Home Automation Domotica Forum Europe, Bwired Forum

Hi All,

For our new house, which will be ready around October, I’m currently getting myself acquainted with Domotica. There seem to be a lot of different players and systems available and although my time is limited and I am a total newbie, I want to get the system with the best price/quality ratio available and control it all from my Iphone/Ipod and soon to come Ipad!

After some lurking around the net and contacting different Domotica dealers I have narrowed down my wish list to the following: multiroom audio, lighting system, heating system, curtain system and an alarm system. I’ve found (correct me if I’m wrong) ZigBee en Z-Wave to be reasonably priced.

Here’s my dilemma. I can go with a complete system for the different above mentioned functionalities and choose from Escient or Control4, since both are well priced. Or I can go for Sonos for multiroom audio and Rako for lighting and curtains. This saves me another €1k (for the system controller). This option does leave a question mark for the heating system. Anyone familiar with a heating system that can act stand alone, i.e. does not require a system controller? Our new home is heated by stadsverwarming(?) and we have floor heating on all floors.
My third option is multiroom audio from Sonos and Z-wave for lighting, curtains, heating and alarm. I am somewhat in the dark about Z-wave and haven’t been able to find a complete price list of the items I need.

Can you guys point out the pros and cons of my options and maybe enlighten me on issues I haven’t considered?

Thanks,
Tufail

Hi Tufail and welcome!

These "open" questions are always the hardest to answer, you know.. so i won't.

Limited time and a newbie? In that case, i hope you have the $$$$$ to accomplish what you want.
Cause one way or the other, you'll have to pay; either in time or money. It's as simple as that.

Did you let the Domotica dealers make you an offer for what you want? (as in delivering a ready to use system)
If not, do so before you continue. And let them decide what you need (X10, Z-wave, Zigbee, whatever).
Saves you time. And if the price is right for you, you're finished; a signature will suffice.

Price not right?
Then go the other way and dive into the exciting world of domotica yourself, spend days on this forum to acquire knowledge to eventually make up your own mind and do it (partly) yourself.

With our help of of course! So you won't end up with an unresponsive system because it's too busy polling Z-wave devices all the time...

That's all i can say for now, pending your decision

I think that if you go for the DIY , you can save much money and do it step by step. Like building a new home ,only if you think and work step by step , you can reach the best setup.
The most simple, cheapest, protocol for DIY , could be x10 with a ready to use sw like Homeseer (that my opinion, and what i did 3 years ago for my new house as domotica newbie as well) Good luck

Thanks for your input, guys.
I do realize that I have to take it step by step to come to the best solution. I have done some research already and was hoping to speed things up by posting my conclusions so far, i.e the three options.
I've received offers from Domotica dealers as well, but the price was not right and the dealers I contacted pretty much kept to their own system and protocol, instead of offering me the best solution.

So again:

1. Escient/Control4
2. Sonos/Rako. No solution for heating (?)
3. Sonos and Z-wave

I am willing/able to do things myself, although my programming skills end at Pascal (1997). Could you guys point out the pros and cons of using Z-wave? X10 seems to be very unstable and I have therefore removed this option from my shortlist.
Thanks again,
Tufail