Is Intermatic Discontinuing Zwave Products?
- Thread starter mlester
- Start date
claymahaffey
Member
twilo123
Active Member
intermatic dropped out months ago because some ahole is suing the major z-wave players because he is a patent troll. intermatic is caught up in it and got a cease and desist i am sure. they don't have a leg to stand on so they dropped out. that is the speculation some of us had come to at the time. they dropped out shortly after the lawsuit was announced. hawking was another one in trouble. the guy has a patent on some kind of ha gateway device dealing with zwave/zigbee/rf ha devices and hawking didn't even respond to initial motions and almost had a default judgment against them. they claim they had a flood in the room where the mail was or some bs so they could bide time to respond but in the end i think they are probably screwed also.
it's been a few months since i have seen the legal docs (they were posting them online for awhile and then the judge had them taken offline and started charging per page to view them) but most of the major players were named (i think even Crestron was named). i don't think i saw HS in it though. maybe they can comment directly to saw whether they were named or not since they are active on here.
it really sucks because the guy looks to be a patent troll. he has numerous patents but no actual development on the patents.
we were talking about it for awhile on zwaveworld.com forum so Squintz may remember some info too and chime in.
it's a real shame as intermatic had some cheap pricing and i was also waiting for their zwave pool control which they claimed would be coming out this summer. they have one now but it just talks to each component direclty; not to the whole zwave network. kind of like harmony 890 zwave controls.
it's been a few months since i have seen the legal docs (they were posting them online for awhile and then the judge had them taken offline and started charging per page to view them) but most of the major players were named (i think even Crestron was named). i don't think i saw HS in it though. maybe they can comment directly to saw whether they were named or not since they are active on here.
it really sucks because the guy looks to be a patent troll. he has numerous patents but no actual development on the patents.
we were talking about it for awhile on zwaveworld.com forum so Squintz may remember some info too and chime in.
it's a real shame as intermatic had some cheap pricing and i was also waiting for their zwave pool control which they claimed would be coming out this summer. they have one now but it just talks to each component direclty; not to the whole zwave network. kind of like harmony 890 zwave controls.
I found this email from Intermatic.
"The purchase order below will not be able to ship as both items (HA18C and CA3750) are obsolete and no stock is available.
Thank you,"
But they are very careful not to just come out and tell the truth. Seems kind of wierd to me. Some distributor should just flat-out ask them what their position is so the dealers and customers will know what's going on. I guess they have to try and sell whats in stock before the truth comes out or no one would buy it at full price, and then they have to discount what's already sold to distribution or take it all back and sell it on ebay.
"The purchase order below will not be able to ship as both items (HA18C and CA3750) are obsolete and no stock is available.
Thank you,"
But they are very careful not to just come out and tell the truth. Seems kind of wierd to me. Some distributor should just flat-out ask them what their position is so the dealers and customers will know what's going on. I guess they have to try and sell whats in stock before the truth comes out or no one would buy it at full price, and then they have to discount what's already sold to distribution or take it all back and sell it on ebay.
LightenUP
Active Member
Aren't they too big to fail? Maybe a stimulus package would prop up Z-Wave until they ultimately go bankrupt. Sounds like a perfectly good idea to me since it seems to be popular from the intelects running a company for unions. Oh wait maybe Itermatic has union contracts that they are to pay for the rest of their lives.
aartech
Member
Too big to fail? You mean like GM?
Actually it's more like Bell Canada up here. They decided (on 2 separate occasions actually) to get in to home monitoring of security systems, bought tonnes of equipment, did X number of installs and then abruptly decided it wasn't their business model and dropped the whole thing.
In any case, Intermatic's not failing (AFAIK) but I think they're focusing more on core industrial type products. In the mean time it's a decent chance to get some aggressive pricing on ZWave product... but it will dry up at some point. Homesettings switches are mostly all gone now but there's quite a bit of the nicer In-Touch switches around.
After that there's Leviton, ACT, Wayne Dalton currently that come to mind off hand.
claymahaffey
Member
Does this mean that Wayne Dalton is going to continue to make more of these? I only have 2 switches and a their USB stick. I am finally getting the time/money together to outfit the whole system and I am wondering if I should get more of these or start over with someone elses setup.
anyone know any more then what was posted in the last update?
anyone know any more then what was posted in the last update?
IVB
I assume by this you mean you dont have to poll the device like you do with the homesettings? I have CQC poll the one device every 30 seconds or so to see if anyone touched the switch which isnt optimal.
if I understand the controller correctly that is the one for Vizia RF? I assume that works okay with CQC?
I assume by this you mean you dont have to poll the device like you do with the homesettings? I have CQC poll the one device every 30 seconds or so to see if anyone touched the switch which isnt optimal.
if I understand the controller correctly that is the one for Vizia RF? I assume that works okay with CQC?
By this I assume you mean CQC driver doesnt support the active notication in RZCOP?
I found a deal on some homesetting switches, $25 a pop so makes me rethink how much I need the active notification? My goals are:
* control outside lights, to start I would just turn them on/off at night, phase II would be to control via a motion sensor linked to alarm. I really like to know if someone is walking up side of house at anyway so I figured a motion sensor tied to alarm tied to CQC is the way to go. Once I might as well tie that to the lights rather then using a 'dumb' motion sensor
* turn off some key lights and outlets when the alarm is armed(no one home)
* turn on/off some lights in living and master bedroom via remote via IRA2 via CQC.
* shut garage work area lights off when no one is in there or based on a timer.
In what cases do I really lose without the active notification?
I think you do something where someone enters a room, turns on a switch and motion sensor checks for motion in room and turns off light once no one is present. I could see this working smoother if you had active notification.
Is there a big draw on the system polling devices? If I get to 30 devices it would be a lot does that put a big drain on the network if you poll each of them once a minute?
I found a deal on some homesetting switches, $25 a pop so makes me rethink how much I need the active notification? My goals are:
* control outside lights, to start I would just turn them on/off at night, phase II would be to control via a motion sensor linked to alarm. I really like to know if someone is walking up side of house at anyway so I figured a motion sensor tied to alarm tied to CQC is the way to go. Once I might as well tie that to the lights rather then using a 'dumb' motion sensor
* turn off some key lights and outlets when the alarm is armed(no one home)
* turn on/off some lights in living and master bedroom via remote via IRA2 via CQC.
* shut garage work area lights off when no one is in there or based on a timer.
In what cases do I really lose without the active notification?
I think you do something where someone enters a room, turns on a switch and motion sensor checks for motion in room and turns off light once no one is present. I could see this working smoother if you had active notification.
Is there a big draw on the system polling devices? If I get to 30 devices it would be a lot does that put a big drain on the network if you poll each of them once a minute?
IVB
Senior Member
Only answering a few questions right now as i got meetings starting in 2 mins, for the next 6 hours.
Sorry, I meant that CQC doesn't support polling non-Leviton devices with the RZCOP. Then again, nobody except J9 does (not Elk, not anyone). For those of us with >25 Intermatic switches, thats' a death sentence.
No, very little draw. But you don't need polling if you get Leviton devices as each device will tell the RZCOP when it's been changed, so the RZCOP is always up to date. Since you have nothing, if all your needs can be met by buying Leviton devices, you're set.
Sorry, I meant that CQC doesn't support polling non-Leviton devices with the RZCOP. Then again, nobody except J9 does (not Elk, not anyone). For those of us with >25 Intermatic switches, thats' a death sentence.
No, very little draw. But you don't need polling if you get Leviton devices as each device will tell the RZCOP when it's been changed, so the RZCOP is always up to date. Since you have nothing, if all your needs can be met by buying Leviton devices, you're set.
