Re: Introductory Message

["Mark Harrison (Groups)" <mph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2005-10-22 at 11:45 +0100, Martin McCreesh wrote:
> Trying to decide between CBUS and EIB.

Well, we sell both, so hopefully I'm not too biased :-)

The answer I'd go for personally is "neither". Don't get me
wrong, both
are very good at what they do, but neither is perfect.

I think that EIB is a bit overkill unless you are going to go for all
the extra functional (non-lighting) things that it does, and want a
single solution for everything.


C-Bus is one of those things that I've installed for clients but never
been 100% happy with. With my "lighting designer" hat on, there
are a
few rough edges around the way that there scene model works - not an
issue unless you regularly have a dozen or more lights in a scene, with
some scenes controlling different sets of lights, and some lights
included in some scenes but not others. C-Bus is relatively easy to
integrate with PC control systems though, with plugins available for
xPL, xAP and Harmony, among others.

So, to answer the question you originally posed, I'd go for C-Bus but
use something PC based if I had complex scene requirements.


The thing I have specced for my own home is Flexidim, because I consider
their scene management head and shoulders above anything else.

The downside with Flexidim is the look of their own lightswitches -
realistically you need to use their relay modules and add your own.
There are some interesting products coming out as third party add-on
lightswitches aimed specifically at Flexidim in the New Year -
apparently I'm nothing like the first person to like the control but be
put off by the aesthetics of their switchgear.

The other thing about Flexidim is that I do have a bit of a patriotic
streak in me, and do like the idea of supporting British
manufacturers :-)

Regards,

Mark Harrison