HAI First to Integrate with Vizia RF Lighting, Adds Snaplink for Audio

The Electronic House Expo Spring in March marked the official roll-out of Leviton's Vizia RF lighting control system based on Z-Wave control technology.

The launch coincided with a Lutron lawsuit against the technology, which everyone already knows. But it also coincided with a Vizia RF integration module from Home Automation Inc. (HAI), which few people seemed to notice.

It's a pity, according to Tom Morgan of Worthington Distribution, which sells both HAI and Leviton products. The HAI/Leviton integration is really a "big deal," he says.

During EHX, Morgan dragged me into the Worthington booth to demonstrate the solution. It took me awhile to "get it." Home controllers talk to electronic subsystems all the time. What was the big deal?

The big deal is that the HAI/Leviton combo really marks the first solution to exploit fully the two-way capabilities of the Z-Wave protocol.

An HAI controller sends commands to the Vizia dimmers, and the changes are reflected on an HAI touchscreen or any Web browser if you're using one of HAI's IP solutions. At the same time, the individual Vizia dimmers track the changes of state via LEDs on the wallplate.

"The thing that really attracted us," says Morgan, "is how fast it is." Indeed, it was. Press a SCENE button like HOME, and all of the relevant dimmers ramp to the correct level, simultaneously and quickly.

Doesn't sound like a big deal, but until EHX we hadn't seen anyone do it -- i.e., have a third-party controller communicate two-way with Z-wave control products.

"It's a challenge to make it two-way, to change a light and have the status recognized on the display, but also translate it to the LEDs," Morgan says. "Nobody has released anything in the Z-Wave space with tracking LEDs. ... The two companies [HAI and Leviton] worked very hard on this."

HAI did something similar with Universal Powerline Bus (UPB), the two-way powerline-based control protocol. "Is the Z-Wave version better?" I asked Morgan. He replied, "It's not about performance, but look at Z-Wave. You have garage door openers, remote controls, motorized shade controls, etc. You should ask: Who are the partners that utilize this technology?"

Indeed, that's been Z-Wave's competitive advantage all along vis-à-vis UPB and Zigbee (wireless) -- Z-Wave has a lot of takers.

By the way, HAI integrates seamlessly with HomeLogic's IP-based home control solution, so you can get the same robust two-way Vizia lighting control through the OneHome interface via HAI.

HAI Adds Audio to SnapLink

Another big HAI development that might not sound like a big deal is the addition of whole-house audio to the company's SnapLink remote-access system.

SnapLink, which won a CE Pro High Impact Product (CHIP) of the year award in 2006, is a USB stick that turns any PC into a remote access device for a user's HAI system.

With the original SnapLink, users could access the automation features of their remote HAI systems in order to change the security settings, turn on the lights or adjust the thermostats, for example.

But they couldn't control the whole-house audio system -- whether HAI's own HiFi by HAI or partner systems from Russound or NuVo.

Now they can.

HAI overlooked this application initially because it seemed silly that homeowners would want to manipulate their music systems from the office.

But when HAI made SnapLink compatible with Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC), the company found that customers were using the little touchscreen computers as home-control interfaces within the home. Naturally, they would want access to their whole-house audio system.