CQC is now FREE/Open-Source

[IVB]

agreed, if a URC does everything you need, a PC-based setup is unneeded. But if all you're doing is touchscreens to control your system, there's no actual home "automation" occuring - that's just alternative manual control. Girder/NR or EventGhost aren't really competitors for CQC.

But that's another thread entirely, and educating folks on the upside of true automation is a long road. I'm sure in several years, people will begin to see the value and then want to have that in their systems, but the market just isn't that needy yet. CQC is probably 5 years ahead of its time.

Hell, most folks are content with just a basic non-networked/non-whole house Tivo with an 80GB hard disk, SageTV is even overkill for them.

[jsonnabend]

Originally Posted by IVB

agreed, if a URC does everything you need, a PC-based setup is unneeded. But if all you're doing is touchscreens to control your system, there's no actual home "automation" occuring - that's just alternative manual control. Girder/NR or EventGhost aren't really competitors for CQC.

But that's another thread entirely, and educating folks on the upside of true automation is a long road. I'm sure in several years, people will begin to see the value and then want to have that in their systems, but the market just isn't that needy yet. CQC is probably 5 years ahead of its time.

Hell, most folks are content with just a basic non-networked/non-whole house Tivo with an 80GB hard disk, SageTV is even overkill for them.

That may all be true, but the context here is HTPC control. In that realm, QCQ *is* competing against Girder/EventGhost, both of which also do some low-complexity home automation.

- Jeff

[bcjenkins]

My 2 cents -

I didn't take the context to be HTPC. We're in the community forum and anything goes here.

B

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by IVB

agreed, if a URC does everything you need, a PC-based setup is unneeded. But if all you're doing is touchscreens to control your system, there's no actual home "automation" occuring - that's just alternative manual control. Girder/NR or EventGhost aren't really competitors for CQC.

But that's the point, very few people are looking for "actual home 'automation'", and of those that are, I'd guess the vast, vast majority would opt to just have a great system installed over rolling their own based on something like CQC.

From what I can gather, CQC is an HA framework/IDE, not an HA system. I think that's sort of the problem for CQC. If you're looking for a framework/IDE you're probably an installer and then you've got CQC vs Crestron/AMX (which you likely already know). If you're an end user, you're looking for an HA system, not a framework/IDE (maybe a system with a good framework/IDE).

CQC is, I think, a lot like SageTV without an STV. It's a great framework with a lot of power behind it, but without the glue that makes it do stuff, it's useless out of the box. The way I see it is CQC basically caters only to the techy who simply can't get access to Crestron software (ie isn't an installer), that's an incredibly small market.

I think they would do/would have done better if they offered some sort of "starter" package, ie the software running in a "box" with a couple controllers/modules all preconfigured so you can just plug and go. This sounds like it's sort of what's on the table now with Dean's new discussions.

But that's another thread entirely, and educating folks on the upside of true automation is a long road. I'm sure in several years, people will begin to see the value and then want to have that in their systems, but the market just isn't that needy yet. CQC is probably 5 years ahead of its time.

Hell, most folks are content with just a basic non-networked/non-whole house Tivo with an 80GB hard disk, SageTV is even overkill for them.

Even then though, I have my doubts about the appeal of a raw HA IDE to many more people than today. By then there will probably be a lot of more plug and play products that encroach on CQCs territory. I mean just look at Schlage, they're a pretty "big" (in terms of name recognition) pushing into the HA realm now. I suspect we'll see more of this. Unfortunately CQC is a Crestron/AMX level (capability wise) product, and there just isn't a big market for that, even smaller if you limit it to DIY (which is really where CQC meshes best).

It kind of parallels back to SageTV. In a few years we'll have a lot more people seeing the value of multiroom DVRs, but DirecTV, Dish, and the cable companies will be there with plug and play solutions that satisfy even more people.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by IVB

Hell, most folks are content with just a basic non-networked/non-whole house Tivo with an 80GB hard disk, SageTV is even overkill for them.

Sometime ago I would have agreed with you on that but now more people want to moving to Media Center and if look you see both Cable and Satellite are start to build there so called ver of Whole Home DVR Server Service which I think FAIL be for there even got started after all there useless vs SageTV or even MCE.

[jsonnabend]

Originally Posted by SHS

Sometime ago I would have agreed with you on that but now more people want to moving to Media Center and if look you see both Cable and Satellite are start to build there so called ver of Whole Home DVR Server Service which I think FAIL be for there even got started after all there useless vs SageTV or even MCE.

How are they "useless"? They do what they are advertised to do, namely, record once watch anywhere at home. That's 90% of what I use SageTV for, and lord knows my brothers and sister -- like the vast majority of households -- aren't going to mess with something like Sage.

- Jeff

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by jsonnabend

How are they "useless"? They do what they are advertised to do, namely, record once watch anywhere at home. That's 90% of what I use SageTV for, and lord knows my brothers and sister -- like the vast majority of households -- aren't going to mess with something like Sage.

- Jeff

Look at it this way. My parents are very tech savvy. My dad taught me most of what I know about computers. They have had standard cable dvr's for years now (since they first came out actually). They know there is better out there for whole home stuff so they went with att uverse. They had it for 2 days. The limitation of 4 tuner did not satisfy their need for multiple recordings. They ended up putting a 2 tuner dvr in every room. No more recording in one room and watching in another, but that was fine because they now have 8 tuners as opposed to 2.

They do have a thrown together mce system I gave them some parts for. I'm about to upgrade it for them so it will get better for them, but the whole home dvr is not good enough for some people due to the tuner limitation.

As of right now whole home dvr's are not what they should be.

EDIT: basically people want something plug and play. They don't want to have to learn anything or figure anything out. That is why I used to charge people so much to do home theater installs. They have no clue or interest in learning how to hook up their HT much less HA. This plug and play problem is not good because if you can't hook it up, you can't fix it when it breaks either.

[wayner]

I use a HA system called Control4 that is somewhat cheaper than Crestron but that allows users to do a fair amount of programming themselves. I use the system for controlling my lights, blinds (in bedroom) and HVAC but I don't really use it for Home Theatre since I believe Sage with extenders is a better solution as long as you buy Harmony remotes for all of your TV locations.

Using Control4 for all of your AV requires a controller at each AV location ($500-$1000 per controller) or wiring from your controller to each room for IR bugs that then must be placed on your devices.

But it is somewhat frustrated in that you have to call a dealer to install any hardware and even to change A/V components if you use the system for that.

And the system isn't cheap - starting point for most installs is probably about $10k or much more depending on how much hardware. Light dimmers run about $100 each (+labor) and most folks will probably have dozens of them to be connected to the system.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by jsonnabend

How are they "useless"? They do what they are advertised to do, namely, record once watch anywhere at home. That's 90% of what I use SageTV for, and lord knows my brothers and sister -- like the vast majority of households -- aren't going to mess with something like Sage.

- Jeff

NO other media playback, Meaning NO Rip Bluray/DVD or Video, Picture or MP3 your stuck with what dose just like a VCR but with VOD support.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

....No more recording in one room and watching in another, but that was fine because they now have 8 tuners as opposed to 2....

Man that would SUCK. Can you imaging trying to manage 8 tuners over 4 completely independant DVRs in different locations? How would you know what is recorded where? Odds are there are duplicate recordings going on because people have set "America Idol" to record on two or more DVRs, etc, etc, etc.

I realize there is nothing wrong with that setup. It just shows how spoiled we are with SageTV.

To All - The same type of argument (stock DVR vs "more complicated" SageTV system) could be made for CQC. It is a complex enough system that it causes many people to simply dismiss it. But for those people that do "wade" into it, it can be a complete game changer for them. It allows you to harness the power of the systems in your house in ways most don't people haven't even thought about.

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by IVB

Honestly, that's the part I don't get. People think nothing of spending $10K or more on hardware, and yet look to chintz a few hundred $$ on software.

hey, I am an average joe, and I had no issue with giving Dean some money...

Originally Posted by IVB

This isn't just limited to HA, it seems in general that software manufacturing isn't respected as much as hardware, even though it's usually just as hard (or harder) to do the software design than hardware.

when was the last time a software dude had to 're-spin' his computer just because of a bug?

Originally Posted by IVB

IE, people think nothing of getting pirated software (or exchanging MP3 libraries), but wouldn't dream of buying stolen stereos, when in fact it's the same exact thing.

how is that even remotely similar??? software/mp3, the owners still retain possession of the items in question... Stolen stereos = someone no longer has a stereo...
now if you took a 'replicator' or some such, and made a bit perfect copy of said stereo, that would be an accurate analogy... of course if you had a stereo replicator that would mean there were (or at least could be) an infinite supply of stereos, and anyone who has ever glanced at a supply vs demand chart in econ 101 quickly realizes that infinite supply = $0.00 cost, so can you really steal something that is worth $0.00?

note, I happily paid lots of money for CQC, and I am paid up on the $100/year maintenance fee for the next couple years... I paid not for some infinite supply of bits, but for the very limited supply of Dean... (while that wording kind of sounds bad, any CQC user knows exactly what I mean... new versions that always have cool new features, very stable, great customer support, excellent technical support, etc)

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Man that would SUCK. Can you imaging trying to manage 8 tuners over 4 completely independant DVRs in different locations? How would you know what is recorded where? Odds are there are duplicate recordings going on because people have set "America Idol" to record on two or more DVRs, etc, etc, etc.

I realize there is nothing wrong with that setup. It just shows how spoiled we are with SageTV.

You're thinking the way we sage users think. Think of it like each person has their own personal dvr with the shows they want to watch. Not too bad if thats the way you want it...

Looking at it from our point of view that limits us to two tuners in each location instead of 8 for all locations.

If people don't know what they are missing they can't miss it.

[IVB]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

You're thinking the way we sage users think. Think of it like each person has their own personal dvr with the shows they want to watch. Not too bad if thats the way you want it...

Looking at it from our point of view that limits us to two tuners in each location instead of 8 for all locations.

If people don't know what they are missing they can't miss it.

Yes, exactly my point, but for true home automation.

Those folks who don't do true home automation don't know what they're missing. Unfortunately there is no such thing as low complexity home automation, and it'll be difficult to ever provide a GUI as there are an infinite # of combinations of hardware you could have. Plus, a GUI is just alternative manual control, if that's all you do you've missed the point of home automation. You need automated monitoring of a wide variety of devices, a robust rules engine to intelligently take action based on device status/time of day/interaction of other devices/many other things.

Alas I also agree that the act of setting it all up could be much easier, a few wizards would go a long way.

[btrcp2000]

I mostly love my sage setup, but it will never be mainstream. The closest thing sage could get to plug n play like the mainstream wants would have to eliminate many HD sources right now, definitely anything involving the HDPVR. Sure some have it working flawlessly, but can you imagine the hold times for support in those who don't and are expecting it to "just work"?

My neighbors see a mental defect in me for the amount of time I spend messing with my glorified DVR. They see the benefits of whole house distribution, comskip, etc., but would never dream of spending as much time squashing bugs as I do.

[samgreco]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

My neighbors see a mental defect in me for the amount of time I spend messing with my glorified DVR. They see the benefits of whole house distribution, comskip, etc., but would never dream of spending as much time squashing bugs as I do.

And there it is. We (Sage types) are a small minority. And those of us that are willing to roll our own HA are an even smaller minority. So the market for Dean's type of products is small and the few players there are, are fighting for slivers. I don't see it changing for a long time, if ever.

[jsonnabend]

I wonder why Sage doesn't adopt the model used by Squeezebox (now owned by Logitech). Open source the software and sell the hardware.

- Jeff

[jsonnabend]

Well, so much for that . . .

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum...ead.php?t=9304

[IVB]

Originally Posted by jsonnabend

Well, so much for that . . .

http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum...ead.php?t=9304

yep. Julie Jacobson's article in CEPro had a brilliant writeup about how opensourced CQC could have been just the push HA needed to go mainstream. Now that isn't going to happen. I can't condemn Dean for flip-flopping as it's not my life's work that i'm no longer going to give away for free, but I am a little bummed.

[Fuzzy]

well, there's nothing to stop those devs who WOULD have loved to contribute to CQC to start an HA project themselves. It may be almost as easy, especially considering the expected behavior of a good HA system is already known, and it would be built from the ground up as an OpenSource system, most likely very modular, and easy to grow.

[mistergq]

Tonight, I was reading an article about home improvements that do not add value to your house. Home automation was one of those repairs. It is a shame, however, in this economy, it is not priority. We have been putting most our money into making energy efficient repairs over cosmetic or luxury repairs. We have made cheap cosmetic repairs such as painting, changing light fixtures, etc. But kitchen remodel will be years down the road. And something like home automation, not sure that will be happening in any time in the the near or long term future.