2 OT Questions For Kindreds...

[Greg Satz]

On Dec 5, 2005, at 7:08 AM, Jeff Click wrote:

> 1) Cordless or wired phone system?
>
> This seems like a no-brainer, I know.  But we currently have a 
> cordless system with multiple handsets and I'll-be-danged if the 
> handsets don't all end up in a pile in the kitchen.  My wife grabs the 
> closest one when the phone rings, and usually talks until she's headed 
> out the door, and the kitchen is passed on her way out, so she just 
> drops it off there.  (I've actually found one in her CAR before, as 
> she just assumed she was on her mobile and headed right out with it!)
>
> The idea of a wired system at least tethers them to their rooms...

This depends on lots of factors as you point out and is probably more 
dependent on the habits of those who use them then the technology 
itself. You might want to consider some of the wireless VOIP 802.11 
phones though their support issues are probably still being discovered. 
:-)

> As for other tech, I'm going with the Omni Pro II by HAI.  This will 
> be my second system (third I've built and implemented).  I'm looking 
> at either doing Lutron lighting (which can integrate) or HAI's 
> proprietary lighting control.  The Omni will handle the actual 
> dimming/toggling of lights and scenes, security, irrigation, HVAC, 
> radiant heat, etc.  XTension will handle the conditional "thinking" 
> and tell the Omni when to do what.  The Omni also fully-integrates 
> with Russound multi-zone systems, which I like, because that means 
> XTension will be controlling all zones and even the inputs for each 
> zone.

The OP2 and Lutron, I think, are two best-in-class for their problem 
sets. You would probably save some money by using HAI's UPB lighting 
option and would cut the integration overhead by half. HAI programming 
isn't fun though. HAI was hit pretty hard from Katrina so most of their 
product is back-ordered.

Thanks,
Greg