A little help sifting through dealer design

[dgbrown]

^ "17K labor charge (he estimates 80 hours of work to complete the project)"

Really - That's $212 per hour - That's almost like paying a lawyer.

[akg4y]

Another thing to be careful of is the 'hourly' labor charge. I refuse to pay anyone an hourly labor charge because it promotes slow, lazy work. If I have employees getting paid $20/hr and Im charging the customer $75/hr for it I have no incentive to promote efficiency in my workers.

How to handle unforseen circumstances should be in the contract, other than that the amount of time to install speakers, touchpanels, etc is relatively fixed. Running wire can vary greatly but for what most dealers charge there is already a large buffer built in.

Some will say programming should be hourly but even that varies and if you are going to pay your dealer hourly give them some easy to moderate difficulty tasks first and see how long it takes them... if they charge you an hour of labor to swap out a TV and DVD driver or program a button to execute a lighting scene then its time to hire a new dealer.

[Kevin L]

Glad I could give y'all a chuckle....

He priced my Cat 6 cable at $250 for a 1000 ft reel (hence the home depot reference), the Netgear wireless access point (I already own one, but let's forget that for a second) was priced $100 more than Best Buy's website. I supposedly need that because my current WAP won't interface with the LUXUL antenna that I need to buy??????? My router, again I own one that won't interface with C4, Linksys RV042 (manufactured by Cisco???????) priced at $250, newegg has this for $160. Are these typos or just BS ignorance. Either way they're major red flags to me.

Do I get to join the forum now, or do I have to drink the blood and hit 50 posts first, LOL?

that is all good gear. the Luxul kit is picky about what APs it can work with and also the RV042 is a great router. very stable. The luxul kit is NOT just an antenna it is a 1 watt amplifier that will give you wifi like you have never imagined.

[Kevin L]

That's fine. I just don't want to have to pay a premium for networking components on top of thousands of dollars of installation charges, when I've explained from the beginning that I would be installing my network. If he doesn't want to do a base C4 system, then say so, don't try to blow my project up to a price that he wants to bring in.

Again, I appreciate the helpful comments. I feel like I'm getting a better grasp on the C4 system and how it will perform the best.

the fact remains you want to install your own network but dont know what he chose those products. Let me guess you want to use a WRT54G with some 3rd party firmware

[Kevin L]

There are certainly dealers with good networking skills, but my experience with my dealer, and the impression I get from many of the posts on the site is that computer networking isn't their core competency. It's not something they understand very well, but rather do it because it's required for the product to function. As a result, they often over spec not because it's needed, but because it's a "safer" CYA solution.

If you have a networking background, and have good gear, and a well functioning network at home, your gear is probably fine. However, if your gear is a little dated, then would be a good time to upgrade.

i disagree on the second statement.. Just because your computers can go out to the internet well does not mean that your current network is compatible with a control4 system that will be constantly using the network with multicasts and other fun things that most consumer products dont handle too well

[cppProgrammer]

Glad I could give y'all a chuckle....

He priced my Cat 6 cable at $250 for a 1000 ft reel (hence the home depot reference)' date=' the Netgear wireless access point (I already own one, but let's forget that for a second) was priced $100 more than Best Buy's website. I supposedly need that because my current WAP won't interface with the LUXUL antenna that I need to buy??????? My router, again I own one that won't interface with C4, Linksys RV042 (manufactured by Cisco???????) priced at $250, newegg has this for $160. Are these typos or just BS ignorance. Either way they're major red flags to me.

Do I get to join the forum now, or do I have to drink the blood and hit 50 posts first, LOL?[/quote']

that is all good gear. the Luxul kit is picky about what APs it can work with and also the RV042 is a great router. very stable. The luxul kit is NOT just an antenna it is a 1 watt amplifier that will give you wifi like you have never imagined.

Good routers depend on the good drivers. You can use $20-$30 routers which compatible with dd-wrt or tomato firmwares, with these you don't need to reset the routers for years. Most of the default firmware from manufacture has bugs, and they need to be reset after few months, cuz those driver written by sloppy programmers, memory leaks everywhere in their code. Btw, before you guys think of wi-fi, you should think of Wireless Distribution System (WDS) which 2 routers sharing MAC addresses, this way of connection is much more faster and reliable.

[Kevin L]

Glad I could give y'all a chuckle....

He priced my Cat 6 cable at $250 for a 1000 ft reel (hence the home depot reference)' date=' the Netgear wireless access point (I already own one, but let's forget that for a second) was priced $100 more than Best Buy's website. I supposedly need that because my current WAP won't interface with the LUXUL antenna that I need to buy??????? My router, again I own one that won't interface with C4, Linksys RV042 (manufactured by Cisco???????) priced at $250, newegg has this for $160. Are these typos or just BS ignorance. Either way they're major red flags to me.

Do I get to join the forum now, or do I have to drink the blood and hit 50 posts first, LOL?[/quote']

that is all good gear. the Luxul kit is picky about what APs it can work with and also the RV042 is a great router. very stable. The luxul kit is NOT just an antenna it is a 1 watt amplifier that will give you wifi like you have never imagined.

Good routers depend on the good drivers. You can use $20-$30 routers which compatible with dd-wrt or tomato firmwares, with these you don't need to reset the routers for years. Most of the default firmware from manufacture has bugs, and they need to be reset after few months, cuz those driver written by sloppy programmers, memory leaks everywhere in their code. Btw, before you guys think of wi-fi, you should think of Wireless Distribution System (WDS) which 2 routers sharing MAC addresses, this way of connection is much more faster and reliable.

wrong.. the hardware and cpu in a WRT54G is GARBAGE i don't care how pretty of an OS you put on there the backbone of your automation system is a 30 dollar piece of garbage hardware.. not the smartest thing to do..

WDS isnt actually any faster then normal.. WDS more has to do with distributing wifi with multiple products thus the name. A luxul kit is a much better route to go. You are using higher quality hardware and cant really compare them since a normal router has 100mw output and a luxul kit has 1000mw output

[EagleMoon]

Just because your computers can go out to the internet well does not mean that your current network is compatible with a control4 system that will be constantly using the network with multicasts and other fun things that most consumer products dont handle too well

I keep seeing comments like this, so I'm curious -- can you provide details? For example, what is Control4 sending via multicast? And what does a "consumer product" not do properly in the presence of this traffic that a (presumably) business class product does? The RV042 is a common recommendation; do you consider it to be something beyond a consumer product and if so, in what way?

Re: your later comment about the WRT54G CPU being garbage. Perhaps. So what's the CPU in the HC300? :cool:

[ILoveC4]

So what's the CPU in the HC300? :cool:

I cracked one of mine open one time just to find out that very answer. It is proprietary so I couldn't find out many details, but I think the CPU in a decent graphics calculator rivals the processor in the HC300.

That said, I am a big fan of the HC300 and it amazes how much you can get that little guy to do.

[tigrzeye]

wrt54g cpu's

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/12772

[EagleMoon]

So what's the CPU in the HC300? :cool:

I cracked one of mine open one time just to find out that very answer. It is proprietary so I couldn't find out many details' date=' but I think the CPU in a decent graphics calculator rivals the processor in the HC300.

That said, I am a big fan of the HC300 and it amazes how much you can get that little guy to do.[/quote']

Actually, that was rhetorical question on my part. Look in ComposerHE under System Information (I think that's the correct menu option) under "kernel". It tells you the CPU. Google will tell you all about it.

I think you might be right about the calculator. The HC300 CPU also powers cell phones.

[crazybuppie]

I think you might be right about the calculator. The HC300 CPU also powers cell phones.

You should look at the processors that were in the HTC and MC

I don't mind the man trying to make money. If he wants to tack on a premium for actual hardware, that's fine, but don't combine that with a 17K labor charge (he estimates 80 hours of work to complete the project). That's double dipping in my opinion.

I don't believe that 80 hours is unrealistic. While no, i don't know the exact scope of your job, if it is a large system in a moderate to large sized home, it is very possible that 80 is an accurate estimate.

i disagree on the second statement.. Just because your computers can go out to the internet well does not mean that your current network is compatible with a control4 system that will be constantly using the network with multicasts and other fun things that most consumer products dont handle too well

Kevin is dead-on right here. While i may not be able to give you the nitty gritty technical details as to *why* this is the case, it has been proven over and over. I inherited several jobs that ran off WRT54Gs. They perform well for a few months at MOST, and then constantly required hard reboots. DDWRT made no difference. I wish i could give you the real reasons, but i cannot. I can only stand here and tell you that it is true. Good, commercial grade networking equipment is a *MUST* for a C4 system to perform at its best.

Good routers depend on the good drivers. You can use $20-$30 routers which compatible with dd-wrt or tomato firmwares, with these you don't need to reset the routers for years. Most of the default firmware from manufacture has bugs, and they need to be reset after few months, cuz those driver written by sloppy programmers, memory leaks everywhere in their code. Btw, before you guys think of wi-fi, you should think of Wireless Distribution System (WDS) which 2 routers sharing MAC addresses, this way of connection is much more faster and reliable.

I respectfully disagree. As i said, i tried to salvage a few wrt's with DDWRT, and it made *no* difference to the C4 system. Sure you get lots of cool options and (presumably) a better written firmware. It is not enough, however. Swapped the POS routers with a WRVS4400 or an RV042, and things calmed right down

just my $0.02....

[EagleMoon]

Good, commercial grade networking equipment is a *MUST* for a C4 system to perform at its best.

Swapped the POS routers with a WRVS4400 or an RV042

I don't yet have enough experience with Control4 to say whether that's true (but I'm skeptical until someone can give me technical details why).

But I do know about networks and networking equipment. Commercial-grade routers are made by companies like Juniper and by Cisco (*real* Cisco, not Cisco/Linksys). Commercial-grade switches are made by Cisco, Extreme Networks, HP, perhaps even the new Juniper stuff.** Wireless devices from Cisco, Meru, Aruba, Extreme Networks.

What you get with the RV042 and devices like it is marginal improvements, not something that's a truly different class of device from the lowly WRT54G.

**Not an exhaustive list of manufacturers, of course, just most of the majors -- I suppose the Nortel/Avaya equipment should be in that list along with some of the first and second-tier firewall vendors.

[crazybuppie]

I don't yet have enough experience with Control4 to say whether that's true

I do, and it is.

(but I'm skeptical until someone can give me technical details why).

I believe i already touched on this. If i knew, i'd tell you.

[kennesa]

I don't mind the man trying to make money. If he wants to tack on a premium for actual hardware, that's fine, but don't combine that with a 17K labor charge (he estimates 80 hours of work to complete the project). That's double dipping in my opinion.

I don't believe that 80 hours is unrealistic. While no, i don't know the exact scope of your job, if it is a large system in a moderate to large sized home, it is very possible that 80 is an accurate estimate.

I didn't say 80 hours was unrealistic, but if his 80 hour estimate is even remotely accurate I believe his $17K labor charge is overcharging on top of markups to equipment. He's not charging me hourly for the reasons that akg4y stated above.

[alexi123]

What about using a Apple Time Capsule/Airport Extreme as a router? They boast powerful wifi and networking? Do they work well with Control 4 ??????