[quote=“Jamy, post:31, topic:170332”]T1000, I registered just to chime in and echo your thoughts exactly. Years and years I have been looking for this!
There are multiple millions of 220/240v thermostats here in Canada and nobody at the big thermosat providers thinks there is even a market in the Line voltage TStat businessDUH. I have been trying for years to find anything either Insteon, ZWave or UPB for that matter that will work, but ended up converting 2 of my 11 in my house to the Venstar 24v Stat, and the AUBE 840T in the link above to work with my Insteon swicthes and software. Works well, but a lot of effort and cash just to get those 2 stats automated. Moving to Z-wave now and still no options beside this?. Grrr… Aube by the way also made an excellent X-10 compatible stat many years ago (12 or so ) that was quite popular with the Automation crowd at the time but they were a small market then mainly early adopters. Maybe they haven’t done much research lately and still thinking back to those days when making their marketing decisions? Of course then why would the big stat vendors be pushing pseudo-schedule-7 day timing junk as their answer to automation? Strangely enough Honeywell does make a rather contorted line voltage wireless wifi controlled tstat now that uses their own proprietary technology. No doubt it is a beautiful stat that works well like all their products but am I going to ignore my investment in automation standards just to bring in another wireless technology with different levels more of complexity from a large vendor because they won’t jump in the automation sandbox with everyone else? No wonder these large players fail at residential automation! Guys we don’t want more stuff!!, but we’ll buy it if it means getting stuff that works! All they have to do is offer one of the common automation standards, in a triac line voltage 240v stat and they could make a lot of money in this market now, that is more and more mainstream all the time. And yet their idea of automation is for me to spend 2 days programming in arbitrary times and schedules into 13 dumb stat terminals with timers they call smart stats, convincing me that I’m saving cash doing it LOL. At least my automation setup knows my habits and can adapt easily without me having to reprogram everything all the time. Hit a scene button and everything changes. That’s automation, hit a button at work, and let the kids in, turning up the temp and lights, and off with the alarm. Go to bed, let the system figure out that everyone’s in bed, lower the water temps, the heat, arm the house, and tone down the outside lighting!! You can’t do that for heat unless the stat vendor integrates into the system like all the rest of our providers do, and the 24v line voltage vendors are lost in the dark when it comes to thinking this through. (pardon the puns) ;D
Anyway T1000, after all this rant LOL, let me know if you need a good beta or alpha tester, and if it works I will take the first 11 units!
Jamy[/quote]
Hey Jamy, thanks for dropping a line. Your analysis of the perception problem that seems to exist with large manufacturers is exactly right in my experience. The folks at Aube are nice and all, but when it comes to thinking hi-tech, there’s no-one to pick up the phone. In an unrelated project, they brushed me off saying they weren’t interested… After finding another more willing supplier, my client is not only happy, he’s considering going national with the product. I don’t have MBA, but I’m pretty sure that’s how you define a successful endeavour. As for this product they put out, it’s not even worth the discussion. It is headed for the same discount box where you’ll find every other attempt at wireless automation with no common ground with existing technology. It’s hard to understand why this lesson hasn’t been learned already…
Anyways, as I said earlier, the matter is not of making it work. We did that in 4 hours flat. The matter is coming up with a UL/CSA listed product that matches all standards, does not go against a zillion patents and can land on the shelves for a reasonable price. It’s a taller order than it sounds
I am checking out manufacturing samples these days and my next visit to China is in February, so we should make some progress then… Y’all be the first to know !
Cheers!