upstatemike
Senior Member
This is a good debate but let's keep it about the technology!
Why are you using a PC for HA ???
- Thread starter Xymox
- Start date
Guy Lavoie
Active Member
I think that's the main reason why many people use PCs for HA. Its not necessarily the most reliable thing available, but the performance vs cost advantage is so attractive that for non-critical application like controlling lights and watching movies, it is hard to beat for the convenience and cost.penngray said:
Many people here use a combination of hardware controller for the critical things like security and HVAC, and a PC based package for the convenience features. That's fine, nothing wrong with that.
How many Cocoontech members have implemented an alarm system and/or a thermostat application using nothing but an i/o board and a PC running an application? Would you be comfortable leaving a PC (even powered by a UPS) with these tasks and then leaving on vacation for two weeks? I wouldn't.
roussell
Active Member
No need to get personal; You are unaware of other poster's level-of-intellect just as they are unaware of yours. You feel strongly about your position and others on the forum feel just as strong about theirs. Thats why I said in the previous post that you nor anyone else will win this battle. People like what they like for their own reasons, and to them those reasons are valid. Also, if you have links that would help to defend your position, then I'd suggest you post them.
Not sure to whom you're referring; but I've been in electronic design, industrial automation, and process controls for almost 20 years. I know my way around a transistor, a RLL program, and an assembly block. Again, I'd ask that the discussion maintain a professional, not personal level.
Why doesn’t a plane use a Crestron system to control the flight surfaces? It's not the best tool for the job. The same reason I wouldn't use any of the higher systems to make my LED blink in the example I mentioned earlier. I could tie aircraft able to all of light switches and run them via pullies to my living room to automate my home, but that wouldn't make a lot of sense.
I worked at a foundry several years back, most of the automation in the beginning was done via relays and timers. Worked well, until foundry dust got inside (I guess you could call it a relay virus), then all sorts of strange things would happen. Nothing serious until a PAIR of safety lockout relays failed and caused a vibratory feeder to crush the skull of a 19 year old kid during his first week of employment. The entire system was replaced with a Allen Bradley PLC and multiple laser safety switches, that not only was more reliable and safer but also reported seemingly minor inconsistencies in the operation so that pre-failure conditions would trigger maintenance before something like that could happen again.
Neither did my toaster, tough as hell to microwave popcorn in it though... I wonder if that's why I had to replace it...
Uhh, yeah. So is yours. An ex-smoker never quits, unless he/she dies without smoking again, until that inevitability, he/she only pauses. What's your point here? Has crestron invented a perpetual energy device? If so then they are wasting the technology on Home Automation... When the power is out for an extended time, my system goes down, so does yours. Is my toaster more or less reliable than my tivo? My toaster has fewer parts, and is a true hardware device, but died after one year, my tivo is 4 years old now (granted, I've never tried to put popcorn in my tivo) and still going.
I have to admit, this back and forth stuff is fun; but really gets you nowhere fast. As I said earlier, both side feels strongly, and to some extent both sides are right. Use what you like, use what works for you.
Terry
Xymox
Member
Jeeze....
Penn when you have read up on what established reliability is, come back and post.
You never did answer why a plane flight surfaces are not controlled by a PC.
I'm not sure I wanna defend this anymore. I keep saying the same things over and over.
People who are confuzed when i state that its mathematically / scientifically impossible for a PC to be as reliable as a Crestron need to go explore this field of science before posting. I'm not gonna cover that any more unless you have some new science or math that justifies your position. There are zillions of lines more code running in a PC and 10 to 20 times more parts.
AND WHO CARES...... I DONT.....
I just want to be correct when talking about systems reliability engineering. This has NOTHING to do with CRESTON other then it has less code and parts. Its also HARDWARE THAT HAS BEEN DEBUGGED BY COUNTLESS PROGRAMMERS -OVER THREE YEARS-.. Your PC hardware is NOTHING of the sorts. Windowss is nothing of the sort.
A WINDOWS PC WILL NEVER CONTROL A PLANE.
Penn when you have read up on what established reliability is, come back and post.
You never did answer why a plane flight surfaces are not controlled by a PC.
I'm not sure I wanna defend this anymore. I keep saying the same things over and over.
People who are confuzed when i state that its mathematically / scientifically impossible for a PC to be as reliable as a Crestron need to go explore this field of science before posting. I'm not gonna cover that any more unless you have some new science or math that justifies your position. There are zillions of lines more code running in a PC and 10 to 20 times more parts.
AND WHO CARES...... I DONT.....
I just want to be correct when talking about systems reliability engineering. This has NOTHING to do with CRESTON other then it has less code and parts. Its also HARDWARE THAT HAS BEEN DEBUGGED BY COUNTLESS PROGRAMMERS -OVER THREE YEARS-.. Your PC hardware is NOTHING of the sorts. Windowss is nothing of the sort.
A WINDOWS PC WILL NEVER CONTROL A PLANE.
Xymox
Member
Roussel.
My frustration was not aimed at you at all.... Just at Penngrey...
Your right I love allen Bradley. Good stuff. Hardware engineering at its finest.
EVERYTHING FAILS. Its a science to keep things from failing - and I have studied this science. A crestron has less parts and less code then a PC. Were done. Its more tested and better understood too.
Jeeze all I wanted to do in this post is show people a Crestron would be fun. Its out of control and im dropping it. I said what I needed too and im done.
My frustration was not aimed at you at all.... Just at Penngrey...
Your right I love allen Bradley. Good stuff. Hardware engineering at its finest.
EVERYTHING FAILS. Its a science to keep things from failing - and I have studied this science. A crestron has less parts and less code then a PC. Were done. Its more tested and better understood too.
Jeeze all I wanted to do in this post is show people a Crestron would be fun. Its out of control and im dropping it. I said what I needed too and im done.
Xymox
Member
Exactly... A eBay Crestron would just be fun to play with..
THAT was my point on page 1.
Ok, im done. Im not comming back to this post. Im gonna go play with my Smarthome 1132CU and Smarthome Manager.... Hahahahah.... Talk about unrealiable and bad hardware !!...
What I wanna see is that Tesla Coil driveway...
Nice stuff. It must play havoc with your PC tho - all that stray RF and static.
Heheheh It must effect reliability !
We could place a huge metal mesh just under your soil around your entire house and ground it. That should help with the static from the Tesla.
OooOOo your could build a huge one in your attic and it would pop lighting bolts to the ground all the way around the house.
Talk about security !
Of course it might also arc to the police helicopter when it comes to check out the disturbance.
Hehehehe.... DIY.......
A eBay Crestron would just be fun to play with..
Fun for who, you posted details about the software side of Crestron. Others posted about the non-existence support from the company unless, blah, blah, blah. To me that isnt fun
Penn when you have read up on what established reliability is, come back and post.
Again, this is oranges and apples for some reason you believe we are talking about established reliability but really the only reliability 99% of people care about is preceived reliability and not some engineering term you think is so important and actually believe we should care about its definition before we post here??
I will simply disagree with you on your point of view of reliability wrt comparing Crestron and custom HA PCs. I believe they are the same when quality and time is taking into consideration for both, I also believe that reliability for BOTH is crappy with quality and time is not taking.
as for your question about PCs running Airplanes.....a simple answer is WHO CARES House HA is not comparable to an Airplane.
Fun for who, you posted details about the software side of Crestron. Others posted about the non-existence support from the company unless, blah, blah, blah. To me that isnt fun
Penn when you have read up on what established reliability is, come back and post.
Again, this is oranges and apples for some reason you believe we are talking about established reliability but really the only reliability 99% of people care about is preceived reliability and not some engineering term you think is so important and actually believe we should care about its definition before we post here??
I will simply disagree with you on your point of view of reliability wrt comparing Crestron and custom HA PCs. I believe they are the same when quality and time is taking into consideration for both, I also believe that reliability for BOTH is crappy with quality and time is not taking.
as for your question about PCs running Airplanes.....a simple answer is WHO CARES House HA is not comparable to an Airplane.
You still argue a different point, you are talking about probability of failure which I never disagreed with nor did I say anything about.
As usually its just symantics. All my engineering friends are like you
Yes a long time ago I went to one of the top engineering schools in the world (but was in Mathematics instead). A few of my friends argued like they were reading from a text book, its fun with them but we all know that words mean different things to different people and they refuse to see that.reliability: 1. The ability of an item to perform a required function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. 2. The probability that a functional unit will perform its required function for a specified interval under stated conditions. 3. The continuous availability of communication services to the general public, and emergency response activities in particular, during normal operating conditions and under emergency circumstances with minimal disruption.
Conclusion......PCs are reliable based on definition.
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
This whole thread is getting kind of silly. He obviously has an agenda that he's not going to deviate from, no matter how much evidence to the contrary is presented. But, to summarize, he misses obvious rebuttals like:
1. Why isn't a Windows machine used to control a plane's control surfaces. Answer, why isn't a Crestron system? The people building a plane would fall over laughing if you suggested either I'm sure
2. "As long as you do not mind rebooting. At least once a month for updates." This was clearly debunked but he persists in repeating it. Except for one security update that I can remember, all of the security patches are for things that involve the user interacting with web sites, downloading files, etc... That's not done on a controller that's in the closet. The only security holes of interest in such a machine are ones that the one that was in the TCP/IP stack that allowed for an outside attach coming in, which in most systems is irrelevant because people use a router that accepts no incoming connections anyway.
3. A PC is mathematically incapable of being as reliable as a fixed function box. This was clearly rebutted. If a fixed function box can run for 12 years and a PC for 8, it doesn't matter in any practical way. No one is going to make a purchase decision based on that.
4. Crestron systems don't have problems. Of course they do. Read the Yahoo Crestron group. They have plenty of problems. And of course you are on your own to figure them out if you didn't get your system via a dealer who set it up.
5. Why don't industrial systems use PCs for automation. Almost all factories use PCs these day I'm sure. I worked in an industrial automation earlier in my careerr and all we did was put PCs into factories. Yes, they were combined with PLCs, but the PCs were running the show, usualling talking to a larger factory server to coordinate things. They were moving huge devices.
* BTW, I watched one of those non-PC based systems (a crane that would come pick up big coils of metal) effectively beat the heck out of one of those cars because of a bug in the *software*, because it just kept coming down on the car and going up and coming down.
Anyway, he's quickly approaching the level of troll now that he's started throwing around his intellectual superiority to everyone else here, and he's just going to turn it into a pissing match.
1. Why isn't a Windows machine used to control a plane's control surfaces. Answer, why isn't a Crestron system? The people building a plane would fall over laughing if you suggested either I'm sure
2. "As long as you do not mind rebooting. At least once a month for updates." This was clearly debunked but he persists in repeating it. Except for one security update that I can remember, all of the security patches are for things that involve the user interacting with web sites, downloading files, etc... That's not done on a controller that's in the closet. The only security holes of interest in such a machine are ones that the one that was in the TCP/IP stack that allowed for an outside attach coming in, which in most systems is irrelevant because people use a router that accepts no incoming connections anyway.
3. A PC is mathematically incapable of being as reliable as a fixed function box. This was clearly rebutted. If a fixed function box can run for 12 years and a PC for 8, it doesn't matter in any practical way. No one is going to make a purchase decision based on that.
4. Crestron systems don't have problems. Of course they do. Read the Yahoo Crestron group. They have plenty of problems. And of course you are on your own to figure them out if you didn't get your system via a dealer who set it up.
5. Why don't industrial systems use PCs for automation. Almost all factories use PCs these day I'm sure. I worked in an industrial automation earlier in my careerr and all we did was put PCs into factories. Yes, they were combined with PLCs, but the PCs were running the show, usualling talking to a larger factory server to coordinate things. They were moving huge devices.
* BTW, I watched one of those non-PC based systems (a crane that would come pick up big coils of metal) effectively beat the heck out of one of those cars because of a bug in the *software*, because it just kept coming down on the car and going up and coming down.
Anyway, he's quickly approaching the level of troll now that he's started throwing around his intellectual superiority to everyone else here, and he's just going to turn it into a pissing match.
That is what Im involved with right now, very cool...
We are designing a brand new order picking system (15 Million is that last figure!!!) and I have written software for 7 years for handling automated stacker system. These are monster 2 million dollar double shuttle stackers that pickup and store pallets of food. Its a pretty incredible to watch these things move stuff around.
Wonderware from Factory Suite is the product (with Python as the under belly stuff) and it is PC based. It interacts with the Allen Bradley PLCs. PLCs are way to simplistic for our needs and we also needed database access for least cost storage formulas, the PCs are very reliable for us. The warehouse runs 24/7, they have replaced the PLC more times then they have replaced the PC so far
Of course its a freezer environment -18C is harsh!! Sadly I enjoy the pissing matches a little too much
and I like avoiding work some days Its all good with me, he didnt offend me at all because he doesnt know me. Xymox, Im sorry that some how I annoyed you by disagreeing with you. We can just agree to disagree here on he we preceive and define what reliability is.
upstatemike
Senior Member
I think using hardware vs a PC as the core of an HA system (a recurring debate here) is a good topic. I would like to see something beyond the reliability argument used though since I agree that this has been argued past the point of any practical application.
I still say the biggest weakness in PC systems is that they rely too much on full subsystems for connectivity to the ouside world. I would like to see an HA program that "replaces" an Ocelot in functionality and allows addicon expansion modules to plug directly into an RS-485 port on the PC. Having to deal with something like CMax for setup and module enrollment is cumbersome and redundant in a true unified HA system.
Of course the biggest weakness with hardware systems is lack of flexibility. They do what they do very well but it is a PITA to get new features implemented and some key feature is always missing.
I'm also still looking for the perfect hardware/PC dual system combination. Still can't find a combination that will do it all without using 2 or 3 different hardware systems plus a PC and often several PCs. There has to be a way to get more functionality without increasing complexity by several magnitudes!
I still say the biggest weakness in PC systems is that they rely too much on full subsystems for connectivity to the ouside world. I would like to see an HA program that "replaces" an Ocelot in functionality and allows addicon expansion modules to plug directly into an RS-485 port on the PC. Having to deal with something like CMax for setup and module enrollment is cumbersome and redundant in a true unified HA system.
Of course the biggest weakness with hardware systems is lack of flexibility. They do what they do very well but it is a PITA to get new features implemented and some key feature is always missing.
I'm also still looking for the perfect hardware/PC dual system combination. Still can't find a combination that will do it all without using 2 or 3 different hardware systems plus a PC and often several PCs. There has to be a way to get more functionality without increasing complexity by several magnitudes!
Dean Roddey
Senior Member
There's a pretty cute story from one of the jobs I worked on. I showed up the first time and there was a big sign out front, kind of playing up the modernization project that our thing was part of. Somewhere in there was a statement like 8 million dollars invested in the future, or some such thing. In subsequent trips back, the number kept going up. Finally, they tacked a piece of wood on the side of the sign, because it had gone up into the 100's at that point and they didn't have room for the numbers anymore. Talk about project creep.
In some ways, it was kind of a disaster, and I learned a lot about what not to do in such projects by watching it happen. There really wasn't anyone there who had the kind of big picture, broad experience to really make sure that such a big project, with so many vendors trying to create an integrated system would come off successfully.
