What is wrong with CQC?

[wuench]

Yep, it's sad but that's the way it works.  People are attracted to shiny things.  I think there are a lot of good ideas in this thread.  You can do incremental improvements, etc.   But I think the business stuff is really what would give you a boost.   I don't know much about that kinda stuff, but thinking about examples like Facebook, that was basically a couple of guys in a dorm room that cranked out a lot less code than you, and what made them and all these other companies blow up was to seek funding at some point so they could staff up and expand.   It wasn't even close to an original idea, yet look at where they are.    
 
Of course, you lose a lot of control, and according to the movie, anyway, it looks like it almost went sideways even for them a couple of times...

 

[Dogman]

Well I have been using CQC for a few years now and I love it.   I will admit as a non computer person it has been a bit of a steep learning curve but I enjoy that.  Deans support of any issues is beyond compare.  I used it for awhile in concert with a Nevo hard button remote  but it died and they quit making them.  So then I ended up just completing all the rest of my remote control needs and use an IPAD for everything in the living room and a all in one touch screen in the kitchen.   My wife like its because I was able to build a pretty straight forward nice interface.   My plan is to replace the IPAD with a surface tablet because the RIVA client reconnect lag is annoying.  They only thing I would like to see is maybe some training web ex seminars.   The videos are great but don't always go into enough detail and the documentation doesn't have enough bone head examples for my pea brain.   
 
Before I decided on CQC I used homeseer and Cinemar Main Lobby.  Neither one had enough flexibility for what I eventually wanted to do but CQC can do anything that I will ever need.

 

[pete_c]

Just an interesting quote of the day from AV Technologies...
 
"My hope for the future is that companies will work together to create a middle ground and ’play nice' with their competitors. Both Apple and open-source products have their upsides, but it’s frustrating to have to choose one or the other if you want everything to work well inline, especially when end-users have specific preferences." —Joey North, IT Manager of Elemental Technologies

 

[Deane Johnson]

Pete, your post is interesting in that I have been giving some thought about the both the benefits and downsides to the open-source vs the Apple approach.
 
I see significant disadvantage to both approaches.  With Apple, it's either you will like my way of doing things or you don't get to play.  With open-source, we see all the constant hassles that Dean goes through to keep up with all the new things that come along, as well as keeping up with the changes brought on by the poorly engineered and tested devices in the first place.
 
Z-Wave is a standardized system, but even with that, look at how many devices there are that don't meet the strict standard and thus don't work in the system well.  If Z-Wave had somewhat better standards, and enforced them with no tolerance for variation, think about how much better it would work.
 
One way a "plays well with others" system could work would be to set the standards of intercommunication between devices and if you want to get a stamp of approval for your device, you meet those rigid standards.  No messing around like Z-Wave allows.  No one is forced to meet the standards, they just don't get a "place well with others" sticker to put on their device.  I would predict you'd see a lot of manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon.  If not, they lose.
 
How is this standard done.   Don't ask me, my job is simply to bitch about how bad it is now.  

 

[jdk972003]

...
Z-Wave is a standardized system, but even with that, look at how many devices there are that don't meet the strict standard and thus don't work in the system well.  If Z-Wave had somewhat better standards, and enforced them with no tolerance for variation, think about how much better it would work.
 
One way a "plays well with others" system could work would be to set the standards of intercommunication between devices and if you want to get a stamp of approval for your device, you meet those rigid standards.  No messing around like Z-Wave allows.  No one is forced to meet the standards, they just don't get a "place well with others" sticker to put on their device.  I would predict you'd see a lot of manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon.  If not, they lose.
 
How is this standard done.   Don't ask me, my job is simply to bitch about how bad it is now.  

 
That's called Zigbee.
And it works wonderfully in huge installations like Aria Hotel in Vegas.
Its a travesty Zwave is exploding vs Zigbee.  The old Betamax issue. 

 

[pete_c]

Curious if Zigbee 3 is already in use today?  Yesterday enabled a new Zigbee device called the Peanut Plug (Securifi).  I originally received it in December, 2014 but didn't open the box labeled "one more thing"
 
I recall playing a bit with an IBM Peanut (IBM PCjr) many many years ago.
 
I was able to update the firmware of the PP on it in vivo via the Zigbee device variable advanced screen; which is a neato thing.  It would be nice to do this with UPB devices, Z-Wave Devices or Insteon Devices.
 
 
Been playing with Z-Wave Plus and I am taken back so far with what I see.  Much more stuff now included in the devices.

 

[roussell]

That's called Zigbee.
And it works wonderfully in huge installations like Aria Hotel in Vegas.
Its a travesty Zwave is exploding vs Zigbee.  The old Betamax issue. 

 
Aria is Control4, right? I thought that's what I remembered from the last time I was there. Didn't know C4 was Zigbee. In any case, Aria has a very nice setup in the rooms.
 
Terry

 

[Dean Roddey]

C4 is Zigbee, but they use a proprietary stack, not the standard HA stack. So their stuff doesn't interoperate with any general purpose HA controllers that support the HA stack. That's purposeful on their part of course, because they want to keep their own hardware to themselves.
 
Z-Wave, though a standard, is not all that standard. There are many ways to skin the cat and many versions of the various command classes and various ways for modules to report their status and so forth. So it's very difficult to support and, beyond just the simplistic, impossible to do without knowing the details of the specific modules. We did a lot of work to at least get to the point where we can just have an XML file that describes the ins and outs of modules so that we don't have to hard code stuff, but even there it's difficult. We ran into some scene controllers from Cooper where they didn't like the limitations of a scene controller as defined by Z-Wave so they hacked together something that can do more, but the software would have to have specific code just to understand how to make use of these modules, and it's more than our XML descriptions can handle, so we'd have to make some fundamental changes to the driver to support them. It's a real pain.
 
Zigbee has well defined stacks for various types of industries like home automation, but anyone can use their own proprietary one, and so far most folks have been because it's been mostly supported by companies that want to sell systems, not companies that want to sell individual widgets. And, even if you sell individual widgets, not a lot of controllers support Zigbee yet. So it's somewhat the chicken and egg thing. In terms of the underlying wireless technology, to the degree I understand it, it seems quit superior to Z-Wave.

 

[pete_c]

Yeah I really liked that I could update the firmware on the Zigbee Securifi Peanut.  The option to update the Zigbee Securifi Peanut is via the controller's (or hub?) LCD interface.
 
I do not see that in the cloud, mobile or desktop interface at this time for the Securifi combo (automation, firewall, router, AP, Switch and LCD controller.)
 
That said I am seeing the same questions on all of the forums that have been supporting Zigbee and well as Z-Wave asking about whatever devices that have been purchased wherever.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Dean's post sort of says it all.  Each manufacturer thinks they can do it better so they go off on their own.  No more "plays well with others".  There's the problem in one sentence.

 

[fcwilt]

Dean's post sort of says it all.  Each manufacturer thinks they can do it better so they go off on their own.  No more "plays well with others".  There's the problem in one sentence.

 
I think it is more they want to try and lock in their customers. 
 
Look at Apple and Facetime. Apple could have gone with a product that was cross-platform but the didn't. My grand-kids wanted to Facetime with their friends so Mom bought iTouch devices (used) for them even though the grand-kids all had Kindle Fire devices. Because as far as they knew they had no alternative. So Apple's approach worked in this case. 

 

[Dean Roddey]

For a system like Zigbee, financial concerns are going to be a dominant issue. We all complain about things not working together, but a company like C4 would say, hey, look, we made all our stuff work together, so we answered your concern. But they did it by not working with other stuff. You have to commit to their stuff in order to get the interoperability. And of course they consider that interoperability such a selling point that they aren't going to give it up just to let other people benefit from their efforts.
 
I'm sure that there are companies out there who would be happy to provide Zigbee enabled versions of their devices, but there has to be a market for it first. And there is some stuff, just not a really broad and deep selection.

 

[Deane Johnson]

So, what Frederick and Dean are saying is that there exists nobody with a motivation and the industry stroke to ramrod through a uniform system.
 
I read a lot about how good Zigbee is, but it seems strange that no one is adapting it as a standard for the mass market.  It's only conversation in this regard.  Is this a chicken or egg issue?

 

[NeverDie]

So, what Frederick and Dean are saying is that there exists nobody with a motivation and the industry stroke to ramrod through a uniform system.
 
I read a lot about how good Zigbee is, but it seems strange that no one is adapting it as a standard for the mass market.  It's only conversation in this regard.  Is this a chicken or egg issue?

Actually, it looks as though it may finally be starting to happen--just maybe not the way you imagined:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2905692/thread-and-zigbee-snap-pieces-together-to-boost-home-iot.html

 

[jkmonroe]

To add to this, apparently Zigbee is shipping 1,000,000 chips per *week* right now.  I would expect the Zigbee world to explode, particularly with the partnership with Thread.
 
http://nextmarket.co/blogs/smarthomeweekly/18367017-greenpeak-were-shipping-1-million-zigbee-chips-per-week
 
I have a feeling that Z-Wave is about to see the end of days, and given my recent experiences trying to get it to all work together, that day can't come soon enough.