Hi Folks
I've been keeping an eye on this and other HA groups/forums recently and have been trying to build up some kind of picture as to the best way to get started.
However I seem to hit more questions than answers.
I have looked at Charmed Quark, Homeseer, Harmony and in fact various other systems but I am hitting a more fundamental problem than "which controller".
Here's the situation as I see it.
Being based in the UK, I've come to realise that our options re budget home automation are somewhat limited.
We seem to be some distance behind the US in this area, and as such X10
is still very much the obvious choice for budget HA installations.
There are others but they are either too expensive or not quite
available yet (take Z-wave, looks like it will be 2007 before we see
any modules for that)
So I'm a bit stuck because I want to get started, I don't really want
to run cables everywhere (awkward retrofit) and I dont' want to spend a
lot of money on this, hence X10 being the obvious choice.
But then I read about X10 being "dead" and notice from a few threads on
the Charmed Quark message board (for example) that this is the general sentiment and that they are reluctant to support devices like the CM11/12
Given that I'm pretty much stuck with X10 and the CM12 for the time
being, this makes me nervous and somewhat unsure what to do.
I had decided to go for Homeseer but notice there are many problems
with V2, I have looked at Charmed Quark but without CM11 support it's
not much use to me, and all the time I have this nagging feeling in the
back of my mind that I shouldn't be using X10 anyway.
A hardware controller may be an alternative option, I saw an Ocelot on
Ebay for about £60 but let it slip through my fingers.
So basically I'm feeling a bit swamped about which particular horse to back!
Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated. Remember my budget is limited and I'm only looking at a very modest system to start with (isn't that how we all start!, and then the credit cards get involved and all hell breaks loose!)
I've been keeping an eye on this and other HA groups/forums recently and have been trying to build up some kind of picture as to the best way to get started.
However I seem to hit more questions than answers.
I have looked at Charmed Quark, Homeseer, Harmony and in fact various other systems but I am hitting a more fundamental problem than "which controller".
Here's the situation as I see it.
Being based in the UK, I've come to realise that our options re budget home automation are somewhat limited.
We seem to be some distance behind the US in this area, and as such X10
is still very much the obvious choice for budget HA installations.
There are others but they are either too expensive or not quite
available yet (take Z-wave, looks like it will be 2007 before we see
any modules for that)
So I'm a bit stuck because I want to get started, I don't really want
to run cables everywhere (awkward retrofit) and I dont' want to spend a
lot of money on this, hence X10 being the obvious choice.
But then I read about X10 being "dead" and notice from a few threads on
the Charmed Quark message board (for example) that this is the general sentiment and that they are reluctant to support devices like the CM11/12
Given that I'm pretty much stuck with X10 and the CM12 for the time
being, this makes me nervous and somewhat unsure what to do.
I had decided to go for Homeseer but notice there are many problems
with V2, I have looked at Charmed Quark but without CM11 support it's
not much use to me, and all the time I have this nagging feeling in the
back of my mind that I shouldn't be using X10 anyway.
A hardware controller may be an alternative option, I saw an Ocelot on
Ebay for about £60 but let it slip through my fingers.
So basically I'm feeling a bit swamped about which particular horse to back!
Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated. Remember my budget is limited and I'm only looking at a very modest system to start with (isn't that how we all start!, and then the credit cards get involved and all hell breaks loose!)
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