will Vera and MCV be able to keep up?

I was at EHX (Electronic House Expo @Orlando, Fl) the past weekend and Somfy and Honeywell were presenting their Z-wave controllers (Somfy presented a non-working unit) but honeywell presented 2 fully operational unit with interesting features:

7" touchscreen
Z-wave, Zigbee and WIFI
customizable interfase screen that show on IPAD and IPOD touch as in the touchscreen
Camera images storing via SD card
access to movies and photos stored on SD Cards
fully integrable with honeywell security panels

It will be avaliable in Q3 2011 in 3 models, the presented model will have an MSRP of ~$400

Somfy controller will be avaliable in Q3 2011 too, not MSRP yet.

In other hand, homeseer announced that their hometroller mini will be avaliable in summer 2011 http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=146279

with all these products in a similar price range, will MCV and Vera be able to keep up with the competition?

IMHO it’s not really competition until the product hits the market.
Companies boast of what the product will have,. Remember UI2 boasted Voice announcements "Coming soon”?
To quote the man in the news, “Bring it”

What are the specifications on the control units for these advertised devices?

HS announced Q2 and now its saying Q3? Maybe they are having a hard time compressing the promises to fit into the case. MCV has a large following, just look at the forum membership and activity, and,time will tell, but to answer your question. “will Vera and MCV be able to keep up” ? I say yes.

JOD.

I will second that.

I think MCV will certainly be able to keep up. That being said; competition is a good thing. It puts weight on the newcomers as well as MCV to continue to improve their products and bring new features to market.

Having the HA (and particularly Z-wave) market grow through the addition of some big players would be a very good thing. There could be a proliferation of new and improved devices, and prices would drop.

So here’s how I would ask the question: “Will any of these new players be able to provide any real competition to MCV?” (After all, MCV has a huge head start - the new guys hardly even have a working prototype.)

My answer to that question would be: “I sure hope so!”

I agree. I’ll add that in order to bring features to market, first you need to sow the fields (I know you are talking about a different market but its lunch time here and food is on my mind)
What gets planted in the fields? Well, what is the demand? What I’ve heard most in the forum as far as feature requests is: (planting seeds here ;)) CONDITIONAL LOGIC.
MCV may be driving the tractor, but it’s the end user that steers it.

JOD.

Amen!

I have to agree that we will benefit from this, if there is more competition the prices have to go down and products get better…

Z-Wave world will become more interesting this year… ;D ;D ;D ;D

I like that others are seeing the need for a local touchscreen but it still makes more since to me to spend $500 dollars on a all in one touchscreen computer and embed or hang it on a central wall. This can be a music server, lighting controller, power meter, gateway to Vera, camera display, and anything else you dream up. The software can be your own or what ever you can buy…total control. Not being at the mercy of someone’s firmware has big advantages!
But, that’s just me.
Regards
Tim Alls
AllSeas Yachts

Lot of OEM’ing going on in Z-Wave world though. Honeywell likes to stick their name on stuff. I don’t see Honeywell on the Z-Wave Alliance member list. Does anyone know who’s actually making the gear for them?

CEpro posted the more info on their webpage

http://www.cepro.com/article/honeywell_shows_home_automation_touchscreen_security_optional/?utm_source=CEPWeekly&utm_medium=email

MCV’s Vera will be able to keep up once MCV actually realizes that MCV needs logical conditional scene/event statements and they finally implement this into the GUI of Vera (without the need of the user resorting to Lua). [I’m trying to plant another seed in hopes of getting an early sprout before spring is over] LMAO!!! ;D

and I am also on the same page as TimAlls:

I like that others are seeing the need for a local touchscreen but it still makes more since to me to spend $500 dollars on a all in one touchscreen computer and embed or hang it on a central wall.
I've acheived this with an inexpensive, rooted 7" Coby Kyros android tablet for a mere 130 beans.

In my opinion, MCV will become a hobbiest playground while most users will opt for a more stable platform with fewer options that is distributed by local merchants (read Home Depot, Lowes etc.). To be honest, it’s what I plan to do. I will keep my Vera to play with but the heavy lifting will be done by whoever comes up with a nice stable product with a nice UI.

Again, in my opinion, if MCV wants to be taken seriously in this growing market they’ll need to produce or back products such as small touch screens (current UI will technically work but not great) and a more friendly way of adding and managing devices. They started down the right path, they had instructional videos and easy to understand and find instructions but that’s a mess now, you have to be a detective to find any info and instructions now.

Gotta say the Honeywell product is very sweet! Thinking I will buy one of them in December when the Wifi version is available.

While I am not interested in a touch screen I can see how many others would be. That being said I think the lack of conditional logic is probably what’s going to hurt Vera the most. I recently got my Vera. It was a toss up between it and a software product. I got the Vera simply because I didn’t want to deal with trying to pass through a USB dongle to a VM. Now I am second guessing that decision. I never imagined that it wouldn’t have some boolean commands.

The local distribution thing was also supposed to happen with Vera. I don’t know what happened to the idea, or if the deal is still being negociated, but nothing says that these other controllers will see a widespread release either.

With that said, competition is a good thing, so I’m all for it. A stronger Z-Wave line of products can only be good for us in the long term.

In case anyone is interested, you can find the manuals for the Honeywell thermostat here:

Install Guide:
http://customer.honeywell.com/Honeywell/getliterature.axd?LiteratureID=69-2486.pdf

Operating Manual:
http://customer.honeywell.com/Honeywell/UI/UserControls/ProductCatalog/Search/getliterature.axd?LiteratureID=69-2485EFS.pdf

Mike

[quote=“Dr. Cossack, post:16, topic:167924”]The local distribution thing was also supposed to happen with Vera. I don’t know what happened to the idea, or if the deal is still being negociated, but nothing says that these other controllers will see a widespread release either.

With that said, competition is a good thing, so I’m all for it. A stronger Z-Wave line of products can only be good for us in the long term.[/quote]

This would be interesting to see. As Vera isn’t really plug in play if you want to do anything other than turn lights on and off (simple tasks), it might force them to organize their documentation, which would be great for everyone. I think Vera makes a GREAT hobby platform though, it’s limited mostly by your own programming skills and patients. I’m not sure MCV is equipped to handle all the support that would be required if the average home owner could get a hold of it on a whim while shopping for air filters at Home Depot though.

I agree, competition is a very good thing. Especially in this market (controllers specifically), to have a large company that had the resources to invest in a truly great out of the box solution would put H/A over the top.

I really hope this doesn’t sound like I’m knocking Vera or MCV, which I’ve been known to do (and feel justified to do it every now and then). Again, these are just my opinions and I think they have made an amazing product, I just don’t think (in it’s current state) it’s ready for someone who isn’t willing to read the forums, wiki’s and and commit a lot of time to a H/A project.

[quote=“azrml, post:17, topic:167924”]In case anyone is interested, you can find the manuals for the Honeywell thermostat here:

Install Guide:
http://customer.honeywell.com/Honeywell/getliterature.axd?LiteratureID=69-2486.pdf

Operating Manual:
http://customer.honeywell.com/Honeywell/UI/UserControls/ProductCatalog/Search/getliterature.axd?LiteratureID=69-2485EFS.pdf

Mike[/quote]

So the links above appear to have been killed. Was anyone sufficiently more present of mind than I was to save the documents, or at least the model number of the thermostat?

–Richard

I agree with mbairhead. Vera started out nice, simple, & user friendly. The instructional videos are useless now, we still have new users trying to use their Vera 2 with findvera.com because of poor instructions, confussion of what version we should be even at, we hardly hear from MCV here on the forums, the Wiki at times are wrong, & the UI is getting less stable.

MCV you need to focus on what got you here. Having a simple, stable, cost efficient product that will grow with you. I don’t know if you have lost focus, short handed, biting more than you can chew, or just in a comfort zone.

Please do keep in mind we do love your product. The only thing is that customers will jump to a product that will do the same, but better & more stable. A lot of people here have devoted many hours to support your product & make it better. Do keep that same devotion in us.