Blown away

[macromark]

Care to enlighten?

It's been a while but as I recall, if you want to control a HomeSeer device or launch an event with a MainLobby button, you have to do it with a fairly long script command... not a big deal if you like working with scripts but a bit tedious for me. In HSTouch Designer, you can do the same thing much easier with drop-down menus. That's just one example..

We approached the Cinemar folks a long time ago about creating tighter integration but it never panned out. That was back when we were actually reselling MainLobby and before they decided to create their own automation "engine".... probably 2005 or 06.

[waynehead99]

Nope.

Care to enlighten?

[macromark]

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

I had an opportunity to visit their location in New Hampshire this past summer and the friendliness of the staff and their invitation to show me around their business was quite impressive. I chatted with Mark for quite a while and he was eager to share his knowledge and tips for my HS3 set up.

A great company and great people inside it.

Thanks HomeSeer!

Randy Boone

Hi Randy - thanks for the kind words. Glad you had a chance to stop by.

[macromark]

Is the integration between HS3 and MainLobby touch screens as tight as it is with HSTouch?

Nope.

[randycboone]

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

I had an opportunity to visit their location in New Hampshire this past summer and the friendliness of the staff and their invitation to show me around their business was quite impressive. I chatted with Mark for quite a while and he was eager to share his knowledge and tips for my HS3 set up.

A great company and great people inside it.

Thanks HomeSeer!

Randy Boone

[akatar]

i would say,
you can try mainlobby and the "hs to ml" plugin free for 30 days, so give it a go

you wil be impressed

[S-F]

you are correct, but try mainlobby for you're touchscreens and sudenly it looks amazing

Is the integration between HS3 and MainLobby touch screens as tight as it is with HSTouch?

[akatar]

I have just about all the hubs because I'm crazy like that.
The main ones that I have used are: CastleOS, Vera Edge, Fibaro HC3, Indigo, ISY i994, SmartThings 2, and have bought and tried many others.

The ONLY one that can do everything I want AND is stable, AND has a logical layout is HS3!

I have only one MAJOR nagging issue with HS3; HSTOUCh is so 90's it isn't funny! If HomeSeer could only hire a excellent GUI designer and blow us all away HS3 would be a no brainer for many...

you are correct, but try mainlobby for you're touchscreens and sudenly it looks amazing

[trancepsychosis]

Quick migration from Vera

I am a new convert myself from Vera, controller was crawling with about 15 devices and two logic scenes. With altsteon not being ported to UI7 and the half-off sale, I finally got the software I've been drooling over since starting HA. Only migrated one Z-wave device so far with the exclude from Vera and include with Homeseer. Was wondering if there is a quick way to migrate everything? Will I need to exclude my Insteon devices from Vera or are they associated with the PLM? Advice would be appreciated, time is something I seldom have and would like to migrate everything quickly and easily instead of tearing apart my fans to sync the fanlinks.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I have just about all the hubs because I'm crazy like that.
The main ones that I have used are: CastleOS, Vera Edge, Fibaro HC3, Indigo, ISY i994, SmartThings 2, and have bought and tried many others.

The ONLY one that can do everything I want AND is stable, AND has a logical layout is HS3!

I have only one MAJOR nagging issue with HS3; HSTOUCh is so 90's it isn't funny! If HomeSeer could only hire a excellent GUI designer and blow us all away HS3 would be a no brainer for many...

[DevinH]

I never had the chance to try out a competitor, except for Nexia, which came with building a new house in this neighborhood. It provided just enough functionality to get me interested in HA, but I was not interested in paying a monthly subscription fee, so I had one year to research other platforms before my complimentary subscription ran out. I had pretty much settled on HomeSeer after about five months of research and ended up purchasing it a couple months later (last may when it was half off).

I remember having it narrowed down to HomeSeer, Vera, and SmartThings. I ended up going with HomeSeer for the following reasons.

1) HomeSeer seemed to be the most flexible, both in what can be accomplished and the wide variety of compatible devices.

2) The forums. I spent a lot of time in each their forums. HomeSeer's seemed to have more helpful people and cool things that people were doing.

3) The ability to issue voice commands (via way2call) and have the system respond in voice over speaker clients (the thought of that was amazing!) Neither of which I've setup yet, but I do have my way2call on order.

After having it running for six months, I can't say I've had any issues (at least, not any issues at the fault of HomeSeer). I went with a custom PC to run HS3 on and I've never had to reboot except for windows updates.

[jangermann]

I have been using Vera Lite and latest Fibaro Home Center Lite.
Both systems total unreliable, with a LOT of bugs. Lights do only turn on/off some times (both), heating panels don't work after holiday mode (Fibaro), poor z-wave range (the Vera). ect ect... You can not make a simple backup on the Fibaro that can be restored on another controller, meaning that when your controller dies, all your hard work, events, scenes and network dies with it.

Fibaro has SO many unhappy customers. They recently released a beta firmware so full of bugs, that the HCL only can stay alive max. 3 days before it needs a power cycle (and you can't downgrade). They are month and years to release new firmware's and they do not inform the costumers whats going on.

With the other vendors my events was made simple because advanced events only did work some times, and was really unreliable.

I am just so glad I "discovered" and changed to Homeseer. Now for the first time I have created events the way I intended, and they works perfect, and I now really take advantages of all my z-wave devices.

My everyday job is in the PLC/SCADA automation business, I know how things work, and also when they don't :-)

[macromark]

Hi

Just want to let the hole Homeseer team know, that I am totally blown away because:

1. After 4 years and to controllers from other vendors, I finally found a system that is reliable and works every time. I was about to give up on z-wave, but Homeseer just killed every doubt.

2. The homeseer support and the help on the forum is amazing, fast and precise support, thanks a lot!

Keep up the good work! I will for sure stay with Homeseer.
Best regards a happy costumer

Much appreciated, thanks! I'm curious too... which other controllers did you try first?

[Bob_Linux_User]

You would be hard pressed to find a cheaper solution for HA than the Zee S2. For most the Zee S2 will provide all of the functionality that they would ever need considering it has the same event engine that is used in the full HS3 system. With the additions of a few plug-ins, this platform is a bargain.

I am currently running HS3 Pro on a quad-core Baytrail Qotom PC (12watts) using 3.0.0.208 and Z-wave 3.0.1.25 and it runs flawlessly. I never have to touch it unless I update windows 7 OS. This PC also runs BlueIris NVR on seven (7) cameras.

Bob

[mikedr]

I'm glad that I chose HS over Vera. I had it down to those two systems when deciding to start doing home automation again (after a home-brew kit centered around RadioRA many many years ago). Started with a Zee. Now have two SEL's.

The Zee2 is a screaming deal, too. I'm guessing for 97+% of what people want to do with HA, it's more than enough. I went from a Zee to an SEL only to be able to run a handful of plugins, before the Zee2 came out.