HTINews - Letters to the Editor

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Mitch Gould mitchgould@generalpicture.com

Your site is the best source on CEBus developments so far. Would like to see more detail in your observations of CEBus developments--expansion of terse comments in the June column by Heiblim...

As you can see, Brian Baker has agreed to do a regular column on CEBus / HomePnP and Ken Wacks sent in a great overview of CEBus for this issue. The Plug-Fest in August is a historical event and I'm planning to follow it closely. In my opinion, we're on the verge of a new generation of Home Control products and CEBus HomePnP will make it possible. Stay tuned ...

Michael Ferguson, Pres. Sand Hill Engineering Inc. michael@shed.com

Joe Comerci's article about marketing is certainly right on !

Sand Hill has been wrestling with this problem for the 18 months of the XTension project.

We began advertising in the traditional HA channels, and found that not only is the Macintosh 'unnoticed' there, but also there just wasn't the strong market pressure for HA whether PC or Mac.

We backed out of those channels, and began hitting on the explicit Macintosh market which hasn't been 'involved' in HA for over 10 years.

We succeeded in getting a lot of help, culminating this month in a great article about HA and XTension ( MacAddict July 97 )

We also put our money where you say we should. Expensive ads ( see p69 of MacAddict JULY 97, to be in AUG97,SEP97...)

The article and the ad have generated a great increase in sales and website activity ! And the responses have shown that we are reaching a much deeper level of the market than would previously have been interested.

Still, the cost of this new marketing effort has been far too great to be supported by current sales. It is only because Sand Hill is a 'old' company and has assets that we are able to maintain this level of spending. But, as you know, this can't go on forever.

Although Sand Hill is a full-time company, as you point out, most of the companies producing HA software and devices are small. I think that we've all been waiting for the whole thing to explode and everybody gets rich.

As you say, we need MAKE it happen rather than waiting any longer.

I propose that the catalog companies, X-10 and others who have made a profit on HA spearhead this by advertising more in the popular PC (and Mac) magazines. This will stimulate more articles by their editors, and all in all succeeds in spreading the word to a much broader market than we are getting now.

Thanks for the nice article and the great newsletter !

What do you think about this issue? Send your letter to the HTINews.

Harry Anderson handerso@cisco.com

Wow! "I know the doors are closed, but are they locked!" What a great idea. I have been struggling with this one. Every night, you know who has to go around and check to see if all the doors are locked (usually not!) Easy in my small house -- not easy in a big house. I was dreading this. I had been hashing the pros/cons of fail safe/secure electric strikes and deadbolts. I couldn't bring myself to electrically lock my family in the house. I do plan to use an electric strike on the front door, but that is easy to get out of in an emergency. A deadbolt is another story.

I wish I could have voted more than once on this idea because it will help me every night! Thanks, Stuart. And just in time. I am having the Napco Gemini installed this week and will definitely put plungers in the deadbolt holes to save me walking around the house at midnight because we can't remember if we locked all the doors.

I am definitely going to HAVE to send that check!

Regards, Harry

Harry is referring to Stuart Preston's contest entry last issue. It can now be found in our Tip's and Tricks Archive.

Eddy J. Gurney eddy@ans.net

Hi!,
I was looking around the HTINews web page trying to find previous entries in the "Tips & Tricks" contests and can't find them anywhere. Are the entries archived somewhere? It seems that both the winning and non-winning entries from previous contests would be useful to read. Are they there somewhere and I just missed them?

Keep up the great work,

Eddy

Hi Eddy, You're absolutely right and you'll be able to find them in the next issue. I've been building up the archive and will have it ready by then ... OK it's ready.

Andrew Ward award@cisco.com

Dear folks,

For Home automation stuff, you have THE BEST web page of anyone or any company. I am strongly thinking of sending a donation.

Either way, keep up the excellent work!!!

Andrew

PS - Do lots of equipment and Software/shareware reviews!

Thanks Andrew ... we enjoy what we do but it's always nice to get this kind of encouragement.

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