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Are You Afraid of Automation Startups?
Colorado vNet's closure, and subsequent acquisition by Russound, has led CE pros to wonder if they should do business with home-control startups.
The debate rages with 65 comments and counting across several of our vNet stories.
They are concerned — and they should be — that:
So, assuming vNet does not pull out of this, should they decide to only do business with established home control companies?
Home control is a special category in the custom electronics business. If a speaker manufacturer or structured-wiring vendor shuts down, no biggie. But if a company with proprietary light switches, wiring topology and controllers drops out, you and your customers may be doomed.
But the answer is not to shun start-ups.
Every home control vendor was a startup at some point. And for the most part we're still left with the original five: AMX, Crestron, Elan, HAI and Vantage (plus LiteTouch and Lutron for lighting control). We can count Control4 and HomeLogic as perhaps the only two success stories in the 15 years I've been covering this industry. Remote-control vendors Philips (Pronto), RTI and URC are getting there.
That's not enough. On CEPro.com, "B" writes, "It is funny how everyone rags on Crestron and AMX but they are still kicking."
"Zyg" replies that his investors "specifically instructed my organization to seek out alternatives to the big two in automation. To put it frankly, they are sick of being force-fed AMX and Crestron."
Not that there's anything wrong with the "big two" — they are successful for a reason — but the industry needs choice. That won't happen if integrators never take a chance.
Might I suggest taking such chances on newcomers that use more standards-based solutions and conventional wiring topologies? In such cases, your inventories and existing installs will be less worthless than those with proprietary solutions. You might be able to repurpose PC/Mac-based interfaces and hubs, for example. Many ZigBee Pro- and Z-Wave-enabled light switches, thermostats and remotes can be used with multiple controllers.
There are a good five or six established home automation vendors that rely on flexible standards-based products and architectures. They just don't have a large following among custom installers.
If you're looking for something "new," take a look at Charmed Quark, Cinemar, HomeSeer, JDS Technologies, Promixis and Stardraw. With a combined 53 years in the home control business, these companies offer standards-based solutions and rich, customizable controllers.
If they go out of business, you're still left with usable hardware and software.
NOTE: Are you wondering why I didn't mention Savant among the successful startups? My threshold is three years of solid achievement and a critical mass of dealers. Savant is, of course, headed in that direction. --JJ
The debate rages with 65 comments and counting across several of our vNet stories.
They are concerned — and they should be — that:
- Their inventory is worthless
- Work in progress is a complete write-off
- Existing installations must be built from scratch as soon as a single controller fails
So, assuming vNet does not pull out of this, should they decide to only do business with established home control companies?
All Companies Were Once Startups
Home control is a special category in the custom electronics business. If a speaker manufacturer or structured-wiring vendor shuts down, no biggie. But if a company with proprietary light switches, wiring topology and controllers drops out, you and your customers may be doomed.
But the answer is not to shun start-ups.
Every home control vendor was a startup at some point. And for the most part we're still left with the original five: AMX, Crestron, Elan, HAI and Vantage (plus LiteTouch and Lutron for lighting control). We can count Control4 and HomeLogic as perhaps the only two success stories in the 15 years I've been covering this industry. Remote-control vendors Philips (Pronto), RTI and URC are getting there.
That's not enough. On CEPro.com, "B" writes, "It is funny how everyone rags on Crestron and AMX but they are still kicking."
"Zyg" replies that his investors "specifically instructed my organization to seek out alternatives to the big two in automation. To put it frankly, they are sick of being force-fed AMX and Crestron."
Not that there's anything wrong with the "big two" — they are successful for a reason — but the industry needs choice. That won't happen if integrators never take a chance.
Take a Chance on a Newcomer
Might I suggest taking such chances on newcomers that use more standards-based solutions and conventional wiring topologies? In such cases, your inventories and existing installs will be less worthless than those with proprietary solutions. You might be able to repurpose PC/Mac-based interfaces and hubs, for example. Many ZigBee Pro- and Z-Wave-enabled light switches, thermostats and remotes can be used with multiple controllers.
There are a good five or six established home automation vendors that rely on flexible standards-based products and architectures. They just don't have a large following among custom installers.
If you're looking for something "new," take a look at Charmed Quark, Cinemar, HomeSeer, JDS Technologies, Promixis and Stardraw. With a combined 53 years in the home control business, these companies offer standards-based solutions and rich, customizable controllers.
If they go out of business, you're still left with usable hardware and software.
NOTE: Are you wondering why I didn't mention Savant among the successful startups? My threshold is three years of solid achievement and a critical mass of dealers. Savant is, of course, headed in that direction. --JJ
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Article Topics
Blogs · Home Automation and Control · Control Systems · Crestron · Cinemar · Amx · Colorado Vnet · Elan Home Systems · Julie Jacobson · Charmed Quark · Hai · Home Automation · Homelogic · Homeseer · Z-wave · Jds Technologies · Litetouch · Philips · Universal Remote Control · Russound · Rti · Promixis · Stardraw ·About the Author
Julie Jacobson, Editor-at-large, CE Pro
As a co-founder of EH Publishing in 1994, Julie has edited and contributed to all of the company's publications at one time or another. An authority on home automation, networking, integration, digital convergence and the CE pro channel, Julie speaks often about these subjects at industry events. She graduated with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan, and received an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player.
7 Comments
Control4 can be considered successful because the ARE successful. Over 1 million devices shipped in 5 years is a huge success.
In this tight credit market, being given 20 million dollars to develop products for an entirely new market (energy management) is another way to say they are successful.
None of these companies are entirely self-funded, they all have lines of credit, investors and bank funding to some extent. You can’t survive on cash flow alone and having accessible credit is crucial to survive and prosper. If you have any doubts, just ask ColoradoVnet how important proper funding can be.
@ jberger
You wrote “you can’t survive on cash flow alone” That my friend, is the definition of a successful business. If you disagree, you are counting you chickens before they hatch. If you are not surviving on cash flow you are still a startup.
Of course, those chickens have hatched for Julie because these companies pour money into EH Publishing all day long.
Julie stop trying to scare everyone by using the Proprietary wiring” scare tactic in the same breath with Colorado vNet.Just to clarify, vNet’s “Proprietary wiring” is only hard to adapt to another system if you spread the dimmers throughout the house. If You put all of the dimmers in a single utility/service room the wiring can easily be adapted to another manufacturers product.So the risk is much lower than you make it out to be.In vNet’s training they say that it was originally designed with a distributed architecture but you are not bound to that. If you are not comfortable with that structure then wire it with the dimmers consolidated in a single room.By simply placing all dimmers in a single location you now have a “conventional” wiring topology.How hard is that?
Personally I’d see examples of self-funded startups. It can be not only producers of hardware or software but some integrators, for example. To read about AMX, Crestron, Control4 is boring a bit. And useless IMHO.
Glad to see Cinemar and Charmed Quarck get some press as they both are worthy of it.
@Ranger
Hoping to do a story on a CQC install in a sports bar near San Antonio when I head south for the winter.
@Stepanov
Most of the startups in our industry ARE self-funded.
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@Julie
How can Control 4 and Home Logic be considered successful?
Control 4 just raised more money because they can’t stay afloat on their own.
Home Logic has only a handful of installations at best, and their parent company is bankrupt.
Success?