it run on 5 or more devices so I don't really have to worry about client control there either and that plays into my thinking too.  What it comes down to is the idea to pay by client made a lot of sense a few years ago but is really being eroded as practical due to the ubiquity of multiple devices for each person in a household.  Or maybe the definition of a device needs to change such that maybe a phone wouldn't count. 
 
But if people are complaining about cost and the number of devices becomes an issue, then cost will indirectly become an issue due to someone wanting to run on more devices.  I don't have the right answer but I just wonder if including device numbers still makes sense.  Again, I'm throwing out potential issues with why some people might not consider CQC...like I said, two years ago, I foresaw the number of clients as a potential problem and the number of devices is just skyrocketing.
 
David

 

[Dean Roddey]

BTW, RIVA hasn't gone away. It'll be there for some time to come. We wouldn't get rid of it until such time as our upcoming HTML5 client was a very viable replacement.
 
Also, keep in mind that client count is simultaneous usage. We don't currently enforce the number of clients, though we will at some point. But, when we do, it'll be the number in use at one time. So I'm imagining that that's going to be considerably less than the maximum number of actual physical clients. The fixed, always on type clients will obviously always count as ones in use (though well worth it IMO to have some always available ones.) But, for others, you can just stop/start the client as required to do what you need. There's no need to have a CQC client running full time on a phone in your pocket, right? If you should start getting more than the occasional "all clients in use" warning, add a couple more.

 

[Dean Roddey]

It's also possible that we might in the future provide some sort of 'fixed capacity' sort of configuration, where you could set aside some client slots for specific clients, as a means to insure access. If we were to do that, that would be your choice if you felt like eating a slot even if it's not always in use is important in order for you to insure that a particular (not always connected) client could always get in when it needs to. Or, you could just say that only always on clients will have guaranteed access and everyone else is first come first served.
 
I just checked and the Try/Buy -> Information page doesn't explicitly say what the policy is for determining number of clients, because for now it just says we don't yet technically enforce them. But I'll get it updated to make it clear that that will be what the policy is when it becomes enforced.

 

[dgage]

I just checked and the Try/Buy -> Information page doesn't explicitly say what the policy is for determining number of clients, because for now it just says we don't yet technically enforce them. But I'll get it updated to make it clear that that will be what the policy is when it becomes enforced.

 
I remember reading about the non-enforcement but definitely didn't get the feeling that device numbers were in-use and I also just checked the Try/Buy page just now.  Knowing what you just told me would have made me feel much better about the device limits way back when and could have a material impact on others choosing CQC.  And I like the ability you mention to reserve licenses for a dedicated CQC machine like I have in my kitchen while all other devices can be floating.  Sounds like a great solution and relieves any concern I have about device limit.

 

[picta]

Oh the PC hardware thing, yeh, basically they are all PCs now, more or less. They are just put into a box with a manufacturer's name on it and some bespoke hardware in some cases. C4 is a Linux box, probably a lot (all?) of these new hubs type devices are. But Win10 will finally at least somewhat change that balance I think. And I think that the exceptionally good development tools available for Windows makes a good argument for using it as a platform. But that would probably seldom in the past won out against the economics of the per-unit cost of Windows. The low price of Win10 should allow for both, and the quality of the dev tools shouldn't be underestimated, IMO.
 
Once nice thing about it might be the ability to have a low cost embedded device that can still have a very rich GUI, and not have to use a Web Browser.

IMO, windows are on the way out in general to be replaced by linux/android and apple OS. The enterprises are rapidly migrating their windows boxes to apple, while the consumers all over the world are going with apple or android. The new development tools are now being created for mobile applications, which is the future of UI, so Win10 is way too late to the market and may go the way of Win8.
 
But specifically for home automation the windows OS was never a good choice as the HA server needs to run 24/7 and windows was never able to achieve the kind of reliability required for a server. Networking part sucks as well. I finally had to replace my old windows laptop and got a new one with Win 8.1 (unfortunately I still have to run some legacy software that is yet not available for apple OS, but hopefully soon will be). I am having many issues with it from the start, and spent hours trying to map a network drive that works with the old computer, but on the new one gives me a green bar that runs for a while and then stops without connecting to the drive. If anyone here knows how to fix this, I would greatly appreciate your advice, but this is the kind of experience that would stop me from investing in anything windows in the future.
 
Since CQC is a C++ based product, perhaps it could be ported to linux/mac for the server side, and with an iOS/android clients that could make an awesome HA product for both commercial and consumer lines. I know it is easier said than done, but from the consumer perspective that is the HA software I would love to have.

 

[pete_c]

The enterprises are rapidly migrating their windows boxes to apple, while the consumers all over the world are going with apple or android.

 
I doubt that most enterprise large office environments are changing over to using Apple desktops these days. 
 

 
The mobile phone market today is primarily Android (relating to actual number sales). Guessing in less than two years from now it will be changing and iOS will be dropping a bit (mostly due to pricing).  Microsoft mobile and said promo efforts will move it probably to 2nd place below Android or maybe even 1st place.
 

 
You can now purchase just about any sized Android tablet for less than $100 and folks are purchasing these like ants at picnic.  Its mostly relating to function and price these days.  Well now today you can purchase a dual booting Intel based Android / Windows tablet for just about $100.  Folks are gravitating towards this because they can buy 4 tablets now for the price of one.
 
Personally for the automation console I prefer Linux but still utilize Windows (embedded) and do not care much for wireless tablets connected to my automation (even though I use them but they are not hung up on my walls or mounted to a wall).  Goofing around here did make an automation console using a $40 4.5" Android tablet with big icons / fonts. It was functional and cute but not what I wanted.  Enabled the front camera on this device and put it in my Parrot cage for fun.  It worked fine.
 
For that hardcore automation DIYer you can now base your automation on a RPi (including consoles) for free these days (well and the prices of a few RPi's / consoles / et al). 
 
HomeGenie comes to mind here.

 

[fcwilt]

I love it. The concept that Windows never worked well in the server world. Priceless.

 

[picta]

They do. This chart reflects the level, you should look at YoY change. The removal of support for winXP prompted businesses to switch to win7, it has been going on for a few years, but now the trend is shifting towards linux/apple. The iOS devices dominate the US, android in the rest of the world. No place for windows.
 

I doubt that most enterprise large office environments are changing over to using Apple desktops these days. 

 

[fcwilt]

I am having many issues with it from the start, and spent hours trying to map a network drive that works with the old computer

 
Why are you trying to map a network drive?

 

[picta]

I have a bunch of files on that drive that I need to copy over.

 

[picta]

Some info on trends in mobile OS: http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/smartphone-os-market-share/

 

[Automate]

The iOS devices dominate the US,

 
You'r living in a dream  http://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held-by-smartphone-platforms-in-the-united-states/