UK style light switches

[wingers]

Hi all

Am looking in to adding automation to my home and like the look of the homeseer products as want to do it all myself and not pay for an installer

Having trouble finding light switches to replace my existing wall light switches - all the ones on the websites I find are wrong size/shape for UK fitting

Does anyone here come from UK or have suggestions of where I can find what I need?

Many thanks

[mrhappy]

If you want X10 then you have the choice of the LW10U or the LW10U. There may be a couple of the X10^2 modules that also will work.

If you want to go ZWave then you have the choice of the ACT stuff (http://store.homeseer.com/store/ACT-...-P516C127.aspx) or MK Astral (just be sitting down when you look at the price list).

I think those are the options basically, there may be one or two more but not much more than that.

[wingers]

Thanks for your quick reply, for X10 you said LD11 or LD11 - is one a mistype? or is the only the LD11

Also as you are UK any suggestions for good places to buy these parts?

[mrhappy]

Thanks for your quick reply, for X10 you said LD11 or LD11 - is one a mistype? or is the only the LD11

Also as you are UK any suggestions for good places to buy these parts?

Its just my poor attempt at humour based on the limited choice here, I just edited the post as I got it slightly wrong it should be the LW10U. The LW10U is a bit basic but none the less serves a purpose...

There is however another option with the LD11, this is a module that will let you use your own light switches and the X10 module then gets installed remotely and connected to your lights.

Suppliers I only really tend to use letsautomate (website appears down at the minute), laser was another one but they shut down some time ago. X10^2 comes from Hong Kong but the stuff there is OK in my experience. If you choose ZWave then when I last worked it out it was slightly cheaper to order it from HomeSeer and ship it to the UK from the US rather than places in the UK, that might have changed (or even be cheaper now with vat @ 20%) - just as long as her majesties revenue and customs dont get their fingers on it.

[wingers]

thank you very much - looking into HA has been a bit of a learning curve!

There seems to be so many different hardware and/or software controllers about, I have been struggling to know best route to take - but the homeseer/hometroller stuff looks good, any comments on it or any others you may have used?

Looking to do lights, audio, CCTV for starters then add on heating controls etc etc as time/money allows

what is best x10, z-wave, or a mixture of both

[mrhappy]

thank you very much - looking into HA has been a bit of a learning curve!

There seems to be so many different hardware and/or software controllers about, I have been struggling to know best route to take - but the homeseer/hometroller stuff looks good, any comments on it or any others you may have used?

Looking to do lights, audio, CCTV for starters then add on heating controls etc etc as time/money allows

what is best x10, z-wave, or a mixture of both

I've only used HomeSeer a few years but it suits me at the minute, i'm running it on a small eeeBox PC rather than a HomeTroller. One thing to think about though is HS3 is being developed so it may be better to wait until that comes into existence than buying HS2 and find it out of date very quickly. I've not really used anything else to compare it to really, it can be very powerful but also can be a learning curve.

As to whats best I only use X10 and some custom low voltage IO stuff, i've never used ZWave to compare it to. ZWave offers less choice here than the US definately but is perhaps more future proof, X10 is an old technology but stable for me. ZWave certainly seems to be where HS's focus is, but I think X10 is going to be around for some time yet.

[wingers]

excellent, thanks again - some good advice

Do we have any ideas when the HS3 is due?

I had also though about doing it on my own mini PC so will look at things like the eeeBox as that would be perfect

Hopefully letsautomate's website will be back up soon!

[jon00]

HS3 could be a long time coming. There has been no announcements apart from that is in development. When it does arrive, there will also be a period of debugging. I personally would not wait as Homeseer Technologies have traditionally provided an attractive price for existing users to upgrade.

[wingers]

@jon00 - thanks

@all - any recommendations on parts for my other requirements - cameras and audio (want speakers in lounge probably ceiling?, and possibly other rooms to stream music from itunes or windows media player) - would I need an amp as well? or can I connect straight from hometroller (or equivalent) to the speakers

Finally does anyone use the ipad app and does it work well?

[mrhappy]

@jon00 - thanks

@all - any recommendations on parts for my other requirements - cameras and audio (want speakers in lounge probably ceiling?, and possibly other rooms to stream music from itunes or windows media player) - would I need an amp as well? or can I connect straight from hometroller (or equivalent) to the speakers

Finally does anyone use the ipad app and does it work well?

I think you can get some Russound stuff here which you may be able to get working with HS (there is a plugin, don't know of the specifics for hardware/software though) - depends on your circumstances and budget I suppose. I went with a bit more of a DIY approach and have some small amps in different rooms and one source being the HS PC running the Windows Media Plugin. I then control this by HSTouch running on either the iPhone or whatever.

You will need an amp somewhere, just work out what rooms you need, whether you need individual room controls and take a look from there - if you run the WMP plugin you don't get multizone so you will be limited to the same music in each room.

As for cameras I only had a brief flirt with them in HS, I think the push now is on IP cameras so this may be something to look at rather than messing with analogue cameras and capture cards.