We recently completed a large KNX installation of 150+ lighting circuits, 28 zones of UFH, DMX colour change LED's, etc. This involved over 100 devices, which is only practical on a bus system, (100 port segmented hub and radial cat5 lines? no thanks I'll have a bit of green cable please!) This is why Ethernet will not be the answer by itself (and why it hasn't been the answer so far).
KNX has a huge market in mainland Europe and in the far east, there are new products appearing regularly with more and more functions. Yes it's a costly system at the moment but it's rock solid and reliable and it isn't 'just another bus system' it's supported by 100+ manufacturers, yes it's costly to join the club but many have decided it's worth it. The Gira home server provides one possible method for viewing and controlling a KNX system over IP (again top end, I admit).
Will system X ever happen - sorry but I don't think so, plug and play exists in the IT world but there are still many IT support companies out there who exist to make different bits of IT kit work together because a level of expertise is needed to make this happen. Compare the size of the corporate IT market to the HA market, we're small fry in comparison, if ease of interoperability has not happened in the IT world with their R&D budgets what hope do we have of seeing this in HA?
Cheers
Nick
KNX has a huge market in mainland Europe and in the far east, there are new products appearing regularly with more and more functions. Yes it's a costly system at the moment but it's rock solid and reliable and it isn't 'just another bus system' it's supported by 100+ manufacturers, yes it's costly to join the club but many have decided it's worth it. The Gira home server provides one possible method for viewing and controlling a KNX system over IP (again top end, I admit).
Will system X ever happen - sorry but I don't think so, plug and play exists in the IT world but there are still many IT support companies out there who exist to make different bits of IT kit work together because a level of expertise is needed to make this happen. Compare the size of the corporate IT market to the HA market, we're small fry in comparison, if ease of interoperability has not happened in the IT world with their R&D budgets what hope do we have of seeing this in HA?
Cheers
Nick
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