Water Sensor

[turls]

No need to say your sorry, I just don't know why you would worry about Eaton.

They have great backing, large market presence and great support system. The guys who helped develop Home Heatbeat are Cedia members and very active in working with Cedia/CEA group. They have demonstrated a high level of commitment and have a proven track record of providing good products and excellent support.

Sorry, I just joined, but I have to comment on this.

First of all, a little background, I have a large investment in Home Heartbeat. I have dealt with Eaton a lot in the 3 or so years I have owned it. I am looking at a huge remodel/new construction and have talked to numerous C4 dealers.

Start with this: try doing searches on Home Heartbeat anywhere on the web. There is more discussion of it here than anywhere else I have found. Most everything else you find will be from 2008 or earlier. No one sells it. Home Depot and Best Buy did. Smarthome did. You can't even find hardly anything on Ebay.

Despite repeated promised to complete their product line, which is currently completely proprietary, they have not released one new product in the entire time I have owned the system. No CO2 meter, no fire/smoke sensor, no audible alarms, no webcams. They told me over 2 years ago many of those were in "testing".

The web site that you pay a handsome yearly fee to use is honestly a joke. You are lucky if it runs on your browser and the only way I have found to view it on a mobile phone is with Opera. No sign of any kind of mobile app even for iPhone.

To top it all off, I quit getting alerts earlier this year. This happens way too frequently (I have to reboot the gateway numerous times a year), but this time was different. First they were very unresponsive on e-mail channels, and when they finally did respond, there was no indication this was any issue except on my end. It took them literally WEEKS to admit they had a system wide problem. How can you let a system that has its major selling point e-mails or text message alerts, which is what the fee you pay continuously go towards, be down for weeks? They were generous with extending my overpriced subscription, but that isn't the point. What if I had a break-in while their system was down?

I seriously hope they do get their act together, come out with a Zigbee Pro product (I also am pissed that there was no indication early on in the marketing of this system of how proprietary Zigbee was and there was no chance it was ever going to integrate with anything else), and finally come out with a complete product line and somehow help me get some trade in value out of the hundreds of dollars I invested in it. It is still a unique product and it when it works it works well. I had one sensor that had a battery life issue, and they were good about replacing it and now I get great battery life.

That being said, this is the only place I have ever read the product or its successor from Eaton is still alive. Even the Soho Shop guys I talked to a month ago said it was dead. If anybody has any more concrete info please keep us updated.

[ILoveC4]

(snip) hundreds of dollars I invested in it. (snip)

Hey, be glad it is only a three figure investment....

Still sucks though.

[CFUG]

Who was it that told me that Eaton is big and support/products are available??? Who was that now....

[Letran]

I've got several inexpensive water sensors connected to my alarm system. That system then sends an alarm to my C4 system, as well as to a valve on the main water line which is then shutoff.

Here's the device I'm installing: http://www.watercop.com/

The way I figure it, I'm only home about 1/2 the time. A water break could output about 10 gals per minute. In the 30 minutes it would take me (best case) to get home and shut the water off, 300 gallons would pour out and cause lots of expensive damage. So without an automatic shutoff, the alarms alone aren't a real solution in my opinion.

bebster- Did you end up installing watercop?

[turls]

Who was it that told me that Eaton is big and support/products are available??? Who was that now....

Yeah, exactly, I hope that person responds. I'd like to talk for 10 minutes to whoever these great reps at Eaton are. They are going to have a hell of a burnt bridge to repair if they are ever going to be taken seriously in the HA arena.

There was even a small vendor in Ohio that somehow made a front end that actually worked well with cell phones--you could subscribe through them instead of through Eaton. And they were advising people how to integrate unofficially with relay based items, etc. Before I could switch over to them and after only one order by me through them, they abandoned ship as well. They had a bunch of youtube videos showing off the products, etc. as well.

Even funnier, the only vendor they list at www.homeheartbeat.com (seeyourplace.com) is that vendor--he doesn't sell it any more and Eaton doesn't even bother to change that. And its been months since he sold it.

[chesterwilson]

http://www.getfloodstop.com/

I use it for my plumbed coffee maker. Of course it doesn't integrate with C4 but I would rather it take care of the problem automatically rather than me getting an email about it, while my room floods!

[turls]

So, unless Eaton had a presence at CES, can we officially call the previous pro-Eaton posts in this thread B.S.?

[ILoveC4]

So, unless Eaton had a presence at CES, can we officially call the previous pro-Eaton posts in this thread B.S.?

I didn't see them.

[RyanE]

So' date=' unless Eaton had a presence at CES, can we officially call the previous pro-Eaton posts in this thread B.S.?[/quote']

I didn't see them.

Actually, Eaton *was* displaying at CES in the Control4 booth.

Unfortunately to this discussion, they were not showing any of their Home Heartbeat products integrating with Control4.

I believe that ship has sailed, although I've been wrong before.

They were showing a ZigBee Pro compatible plug and controllable breakers. All energy-related products.

Sorry.

RyanE

[CFUG]

REALLY??!! Did you happen to catch which style of breaker? And, is C4 ready to talk to these?

[RyanE]

REALLY??!! Did you happen to catch which style of breaker? And, is C4 ready to talk to these?

I don't know the details, and I don't believe they're quite released.

Once released, yes, there will be a ZigBee driver, which is also being developed by Eaton.

RyanE

[CFUG]

Cutler Hammer probably offers over 30 different styles of breaker. One can only hope their panel is covered.

[RyanE]

Cutler Hammer probably offers over 30 different styles of breaker. One can only hope their panel is covered.

I don't know if you also have to have their box as well, but I wouldn't be surprised.

RyanE

[turls]

Wow. Eaton has officially pissed off all of the existing Home Heartbeat users, that would be both of us.

Just got this e-mail. Not even offering to buy back hardware, but they will give us a couple overpriced sensors.

Another great reason to never invest in closed systems and closed software. How hard could it possibly be to keep the monitoring service active, or find somebody to support it?

Dear Home Heartbeat Customers,

We regret to inform you that network communication services for Home Heartbeat will be discontinued, and Home Heartbeat products will no longer be offered for sale, after 5/31/2011. This includes both the dial-up and Broadband Gateway services, and the e-mail and text message alert features, associated with Home Heartbeat. Eaton Corporation is prepared to provide a refund of any unused communication services after 5/31/11, including:

1. Unused months/days of Broadband Gateway subscriptions

2. Unused dial-up alerts, in excess of the 200 free alerts provided with the HHB system

Hardware products will be available to order off of our website, www.homeheartbeat.com, until 5/31/2011. The purchase of new service products, such as new Broadband subscriptions and new alert packages, is no longer available. However, Home Heartbeat technical support will continue to be provided through 12/31/2011. Eaton Corporation will also honor the full, 1-year warranty on all products.

Your Home Heartbeat system will still continue to function, independently, as an in-home alert system, where alerts can still be sent by the Base Station, and can still be received by the Home Key.

As an example, homes that are currently equipped with Water Sensors, and a Water Shutoff Controller, can still automatically shut off the main water line, in the event of a detected water leak. Notifications of the both the water leak, and the water shutoff, would also still be sent to the Home Key.

If there are any questions regarding the discontinued products and services, please send an e-mail to Home Heartbeat Support (HHB@eaton.com), CarlosMQuimpo@eaton.com , or call our Home Heartbeat Phone Support at 1-800-813-2199.

Because of any inconveniences this change may cause, Eaton Corporation will provide our Home Heartbeat customers with up to $100 worth of selected Home Heartbeat sensors (e.g. two additional water sensors), on a limited time basis, through 5/31/11.

In order to receive the sensor products described above, please simply send an e-mail to Home Heartbeat Support (HHB@eaton.com ), CarlosMQuimpo@eaton.com , or call 1-800-813-2199, and provide the following information:

1. Your Name

2. Your Home Heartbeat Base Station Serial Number

3. Identify the location where you purchased the Home Heartbeat Starter Pack

4. Which of the Home Heartbeat sensors/products that you would like (that are still available for sale at www.homeheartbeat.com )

5. Address of where you would like the product(s) shipped, if applicable

Again, we regret any inconveniences that these changes may cause.

Thank you.

Carlos Quimpo

Eaton Corporation

[RyanE]

I can only imagine it was costing them quite a bit more than the revenue.

RyanE

[turls]

that might be, but there doesn't seem to be anything that magical about the website they run. Seems like that could be re-coded as open source and I could run my own web server for the data, but obviously they don't care enough about the existing user base to even consider that.

[TDAWG]

We just installed a Belimo water valve at my second home. However do to extreme weather conditions this winter we where unable to complete the installation 100%.

The design is to have the ability of just pressing a button

On the C4 menu to Open and or Close the Main water valve coming into my home roughly 300' away. Just wanted to share this idea.

[turls]

Has anybody ever done a bridge of legacy Zigbee to Zigbee Pro that would be compatible with C4 potentially? Seems a shame these perfectly good mesh network sensors are just going to be trash. I know there would be other ways to maybe scrape data from the interface if Eaton opened it up, but that doesn't sound like it is going to happen.

That would be too much of a responsible way to abandon the product for Eaton to consider.

[turls]

Not to beat this dead horse too much, but if you go to the Home Heartbeat website, there is nothing warning you that this is a discontinued product and the store is wide open for purchases as well. Classy.

[turls]

Well, I got my chance to confront Eaton at CEDIA. The product manager for the new energy management products was on the show floor and I gave him a hard time for how much I had invested in HH with no upgrade path to any of the new products they have. Of course, everything they had was basically vaporware still as far as C4 was concerned and it wouldn't really match a need based on my current electrical utility pricing. But he did agree to give me his card and work with me in the future. We'll see.

[kurtiswilk]

Just curious, as I was wondering about a shut off valve. For the simple purpose of shutting off the water would something simple like one of these not work on a simple relay control?

http://www.princessauto.com/power-transmission/hydraulics/pneumatic/valves/8081903-110-vac-pneumatic-solenoid-valve

Or

http://www.princessauto.com/power-transmission/hydraulics/pneumatic/valves/8192296-12v-dc-pneumatic-solenoid-valve

Granted those two are normally closed, which would be bad during a power outage