Until someone from HomeSeer clues us in, we'll only be able to guess why they did it. But I'm not sure I'd want to look at the evidence and draw the conclusion that they did not perform an analysis of both types of systems (Let's agree to call it the "panel v. PC" debate) and find one route superior. I believe they did. Too bad they no longer maintain a presence here but I can't really blame them for that. Still, I'd like to hear how their mini-ITX HA new server came into being.
HomeSeer *could* have looked at the Elks and Omnis of the world and created a panel that handled not only security, but lots of routine automation tasks as well. After all, if panels are better suited to security because they are more reliable, then wouldn't that same sort of reliability be good for home automtion too? HS, then, would seem to be taking an unreliable course. But we both know that's not the case.
What's really happening is that the years of proprietary panel protocols, inability to access networks, inability to interface with home automation and AV gear and lots of other issues have put the mark of death on panels. Vendor's panels (let's take Omni because I own their gear) have been steadily "growing" in size and complexity and add-on modules to account for these shortcomings. I claim it's an unsustainable task in the long run because competitors can enter the market using a mini PC as their foundation HW and have both a cheaper and superior product as a result. A more powerful CPU gives you lots of options a panel can't. Lots.
No one building a custom board can possibly compete with the horsepower and flexibility of the modern PC, particularly as embodied in Via's mini-ITX. That means Elk's competition can produce a PC-based alarm and HA system for the cost of designing some interface peripherals and some software. The expensive custom board design and manufacture drops out of the equation.
Custom panels will take a long time to die, but they're dying. Ironically, Homeseer is position itself to directly compete with what it supports. I don't think it will be long before one security vendor or another realizes that and pulls back on cooperating with them. Just as security panels grew PC-like parts, I predict HomeSeer *will* be producing other, specialized hardwire like sensor interfaces that would remove a lot of the incentive to buy an Elk or Omni.
For security, as Bob B. pointed out, hardwired panels still have some advantages. They don't depend on MS for underlying OS, for one thing. PCs have become incredibly robust over the last 20 years because they have been constantly refined. Yet because they have been running MS software, they've taken the rap for being unreliable and needing burping and booting every day.
True, but that just means they resolved the "panel v. PC" debate a long time ago, as you did. ADI chose an intermediate route, interestingly enough, for its home automation design. Much more flexible than any of the alarm panels I'm familiar with because it's essential a micro-PC in a very small box.
HS supports dozens of other "panels" so they're in a unique position to design the biggest, "best-est" badass panel out there. There's a lot of incentive and business advantage to avoid using COTS and forcing your clients into a proprietary design. I believe that they're up to the task of doing whatever they choose to do, it seems. They chose not to emulate the current (alarm) industry standard of custom panels. I believe that it seems like they are locked into PC's and that's why they are pushing the ITX but in reality they made "panel v. PC" decision a long time ago and it's only with the arrival of the highly reliable, fanless and very small ITX that they could finally realize that choice in a HW product.
But you did make the choice - that's all I'm trying to get at. Both you and HS are pioneering new technology. Alarm panels are pretty well mapped out by now. You looked around, saw a platform that you *knew* could do what you want to do and more, and went with it.
But obviously you didn't think that, did you? No. You made a choice that PC's were now powerful enough to support your ideas. When most alarm panels were designed, that wasn't so clear a choice or it was a choice alarm equipment makers didn't want to face.
It's not impossible. Elk and Omni and loads of other do it all the time. With their own, dedicated panel they won't have to be at the mercy of other manufacturers and design changes, incomplete protocol specs. OS changes and all the other issues that plague interoperation between proprietary devices. Panels were born in a time before AV gear was so complex and before very people had even heard of home automation.
Year after year, more and more "modules" are being added to these proprietary panels and they get more complex (and thus inherently less reliable) and more expensive as a result. They are trying to communicate like PCs and be as "smart" as PC's but they can't get there from where they are and never will. PC's are developing too quickly to ever be "caught up with" by a custom panel. The "whole house" PC is coming, and it's going to drive panels into the museums. People want event logs - panels stink at that. People want networking and web-enabling and USB and audio and video and lots of other things that are all there on a PC but quite a bit more expensive in the "panel centric" world.
I think that's an outdated assumption for two reasons. Every time I look, Omni's adding something to its boards, as are the others. They *have* to in order to keep up with the expanding universe of home automation. That means they're moving *away* from reliability. PCs on the other hand are at least at the 20th major design revision, depending on how you count. I contend that MS, having let HW take the black eye that its software deserved, has actually forced some PC makers to seek the most reliable components they can find.
PC MTBF varies so radically between MS and Unix that it becomes readily apparent that a lot of the "unreliability" of PC's lies at the feet of Windows, not the hardware. For that reason at least some believe that HomeSeer made the wrong choice in going with Windows, and not Unix. I tend to agree. MS has not demonstrated that it can create a reliable operating system suitable for "appliances" let alone critical black-box functions.
OK, strike that last paragraph. You're aware of the situation. You have to be, of course, because your product is only as good as the hardware it runs on. Would I be correct in assuming that you contend with far more software/firmware issues than underlying PC hard faults.
That's exactly what I was discussing somewhat earlier. And it's why I am so enamored of the mini-ITX. Via's designed it and they've been building this stuff for years. Lots of people are using them as servers and reporting phenomenally long "up" times. They have, from what my hands *and* my eyes tell me, have come up with a machine that "fails to fail." As a chip maker, they're in a unique position of knowing how to design every inch of a motherboard.
Intel dropped the ball on CPUs for a while. They didn't realize that most people didn't want their laps burned and the tiny fans in their PC's to fill with dust and fail. But that's what Intel delivered, fixated on speed, speed and more speed. Via ate its lunch by delivering what customers really wanted. Reliability, low purchase price and low operating costs. Hold a Via mini-ITX motherboard in your hands and you'll know you are holding a technological miracle.
I've been building PC's since 1984 so I know what's full length-cards have been reduced to postage stamp IC's. They've used every clever trick in the book to reduce board size and power consumption and increased reliability by ditching the tiny fans. There are "heavy hitters" in this world that change the way things are done. Jeff Volp's XTB is one of them. The VIA mini-ITX is another.
I believe that it's this "forced march" to complexity that's going to be their undoing. You build things, Dean. You know that you can only hang X number of additions on a framework that wasn't really designed to support those additions before the whole thing collapses.
I also believe that as these "panels" take on more and more complexity and continue to grow, the PC industry has stabilized and is now very, very mature. The hardware changes that used to occur monthly are now mostly over with. As time passes, and panels become more complex, the PCs are actually getting simpler, smaller and more reliable. I believe that the Via mini-ITX is the perfect example of that trend. Because they are used by millions of people flaws are very likely to be quickly exposed. Just looking at Via's revision list tells you how hard they work to run down problems reported by end users.
Then we really do agree. The fanless, diskless mini-ITX's are more than powerful enough to run a house's alarm and HA functions. Losing the fan meant losing the one moving part that's responsible for at least half the PC repairs I encounter. Lose the disk, and you've eliminated the other half. That, IMHO, is moving to just that "robustified" form.
Unfortunately, I think robustification process almost certainly means a Unix-based platform. People have accepted that Windows crashes because they keep buying it anyway. There's not much incentive for MS to improve the product if people don't care about having to reboot.
Exactly, precisely, indubitably! It's probably the number one reason that panels are doomed. There are so many companies working together to produce the modern PC that there *is* no way any single panel maker can hope to approach the level of R&D. Modern motherboards are so well-designed that you can short the board to ground and it will not burn up the way it might have 10 years ago.
Software IS the most important part now. That's why having a common hardware platform is so valuable. It's also why every Tom, Dick and Harry proprietary panel and their often cryptic programming "languages" are doomed to extinction. Yes, there will be a lot of them around for a long time because there's a huge installed base to contend, both of customers and of trained service personnel. But for the reasons you've very clearly elucidated, the panels are dinosaurs.
Even more reasons that the custom panel's going to die. How many times have I read posts here about people not wanting to install another set of sensors to feed their HA setup but they can't figure out how to make their panel alert their HA system that an alarm has occurred? As you point out, if your device is already on the home network, you're "half-way home" already
Want to upgrade your OmniLT? Buy the $1000 Omni Pro II model and scrap your old panel. That's a bad upgrade path, at least IMHO. In the PC SW based model, you'd buy an upgrade to your software and maybe a few extra I/O modules.
-- Bobby G.