Comments for The World According to Richard

Comment on HomeSeer: Time for a Redesign by Mark Hershey

Mark Hershey — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:36:35 +0000

Great article! Couldn’t agree more that Homeseer is due for a refresh. I’ve used it since its introduction, suffering the labor-intensive transition from the original version to 2.x and enduring the horrifically problematic refinement of Z-wave in recent years. It’s all stable now, and remains quite versatile. I have no regrets for the 10-year ride, but only because there were very few alternatives for most of that period.
Part of my acceptance of Homeseer is because I only use their UI for configuration and test and their control engine for evant-action processing.
AMX devices –touchpanels, Zigbee remotes, and a slew of interface devices–do the human/device interaction. AMX makes it relatively easy to create good UI graphics and workflow. I created a command/control/data interchange between AMX and Homeseer– AMX handles UI, some automation logic, and various AMX devices; Homeseer manages lighting, Z-wave motion sensing, Z-wave remotes, and some X10 and some Insteon devices.
Homeseer’s HSTouch and Iridium’s AMX-on-iPad software share iDevice duty. While still a bit kludgy in the Design environment, HSTouch has evolved sufficiently to let you create useable UI designs. Iridium can use AMX touchpanel design tools to make iPad graphics; works very well and no new learning curve.
So…anxious to see what Homeseer does with 3.0!
//Mark

Comment on Feedback for www.mycokerewards.com by michelle wheeler

michelle wheeler — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:03:44 +0000

I”m new to the coke rewards but have found that my connection gets dropped fter i put in between 89-100 points, plus i’ve read that people can’t win any of the sweepstakes is this true? I really wish coke would put on it’s website where(atleast the state) somebody won the contest.That way we know it’s not a scam that the corporate headquaters dreamed up just to get our email or address for thier own needs.

Comment on HomeSeer: Time for a Redesign by Jeremy Stevenson

Jeremy Stevenson — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:08:16 +0000

Great article.

I think HomeSeer’s biggest problem is product quality. They don’t spend the time to get things right. They have many integrations that they wrote the code for and then they just let them break over time without even bothering to take them out of their marketing material. They need to spend time making their products robust and easy to use.

I think HomeSeer needs to get its act together soon or some clever new company is going to come along and eat their lunch.

Comment on Crestron’s Analog Sunset Ads Seem Misleading and Deceptive by Richard Gunther

Richard Gunther — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:57:49 +0000

The debate over the Analog Sunset is heating up! Commercial Integrator, a new publication targeted to integration professionals is presenting a live webcast, "Debating the Analog Sunset", on Wednesday, March 30, 2011. Get details at the Commercial Integrator site.

Comment on HomeSeer: Time for a Redesign by Rudi

Rudi — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 22:10:21 +0000

Fully agree with your observations. The functionality and flexibility of Homeseer is enormous. I’m running it for a few years now. Indeed only since the hstouch software, also the family started using the system. The webdesign diid not attract them.

Hope to see HS3 soon!

Comment on Crestron’s Analog Sunset Ads Seem Misleading and Deceptive by Richard Gunther

Richard Gunther — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:49:53 +0000

Extron Electronics has published a very informative white paper, "Analog Sunset" Demystified, available at http://www.extron.com/company/article.aspx?id=analogsunsetwp.

Comment on Hilton’s Abusive Reservation Practices Toward SXSW Attendees by Richard Gunther

Richard Gunther — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:46:50 +0000

Location, location, location. When I was looking for lodging, everything else immediately surrounding the convention center was full.

Comment on Hilton’s Abusive Reservation Practices Toward SXSW Attendees by Sebastien

Sebastien — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:18:02 +0000

Why don’t you just cancel and get another hotel room somewhere?

Comment on Crestron’s Analog Sunset Ads Seem Misleading and Deceptive by Douglas Williamson

Douglas Williamson — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:06:12 +0000

Slight correction to my comment. There is no planned date to turn on the ability of a digital set top box to limit the output of it’s analog ports. However both Satellite and Cable boxes have thier port setting modified by firmware delivered over the broadcast network so when a change does happen you can’t stop those kind of updates. My concern would be that the founders of aacs are mixed with content creators and manufacturers of hardware and since player is how they define it then the argument sometimes involves DVRs.

Comment on Crestron’s Analog Sunset Ads Seem Misleading and Deceptive by Douglas Williamson

Douglas Williamson — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:59:16 +0000

I agree that the wording is maybe a little harsh but I suggest you look at the satellite company in Europe that has already enabled the constraint bit. Most Digital boxes manufactured after 2005 can recognise the contraint bit and have thier analog ports limited to 480i (We turn on and off ports on boxes and change thier spec all the time) I work in conjuction with a number of cable television providers and the roll out for the contraint bit is scheduled for next summer. since most of our boxes with an HDMI port will stop sending anything non digital over 480i when this is enabled then this is a very realistic problem. You are incorrect about the set top boxes and Sony will for sure make sure their playstation acknoldeges the contraint bit for any content they have anything to do with. I think you missed the sneaky sections in the aacs license about updates. Most manufacturers in the last 5 years have made thier systems to be update compliant to this. The manufacturing guys will tell you that you are only a firmware update away from loosing your HD via analog. I realize this is a crappy problem but it is going to efect more things in the next year or two than you expect.