Vera seems like a very promising product. It would be great to get full control of Logitech’s Squeezeboxes from Vera. Sonos is great, but a bit pricey. Logitech is very similar to Sonos, but more affordable. Most of my clients want access to online content and music stored on a NAS drive. The issue is that Sonos really cant be controlled or integrated with any other system. Logitech can but no one has integrated it that well. Most integrate the Squeezebox with wimple playlist capabilities and simple transport control of stored music. There also isnt a really usable iPod Touch app available for the Squeezebox from Logitech.
To do it right, Vera would need to be able to have 2-way control of the internet radio sources and online content like Slacker, XM/ Sirius, Rhapsody with an iPod Touch app very similar to the one for the Sonos system. On screen keyboard for searching Rhapsody for content and things like that.
Integrating full control of the Squeezebox which can access virtually any form of music content would be a VERY big selling point for Vera. In fact, you could sell it as a control system for whole home music that you can then use for lights, and everything else.
I would personally like to see zwave working 100% before implementing anymore protocols/plugins. But this might be a good idea later… there are many zwave feature requests that I think need to come before other things.
Take a look at homeseer for example, I personally think that program has overgrown its intentions and has become confusing/crippled by the complexity and diversity of what it supports.
Don’t worry, they know to maintain their prioriries, and no post at this forum can possibly change it.
I, however, think it’s good to throw ideas here and there:
first, if you want to sell your product you got to maintain reasonable feature diversity
second, development flow is a tricky thing, and sometimes they may find themselves in a position where they can temporarily allocate some resources to some added value features - it’s better to be prepared to such opportunities.
I would generally agree with your statement above.
But! There was one exception… And the name of it is Schlage Lock. Damn Schlage Lock killed a whole year of MCV’s time and efforts and still keeps causing problems! I am talking about new dongles, which were required for the lock, which were and still are buggy. Besides MCV’s time, how many people got mad and angry because of those dongles?
And this lengthy and painful lock/dongle fiasco put on hold so many other useful and basic features (promised from the beginning!) and fixing simple, but annoying bugs!
Sorry for the rant. But I see way too many people complaining about Vera stability issues because of new dongles. I have no need for Schlage locks and still use the original old dongle and there are no lock ups or stability issues here. I understand those locks are cool and popular, but there are people who don’t need them.
As I said, I would rather see the many bugs, reported long time ago, fixed and outstanding basic features added…
The flip side of this, is that I bought Vera solely because I didn’t want to pay Schlage money to operate their lock remotely, and (still) know of no other alternative besides Vera.
Viewed from this side of the equation, it kinda did make sense for MCV to bother with Schlage Lock support. I’d have never gotten on board, otherwise. I’m sure the same is true for others.
Me, too, but now I’m hooked. I can hardly wait for my crack dealer (MCV) to get me that next fix. When they take too long, I have to satisfy my craving by buying another Z-wave device or two.
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