Happy New Year!

All of us at Mile High Automation wanted to wish you a happy new year!

We are excited to begin 2009 and continue to grow and develop our services.

HAI 2009 Product Guide/Catalog

HAI has just released their 2009 product guide. We are a full line HAI distributor and have access to everything they offer.

Download the 2009 HAI Product Guide (PDF).

Netflix/Xbox 360 Movie Streaming

I have personally been using the Xbox 360 and Netflix system in my house for the past month. Here's an overview of the system and how it integrates with our Audio Authority Avatrix HDTV distribution systems.

Xbox 360/Netflix Combo:

The new Xbox 360 dashboard added support for Netflix. If you have a Netflix account, you can go to your computer and put movies into your "instant que". You then go to your Xbox 360 and load the Netflix program.

Netflix then shows you all of the movies in your que along with HD cover art and movie descriptions. Overall it is a very nice looking interface.

The main limitations I found is that you currently cannot add movies from your TV, and you can't sort your movie list in anyway.

Costs & Selection:

I signed up for the basic Netflix account for about $11/mo. With this account I can put as many movies as like into my que.

The library Netflix has for its que is decent. It has some new titles, and many favorites from the past 30 years. However, you will not see the latest Hollywood blockbuster when they first come out on DVD.

HDTV Distribution via the Avatrix:

Many of our clients are enjoying their Avatrix HDTV distribution system. It allows you to put up to 6 source devices in a central location and access them on any TV in your home.

When used as a source, the Xbox 360 is able to send this movie collection to any TV in your home. It makes for a very inexpensive movie distribution system. $11/mo & $250 for an Xbox is a much easier price point then $30,000 for a Kalidescape system.

Fill your Music Library - Nuvo M3 Music Server with Microsoft Zune Pass

Our builder friend and client, Steve from Texas informed me about the new Zune Pass from Microsoft and it's integration with the Nuvo M3 Music Server. I have tested it out over the past 3 weeks and would like to share my findings.

Zune Pass - What is it?

Several years ago Microsoft came out with their Zune mp3 player to compete with Apple's iPod devices. It's had moderate success.

To boost sales, Microsoft created a new subscription service called Zune Pass. For $15/mo, you have access to almost every song ever made. You can download songs, albums, and even full play lists from the Zune software with a single click.

The Zune Mp3 player is not required for the Zune Pass. You are still able to play your music on your computer.

If you ever cancel your service the Zune software will delete all the music you have downloaded.

The Nuvo M3 Music Server

The Nuvo M3 is a music server that ties into our Grand Concerto and Essentia multi-room audio systems. It stores your entire music collection and allows you to access it in any room of your home.

My Tests

I had 3 things I wanted to test after Steve let me know about the Zune Pass service:

1. Could we store and play the music we acquired from Zune on the M3.
2. What would happen if we canceled our Zune subscription.
3. Syncing the M3 after canceling our Zune subsection.
   

Test 1 - Syncing our Zune music collection onto the Nuvo M3

This was actually incredibly easy to do. The M3 uses Windows Media Player to sync its music. Since both Zune and Windows Media Player are made by Microsoft the music I downloaded in Zune automatically appeared in WMP. It was then as simple as dragging the music onto the M3.

After the sync finished, I went to my audio keypad and pulled up the new music. I was able to access it just like any of my other music. The downloaded music sounded great on my Episode A6 in-ceiling speakers.

In total I had downloaded about 1,000 songs and created 3 playlists from those songs.

Test 2 - Canceling the Zune Subscription

I had signed up for the Zune 14 day free trial. For this test I let my trial end and then canceled my service.

When I canceled, Zune told me it would delete the music I had downloaded. It did delete the songs it had provided, but did not touch any of my other songs that I previously had acquired.

After Zune was off my computer I went back to the Nuvo system. Since I did not do a sync after canceling, the M3 did not know my subscription had expired. I still had access to all the songs I had downloaded. They all continued to play for the week of testing after I canceled my subscription (and would have continued to play if not for Test #3).

While not legal, it would be theoretically possible to download 20,000 songs during your free trial, sync them to your M3, then cancel your subscription. You would then have a huge music library at your fingertips for free.

Test 3 - Syncing the M3 after the subscription was up

As expected, WMP deleted my Zune content from my M3 on the next sync.

Closing thoughts

The integration between the Zune service and M3 is outstanding. Zune allows you to quickly and easily build your music collection, while the M3 allows you to share your collection throughout your home.

If you have an M3, I highly recommend this service!

Home Automation Energy Savings

HAI recently published this pie chart, which shows the breakdown of energy usage in a typical home.

Our home automation systems are able to greatly reduce usage in each area. Here's a breakdown of each system:

Heating & Cooling: By automating your thermostat, we can program your system to heat and cool the house while you are home, and go into energy saving mode while you are out or on vacation. This can easily reduce your heating and cooling energy costs by 15% or more. Your cost on the thermostats is typically recouped in under 6 months.

Lighting: We can have lights automatically turn off when you leave the home, greatly reducing your usage. Also, by dimming your lights to 75%, you are saving 25% in energy. This will quickly add up over time.

Appliance and Water Heater Control: Using HAI load control modules, controlled outlets, and relays we are able to automatically turn off these devices when you are away from the home.

"Go Green" custom programming: We have started offering a button on clients touch screens called "Go Green". Pressing this button will lower your thermostats 2 degrees, and dim any lights that are on 10%. This gives you an instant house-wide energy savings of about 15%. When pressed a second time, the thermostats drop another 2 degrees and the lights dim another 10%.

Mile High Automation Thanksgiving Hours

Mile High Automation will be closed Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday!

Pet Immune Motion Detectors

Many manufacturers sell motion detectors as "pet-immune". Some will even go as far to say pet-immune for animals up to 60 or 80 lbs.

In our experience these ratings are very optimistic... In tests, we have had an 18lb dog set off these motion detectors. While they only tripped the sensor about 10% of the time, that is still unacceptable for security.

Another problem we have seen is in homes with 2 or more dogs. Two 20lb dogs chasing each other look like a 40lb + dog to the motion detector.

We still love motion detectors, especially for their ability to trigger lights and music as you move throughout your home. However, if you do have dogs we recommend also securing your doors, windows, and in same cases implement glass break sensors.

HAI Touch Screen Graphics & Custom Interfaces

One question that pops up every now and then is about customizing the HAI Omnitouch Touch Screen graphics. HAI has designed a nice interface that is well organized and very easy to use. This interface is perfect for 95% of the population, but some people like to be able to customize the look and feel of their screens.

At this time there is no customization allowed by HAI on their touch screens. While at first this seems like a negative, it is done for good reason. When an interface is customized the system becomes near impossible to troubleshoot if problems arise. With a standard screen, it is easy to walk through steps to diagnose and fix the issue. Another great feature of the current HAI touch screen is that changes made to the Omni Pro II or Omni IIe panel are automatically updated on the touch screens. With custom screens both the system and the screen must be updated independently.

Having said that, there are a few options for the hardcore DIY-er....


Software Based Control:


While we aren't able to customize the current (notice I say current, HAI does have some future plans...) touch screens, we can use 3rd party software applications to create a custom interface that sits on top of the HAI system.

My favorite is CQC (charmedquark.com). This is software that you can load on a wireless tablet PC, or a server. You then build the interface from scratch, right down to the font and icons.

In addition to the graphical interface, CQC also allows you to build the back-end system to control the HAI system. This takes a lot more work, and in the end does not provide the same amount of control that the standard HAI does. However, you do get a slick looking screen.

The downside:

2 years ago I created a spin-off business (5280automation.com) that would create these custom interfaces. The time to design and program a single system was about 200 hours, a good month of work. In addition to time, a dedicated computer and dedicated touch panels were also required. All of this brought a single custom design with 2 touch screens to around $15,000. Not exactly in line with our product offering or clients...

After a year we scraped the project. As a business venture it did not make sense, but for a homeowner with an extra computer laying around, a lot of free time, and a vision the result can be excellent.



Closing thoughts:

As you may imagine, my home is chalked full of the equipment we sell. I spent the 200+ hours to create a working interface for my home. I ran this custom system for 2 months, then switched back to the HAI touch screens. The main reasons were speed and reliability.

If I wanted to arm the security or run a lighting scene I did not want to wait for a network connection to occur, I wanted to instantly. Since the system ran on a Windows based computer, I would sometimes wake up to a blank screen or Windows desktop after a Windows update had occurred. Not the end of the world, but I like knowing whenever I walk up to the touch screen it will be ready and waiting for me.

* All custom interfaces were created by us when 5280automation.com was up and running.

Nuvo & Intercoms - Explained

We have had a recent surge of questions regarding the Nuvo intercom and paging abilities.

Nuvo states in their manuals that their systems are compatible with paging and intercom systems. This is a half-truth...

What the system can do:
Both the Nuvo Grand Concerto and the Nuvo Essentia units have an optional interrupt module that can be added. This module is able to tell when the intercom is in use and will mute the audio playing so the message can be heard. After the page is over, music will resume.

What the system does not do:
Despite popular belief, the Nuvo system will not play the intercom message through the speakers in the room. It only mutes the speakers so the intercom (with its own speakers) can be heard.

Tying in with HAI:
With the HAI voice module, we can trigger the interrupt module, and play a basic message over the speakers throughout the house. These messages would be in the realm of "Garage Door Open", "Welcome Home", "Good Night", etc. We have a vocabulary of 1500 words that we can string together to create these messages.

This is where most of the confusion comes in. It would make sense that if we can play HAI messages over the Nuvo system, that we should be able to play intercom messages over the Nuvo system as well.

The key is that the HAI system has RCA audio outputs that we can bring to the Nuvo system. Intercom systems do not have this RCA audio output, and therefore have no way to send their message to the Nuvo system. The other consideration is that there are no microphones in the Nuvo system, so even if you could play the intercom over the speakers, you would have no way to respond.

Hopefully this clears things up a bit.

Motorized Drape Control

We have recently added a product for automated drape control. It will allow our automation systems to open and close drapes from any interface (touch screen, keypad, computer, etc).

We will also be able to naturally heat and cool the house by opening and closing drapes based on indoor and outdoor temperatures.

Last, we can tie these drapes into lighting scenes, as well as put them on schedules to automatically open and close each day at certain times.

We are still working out the final details, but we are hoping to be able to sell these for about $450/window. This is much less then half the price of the control system we research a year ago ($998 per window). At this price it is still expensive to automate an entire home, but doing several key windows will add a lot of value without breaking the bank.

DiscountWireAndCable.com 2.0 Up and Running

About a year ago we opened the website DiscountWireAndCable.com. The purpose of this site was to be a self-running, one-stop shop for any low-voltage wire you could ever need.

Now that the site has climbed the ranks in Google and has started to gain more business we have revamped the site with a streamlined shopping cart, more product information, and an overall better user experience.

New Backend System

MHA has moved it's quoting, support, and back end software system to a brand new, custom platform designed specifically for MHA.

This system streamlines the services we provide to clients, while saving us time as well. It also adds many new features to increase the quality of the systems we provide by automatically generating information that previously took hours and sometimes days to create.

For example, the new system will calculate exactly how much wire a system requires, how long it will take to prewire, to install, and to program.

I have personally spent the past 3 months developing and programming this system alongside our developers. I am very excited to see it in action and our clients are already seeing the benefits.

In the future I hope to move some of this system online, allowing clients to see their systems, submit change requests, and perform other actions.

HAI 3.0 Update

HAI announced that their long awaiting 3.0 firmware update is "completion of these complex projects is proceeding well". They did not set a release date, as many have come and gone during the past year.

We are looking forward to the 3.0 firmware as it will give homeowners more access to update the programming of their own systems. We currently (and will continue) make all the programming changes in our offices and remotely update each clients system. This new software promises to be more user friendly and enable home owners to write their own code if desired.

Another Great Testimonial

We just received another testimonial from a happy customer. Please read it below:

"We purchased a security system from Mile High Automation and can highly recommend them. The products are high quality and the service outstanding. They pre-programmed the system so it installed easily. We had some questions during installation and were always able to get answers. In this day of customer service being sent offshore and long waits on hold, it's a pleasure doing business with a company who puts the customer first."

New Customer Testimonial

We just received a testimonial that I am quite proud of from Derek, one of our customers in Lakespur, CO. Here's what he had to say about his experience:

"Working with Josh and Mile High Automation was a great experience. Not only did Josh help me to put together a system that was both far better quality than the competing manufacturers, it was also nearly $10k less than those competing units due to the excessive installation and "consulting" fees those other guys charge (and their products which are grossly overpriced).

He was a great help, very patient and incredibly responsive when I was trying to figure out how to do my self-install. He provided options, instructions, and even the tools I needed to install my Nuvo Grand Concerto, AM/FM/XM tuner, and MP3 server as well as 6 zone keypads and 6 rooms of speakers.

Mile High Automation is the best of all worlds. Not only are they extremely competitive with price, the level of service and support far exceed what you would expect given the great prices. The real discriminator when dealing with Josh is the service, knowledge, and advice that comes along with dealing with Mile High Automation. Don't even think of attempting a self-install with anyone else. And unless you like spending more than is necessary, don't go anywhere other than Mile High Automation. Anyone else will take your money (and lots of it) and tell you why you can't possibly do this yourself. Trust me, if I can do it, you can.

To put it in perspective: With what I saved by working with Josh, I was able to buy a new pool table, 250 bottle wine cellar, new bike, and snow tires...Oh...And I took my wife to Sedona AZ for a weeks vacation. All things that wouldn't have happened without Mile High Automation.

Derek"

Grand Opening of Josh's Home Automation Blog

Hi Everyone,

This page was created to allow me to post both text and video reviews of new product releases on the home automation scene.

My focus will be on HAI, Nuvo, and other product lines that we heavyily carry. However we will also venture into the bleeding edge stuff that requires a bit more setup and configuration.

Please check back often and suscribe to our RSS feeds to stay up to date!

Josh