Dean Roddey
Senior Member
The VRCOP is specifically designed to be a secondary controller. That's the way the Leviton system is set up. You use the stick with their software. Often you need to take a primary controller physically around, so people often use it with a laptop, so that they can walk around and enroll or un-enroll modules from the network. The VRCOP is wall powered and needs to stay in one place, so it couldn't be carried around even if it was appropriate for use as a primary. That also lets the VRCOP have a fixed view of the network, since messages pass from node to node, so I would think it's more efficient to have separate primary/secondary controllers anyway. A fixed position secondary always knows where it I in relation to other modules.
You can connect various things directly to an Elk or Omni. If you only need those devices, and the fairly limited automation logic and graphical interface capabilities they provide is sufficient for your needs, then you don't need anything else. CQC provides a much wider range of device support, much fancier logic, and much, much fancier and customizable touch screen interfaces, and of course media as well.
Lots of people use an Elk/Omni and CQC together. Some just use CQC as well. It just depends on how you roll. Those who use the two together some times connect things to the Elk/Omni and let CQC control it indirectly, or directly to CQC, depending on whether they need the Elk/Omni to be able to see the device or not.
You can connect various things directly to an Elk or Omni. If you only need those devices, and the fairly limited automation logic and graphical interface capabilities they provide is sufficient for your needs, then you don't need anything else. CQC provides a much wider range of device support, much fancier logic, and much, much fancier and customizable touch screen interfaces, and of course media as well.
Lots of people use an Elk/Omni and CQC together. Some just use CQC as well. It just depends on how you roll. Those who use the two together some times connect things to the Elk/Omni and let CQC control it indirectly, or directly to CQC, depending on whether they need the Elk/Omni to be able to see the device or not.
