Dedicated Z-wave sites?

Looking to see if there are any dedicated Z-Wave forums.
http://www.zwaveworld.com/ and the Z-wave alliance sites are all I have
found.

Also does anyone one know if Intermatic has released their Zwave outlet yet?


Thanks

"Steve" <nobody@nothere.notthere> wrote:

>Looking to see if there are any dedicated Z-Wave forums.
>http://www.zwaveworld.com/ and the Z-wave alliance sites are all I have
>found.

Interesting site. Z-Wave has been around for about 3 years and the link
cited says it's just getting started in 2006. It repeats the same steamy
pie-in-sky claims that have been around for about 3 years about all the
companies that are _planning_ Z-Wave products. 3 years seems a long time to
be in the planning stage. I wonder where all the many millions of dollars in
venture capital raised by Zensys in multiple rounds of financing has gone if
they're just getting started with the planning in 2006?

http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Automated Home (UK) has a Z-Wave forum. Here's the URL:
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/forum17.html

HomeSeer has a forum on Z-Wave:
http://board.homeseer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=624

There's info and links at Z-Wave Alliance:
http://www.z-wavealliance.org/

A few more:
http://members2.boardhost.com/lhendrix01/
http://www.z-wave.com/modules/Forum/
http://www.zwaveworld.com/forum/index.php
http://www.linuxha.com/FD/phpBB2/vie...4dbba9fff62202

Have fun.

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

========================>
Bass Home Electronics
Online DIY Alarm & Automation Store
941-866-1100
www.BassBurglarAlarms.com
=========================>







"Steve" <nobody@nothere.notthere> wrote in message
news:QSofh.312360$1i1.260341@attbi_s72...
> Looking to see if there are any dedicated Z-Wave forums.
> http://www.zwaveworld.com/ and the Z-wave alliance sites are all I have
> found.
>
> Also does anyone one know if Intermatic has released their Zwave outlet
> yet?
>
>
> Thanks
>

nobody@whocares.com (Dave Houston) wrote:

>"Steve" <nobody@nothere.notthere> wrote:
>
>>Looking to see if there are any dedicated Z-Wave forums.
>>http://www.zwaveworld.com/ and the Z-wave alliance sites are all I have
>>found.
>
>Interesting site. Z-Wave has been around for about 3 years and the link
>cited says it's just getting started in 2006. It repeats the same steamy
>pie-in-sky claims that have been around for about 3 years about all the
>companies that are _planning_ Z-Wave products. 3 years seems a long time to
>be in the planning stage. I wonder where all the many millions of dollars in
>venture capital raised by Zensys in multiple rounds of financing has gone if
>they're just getting started with the planning in 2006?

I was wrong! I just googled and found the first mention of Z-Wave in c.h.a.
was by me in November 2002. So they've been "just getting started" and
burning multiple rounds of financing for at least 4 years and 20 or so days.
My, my, how time flies (while Z-Wave can't get off the ground). ;-)

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....062f0e2f20f12c

http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

"Dave Houston" <nobody@whocares.com> wrote in message
news:45802078.733983562@nntp.fuse.net...
> "Steve" <nobody@nothere.notthere> wrote:
>
> >Looking to see if there are any dedicated Z-Wave forums.
> >http://www.zwaveworld.com/ and the Z-wave alliance sites are all I have
> >found.
>
> Interesting site. Z-Wave has been around for about 3 years and the link
> cited says it's just getting started in 2006. It repeats the same steamy
> pie-in-sky claims that have been around for about 3 years about all the
> companies that are _planning_ Z-Wave products. 3 years seems a long time
to
> be in the planning stage. I wonder where all the many millions of dollars
in
> venture capital raised by Zensys in multiple rounds of financing has gone
if
> they're just getting started with the planning in 2006?

Maybe they're like Cybergenie, the PC/Phone system folks. They raised 20M
of venture capital and burned up close to half of it on just two trade
shows. About two years later they imploded and vanished from the earth.
It's easy to generate press releases. It's somewhat harder to translate
those into a widely accepted, well-functioning product.

There's some interesting reading here:

http://resmagonline.com/articles/pub...cle_1319.shtml

By Alan R. Frank
Aug 23, 2006, 11:02

(some excerpts)

"The knock against Z-Wave is that it is proprietary, rather than
standards-based, and that there’s only one source (Zensys) for the
technology."

(I'm not sure that those who fault Insteon as being proprietary realize that
Z-Wave is equally so!)

"Up to 232 devices can be members of a Z-Wave network, which is a far cry
from ZigBee’s 65,535-device-per-network limit."

(Darn, that's not even as many devices as 25-year-old X-10!)

"Michael Einstein, vice president of corporate innovation for Intermatic,
placed some worries to rest. “First of all, most people don’t even want to
change a wall switch. Less than 25 percent of America will change a wall
switch. Secondly, if you really want to do an integrated system—home
theater, home control—people aren’t really going to do that themselves.” In
other words, the need for the ‘secret sauce’ (integration and configuration
of relatively complex systems) doesn’t go away simply because the wires do.”

(Less than 25% of Americans are willing to change out a switch - that's
probably a high estimate, IMHO)

"Z-Wave is certainly building in the marketplace, but winners are yet to be
determined in the wireless control sweepstakes. West Technology Research
Solutions has recently updated its estimates for Z-Wave and IEEE-802.15.4
and notes that Zensys will ship somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Z-Wave
chips this year, and roughly twice those numbers in 2007."

(I remember reading about lots of companies claims of "units shipped" that
turned out to mean "shipped from one company warehouse to another." The
accounting scams that accompany such internal shell games are well-known.
What really matters is how many of those chips actually end up in saleable
products.)

" Zensys is privately held and as shipment data is proprietary. But Shakib
implied that the right number is in the millions rather than hundreds of
thousands, and said Zensys is shipping more than 100,000 units per quarter
to each of their top customers"

("Implied" indeed. I love how companies won't release the actual figures
but are happy to assure people the numbers are *very* good. If they were so
damn good, they'd be happy to show proof, when they can't, they're happy to
imply otherwise.)

"Lucero does anticipate one wireless home control technology to vanquish the
others in the next five years, noting that the youthful market has room for
everyone. However, the next couple of years should give indicators of which
technologies are gaining traction. With Zigbee’s focus on the commercial
sector, its success will not be determined by the home market, but Lucero
predicted that “for Z-Wave and Insteon, success in the home is pretty much a
make-or-break proposition.”


************************************

I still strongly believe the winner will be the protocol that appliance and
AV manufacturers are willing to embed in their products at the factory. If
not, all the new protocols are still faced with the same old problems. How
do I tell if I turned the TV on or off remotely if the remote's power switch
is just a toggle button? Unless the device maker embeds some intelligence
in their product, you're still back to Rube Goldberg-ish current sensors
wrapped around the line cord and some method of relaying that information
back to a centralized controller.

The above report confirms my belief that a number of HA end-users are going
to climb into a proprietary boat that will float for a while, but will sink
and leave them stranded in another few years. Lots of people have sought
the "golden fleece" of HA success. Many of them have been eaten by the
Cyclops of business reality. More are sure to end up on the Cyclopean
dinner plate, probably sooner than later.

I'm also *very* familiar (from the PC world) of the perils of basing your
product line on a sole source. What if Zensys, after getting a little
success, decides to raise prices without limit as Intel tried to do with its
CPUs? Will a plug-compatible, non-infringing chip appear as did the AMD
processors to quash the monopoly? Not likely. The PC market was immense -
that made the risk and cost of developing a non-infringing product
worthwhile. The HA market is far too small to justify that sort of
Herculean effort. I think when manufacturers realize that they've put all
their eggs in a proprietary basket that they don't own, they might gravitate
away from Zensys. Just because manufacturers commit to something today
doesn't mean they won't ditch the product line as soon as the numbers turn
bad or the support costs rise beyond expectations.

--
Bobby G.

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@YAH00.COM> wrote:

>
>(I'm not sure that those who fault Insteon as being proprietary realize that
>Z-Wave is equally so!)

I've mentioned that on a few occasions.
>"Up to 232 devices can be members of a Z-Wave network, which is a far cry
>from ZigBee’s 65,535-device-per-network limit."

You can have multiple networks. But the need for close spacing and the
limited number of hops pretty much guarantee nobody will exceed 232 devices
- at least not if they need to reach all of them.

>I still strongly believe the winner will be the protocol that appliance and
>AV manufacturers are willing to embed in their products at the factory. If
>not, all the new protocols are still faced with the same old problems. How
>do I tell if I turned the TV on or off remotely if the remote's power switch
>is just a toggle button? Unless the device maker embeds some intelligence
>in their product, you're still back to Rube Goldberg-ish current sensors
>wrapped around the line cord and some method of relaying that information
>back to a centralized controller.

I think HomePlug (powerline) may have the best shot if they can get the cost
of a node down.

http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

nobody@whocares.com (Dave Houston) wrote:

>I was wrong! I just googled and found the first mention of Z-Wave in c.h.a.
>was by me in November 2002. So they've been "just getting started" and
>burning multiple rounds of financing for at least 4 years and 20 or so days.
>My, my, how time flies (while Z-Wave can't get off the ground). ;-)

Google was wrong! It missed an even earlier Z-Wave (by 6 months) reference.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....e521eebe5ec805


http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

"Steve" <nobody@nothere.notthere> wrote:

>Looking to see if there are any dedicated Z-Wave forums.
>http://www.zwaveworld.com/ and the Z-wave alliance sites are all I have
>found.
>
>Also does anyone one know if Intermatic has released their Zwave outlet yet?

This is probably as good as you will find for basic information and for
lists of actual (or planned) products although there are no direct links to
any forums. ACT does now have a rather lengthy product list some five years
after they licensed the technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-wave

I suggest everyone should take note of the bandwidth restrictions in Europe
and the output power restrictions in North America. No amount of PR,
open-air range figures or distortions from fishy sources can change
fundamental physics.

Just to cloud the issue a bit more...

http://www.wirelessdmx.com/
http://www.esource.com/public/pdf/cec/CEC-TB-1.pdf

http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

I think that the thing limiting Z-Wave is their choice for a very low speed
network. It's going to be hard to achieve ubiquity when your system cannot
ever be used to even transmit media metadata, much less media data. No
powerline technology really could even be used for either of those things
either I don't think. Zigbee seems to be the only one that could really have
a chance at being a fairly ubiquitious wireless control technology that
could move up out of the trivial amounts of data involved in turning some
lights on and off. It could not transmit media data, but it could transmit
metadata and some other small stuff.

But, in the end, media is going to be the single biggest driver of
acceptance of home automation technologies. Actually, it may already be.
Therefore the system will have to use a backbone that supports media data,
which pretty much means the ethernet network in any practical sense at this
point. There are some other technical possibilities, but no one seems to be
really in a position to push them (such as Firewire.)

If you've already got an ethernet based automation/media backbone, it seems
to me that anyone who can build on that backbone, providing just the small
amount of extra stuff required, would have the best chance. For instance,
something like Zigbee but very localized, so that you can hang several
transmitter/receiver devices off of the ethernet network around the home to
get very good coverage and good speed. So you can provide retrofit friendly
support for lighting and a few other things that would benefit from being
wirelessly controlled, but not have the data speed downside and coverage
problems and limits on modules that come with existing wireless/powerline
technologies.

Wireless IP would be optimum in that scenario, but it doesn't seem like
anyone has managed to get close to providing the small, cheap wireless IP
package that would be required.

The downside of course is that IP networks for the home have to get a lot
smarter and self managing. As the vendor of a networked automation product,
we have a fair amount of problems that are not related to our product but to
the network itself. It's too easy to get two machines on the same address,
or to mess up network settings or DHCP settings, or firewall settings and so
forth.

---------------------
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd
www.charmedquark.com

"Dean Roddey" <droddey@charmedquark.com> wrote:

>I think that the thing limiting Z-Wave is their choice for a very low speed
>network. It's going to be hard to achieve ubiquity when your system cannot
>ever be used to even transmit media metadata, much less media data. No
>powerline technology really could even be used for either of those things
>either I don't think. Zigbee seems to be the only one that could really have
>a chance at being a fairly ubiquitious wireless control technology that
>could move up out of the trivial amounts of data involved in turning some
>lights on and off. It could not transmit media data, but it could transmit
>metadata and some other small stuff.
>
>But, in the end, media is going to be the single biggest driver of
>acceptance of home automation technologies. Actually, it may already be.
>Therefore the system will have to use a backbone that supports media data,
>which pretty much means the ethernet network in any practical sense at this
>point. There are some other technical possibilities, but no one seems to be
>really in a position to push them (such as Firewire.)
>
>If you've already got an ethernet based automation/media backbone, it seems
>to me that anyone who can build on that backbone, providing just the small
>amount of extra stuff required, would have the best chance. For instance,
>something like Zigbee but very localized, so that you can hang several
>transmitter/receiver devices off of the ethernet network around the home to
>get very good coverage and good speed. So you can provide retrofit friendly
>support for lighting and a few other things that would benefit from being
>wirelessly controlled, but not have the data speed downside and coverage
>problems and limits on modules that come with existing wireless/powerline
>technologies.
>
>Wireless IP would be optimum in that scenario, but it doesn't seem like
>anyone has managed to get close to providing the small, cheap wireless IP
>package that would be required.
>
>The downside of course is that IP networks for the home have to get a lot
>smarter and self managing. As the vendor of a networked automation product,
>we have a fair amount of problems that are not related to our product but to
>the network itself. It's too easy to get two machines on the same address,
>or to mess up network settings or DHCP settings, or firewall settings and so
>forth.

And, if you noted the limits on Z-Wave bandwidth in Europe, in the Wikipedia
article I cited, it's even worse there.

Media is not of much importance to me - I don't even watch much TV. Since
it's not important to me, I really have no opinion on the price point needed
to penetrate this market.

However, I think you're wrong about powerline technology. 200Mbps Homeplug
AV hardware is already shipping - it does HD streaming media over the
powerlines. I've seen a post on another forum from a user who indicates it
works well.

You can find a multitude of links by googling "Homeplug AV".

http://davehouston.net
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/roZetta/
roZetta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com