I find it very strange that in such a small community (particularly in the UK), that no AMX programmer ever saw a beta of this in person or heard of anyone that did, has no information about the developer and that the only thing that showed this to be real was a youtube video (which has been pulled), I can't remember all the claims TPC made, but appearances are no substitute to a real product.
I don't necessarily doubt that it may have indeed been vapor. However, I wouldn't know what the motive would be.
As for Linux and Gentoo...
I'm a Gentoo user as well. Haven't hacked the CTron, but I did mount the filesystem of an 8400 in Gentoo and poked around. Looks like it's running Montavista Linux. I found the VTG app which runs the touchpanel files and even tried to emulate the RISC CPU and run it, but no luck. I haven't had major problems with the 8400 other than an occasional hardware failure that was repaired. Seems pretty stable to me. Just don't like the form factor and battery life anymore. It's getting dated.
Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me ? you can't get fooled again.
Definitely something fishy goin' on. Even if they couldn't meet the last release date for what ever reason they wouldn't have seemingly fell off the face of the earth with out a word. Maybe they did get bought out to be silenced but in light of the new ******** marketing campaign maybe someone realized the ship was sailing with out them so they decided to jump onboard at the last minute.
Or not but I will stay tuned to this channel to see what actually happens in "the next few days" as this drama continues.
Well I hope they do come clean on what happened. I suppose its nosey but If I'm going to buy a product over the long haul, I'd like to know about the potential stability of the company. I hope they tell us what the delay was caused by.
The square buttons arise because the app doesn't use the standard amxbutton Borders, unless you hit the system graphics check box in the wizard. You'll get better results using your own png button images in tp4.
The wrong irr file is prob the result of using the wrong wizard for the app version. If you download the AppStore app, you'll need to download the latest wizard from iridium website.
HTH
I was sent an updated version of each file in an email, only to find out they had an even more updated version on the website. Trying to use the graphics check box during conversion did not help me. No matter what I did, the result would always be square buttons. I only have a very limited window of time to dedicate to this program. If I can't get it to work, I have to move on, whether it's the program's fault or a byproduct of my own stupidity.
I'd subscribe to that theory. Let's add one more step to it - EHX, March 25th, hence the announcement of something coming in a "few days" from them? Hmmm....
What if AMX decided to buy them out and then work together to add iPhone/iTouch/iPad support natively into TP4.
Maybe that?s been the reason for the delay? Or maybe it?s just wishful thinking on my part.
I think the buy out scenario makes perfect sense but only time will tell, hopefully, what really happened and why. If AMX did buy them out it may not have been soley to provide a fully supported end product but instead maybe the intent was to sit on the product and keep it their back pocket should they need it. If they felt it would be in their best interest not to release it (TP sales falling) they would continue to sit on it but if their market relevance and shares started to decline they could turn it out quickly and get back in the game. Seems odd that this annoucement from TPC came just days after the C restron app annoucement. Who else really pushes AMX's buttons? But alais we may never know and continue to speculate. Watch this be just some cruel joke.
I think the buy out scenario makes perfect sense but only time will tell, hopefully, what really happened and why. If AMX did buy them out it may not have been soley to provide a fully supported end product but instead maybe the intent was to sit on the product and keep it their back pocket should they need it. If they felt it would be in their best interest not to release it (TP sales falling) they would continue to sit on it but if their market relevance and shares started to decline they could turn it out quickly and get back in the game. Seems odd that this annoucement from TPC came just days after the C restron app annoucement. Who else really pushes AMX's buttons? But alais we may never know and continue to speculate. Watch this be just some cruel joke.
The C-tron app (from C-tron mobile) is older than the TPC app...
From the C-tron website:
iPad support is, as I already stated, nothing spectacular, it's just a scaled version of the iPod/iPhone app
The TPC people are sure good at creating drama (albiet in our very small slice of society). Hopefully they will have something more than just words. Otherwise they're just a bunch gossipers looking for an audience.
I seriously doubt that AMX's success or failure as a company will be attributed to one piece of software that they didn't even write.
I'd love to see this as a product but I'm not holding my breath.
I completely agree and I don't really care if they have an app or not but potential customers do. I've also said time & time again that most customers that want the app will likely tire of it after a short period of time and opt to use a fixed mounted or portable AMX TP.
When I said:
if their market relevance and shares started to decline they could turn it out quickly and get back in the game.
I meant that with out certain tools or capabilites that resi customers want and expect in todays market AMX's seemingly unwillingness to cater to resi customers wants and needs will cost them and us sales. As it is AMX & C restron aren't the only elite players anymore and more and more dealers and customers are shying away from them in favor of more progressive companies.
I think AMX is still the best product for commercial installs and I want AMX to be the best solution for resi installs and I believe they still have the edge over the competition but only in the areas of control that are meaningless to the end customers. So the bling, bling that the less capable companies offer are what's getting the sales.
Yuri wrote:
The C-tron app (from C-tron mobile) is older than the TPC app...
Yeah, I know but they get to market a solution so they stay relevant. It really doesn't matter how long it's been out or even how well it works. They can honestly say they have an in house created/supported app for the iPhone & iPad so customers will give them the nod when comparing a solution for their project side by side.
It's confirmed a few things to me. There is a lot of power there. The user front end is truly horrible. It's possible to do some bread and butter things astonishingly quickly and the OLED remote is a very nice bit of kit.
I'm there because I think that a control paradigm focused exclusively on specialist (and limited) touchpanels is a bit tired and I've had no support or indication that AMX has any intention of moving away from that. Having spent 5 years building a very nice AMX business I'm rather aggrieved to be sitting down to go through "This is how we do source selection, this is how we do IR, this is how you can write your own drivers for stuff that isn't available yet." At the same time I'm quite excited.
I personally hate the idea of having a TV on to do stuff with music, change HVAC settings, alter lighting. However, it doesn't matter. I'm astonished by the number of potential clients who think it's a great model. And there is a perfectly acceptable iPhone interface / a Sonos module / an AppleTV module etc. Analysis suggests our revenues tend come from customer spend rather than our own prejudices.
The interface is something its own mother couldn't love. It looks like it was knocked up by drunken lunatics with a Fisher Price obsession. Nasty, Nasty. But even hobbled with that it has pretty good customer acceptance. 2.0 looks a whole heap better
Unlike the sham that is NetStreams DigiLinX, C4 is a proper grown up, capable control system. I really hope AMX is awake to the threats in its marketplace. I'm going through this because we no longer have any confidence they have.
So. Cheer me up you denizens of Houston. Tell me flirting with the Fisher Price Fetishists is lunacy and ship me some good news. If TPC resurfaces with AMX support AND it's any good (bit of a rider there) I'll be chuffed to bits.
Let me start by saying that my company carries both. The C4 stuff is nice as long as you play inside the box and DO NOT try to program it like an AMX .... I have brought C4 processors to their knees with some fairly simple programming concepts. This doesn't mean you can't do any conditional logic, just do yourself a favor and keep it limited. The new processors might fix this slightly, but that will be lost as soon as the flash interface goes live....IMHO.
The interface is not the nicest, but it is FAR better than some of the AMX/Ctron panels I have seen in the last 5 years. I really think that one of the nice things is the tight control their have on their UI that prevents dealers from doing stupid things. I cringe to think what abominations will come about when dealers can make their own interface.
I personally hate the idea of having a TV on to do stuff with music, change HVAC settings, alter lighting. However, it doesn't matter. I'm astonished by the number of potential clients who think it's a great model.
If you use their touch panels, you don't need the TV on to control. You can also use the list feature on the remote to do some control things without turning on the TV.
On to a more positive aspect of carrying both lines. We have found that carrying both lines actually adds value to our AMX offerings. When people see them side-by-side and can compare the graphics and the speed of operation, most decide they like the AMX system more and are willing to pay the premium because now they see why the premium exists. There are a few people that decide automation is not that important to them... or they can't afford AMX, and that the C4 operates at an acceptable level.
We have a very clear internal distinction as to where C4 is allowed (anything over ~8k sq ft is out). We also do not do anything extreme in the programming of C4. If it's not built-in, we don't do it. We also limit the number of lighting buttons with logic as this can get out of hand quickly. Other than that, it has been a reliable solution for us.
Jeff
P.S.
The training should also open your eyes to the level of some of the competition. You may or may not have someone fail to complete the final exam, but I definitely had at least 1 person that could not even finish it. I have a suspicion that a couple others failed it, but were a little quieter about not "getting it". When you see the final, you will truly understand my shock, but in case things have changed, the final basically told you exactly what to do step by step and all you had to do was click the right buttons. It was also open book
I have been testing out the iRidium app for a few days, and I am very happy with the communications layer of the program. Button presses are extremely fast and it was able to handle a for loop that sent out 200 ^txt commands to 200 buttons without missing a command. The server application was run on Win7 and connected flawlessly to the iPhone every time, and the iPhone app connected to the AMX master flawlessly every time.
There are a few complaints/issues that I ran into that fall into 2 categories:
1. iRidium Bugs - I could not get iRidium to use chameleon images to shape buttons and ended up with all square buttons on the iPhone. I am using chameleon images to shape the buttons and png files for the button images. Checking/unchecking the system graphics option had no effect on this. The AMX icon font did not transfer, so I lost all of the transport icons on the buttons on the iPhone. Neither of these are big deals because I can just create separate png's for all the buttons to get around the problems. Other issues include popup borders not scaling entirely correctly and dynamic images not scaling when the 'System Graphics' box was checked. The final issue (and this may be an iPhone OS issue) is that the program takes a little over a minute to reconnect to the AMX master upon waking the phone up if the phone goes to sleep while the application is active.
2. TP4 Graphics Files on iPhone - the first time I pulled up a touchpanel with iRidium on the iPhone I was shocked at how apparent all of the limitations of the TP4 UI capabilities. I immediately wanted to be able to zoom in on an area of the panel and scroll around to see different sections. I also wanted the ability to create animated "accordion menus" with scrolling to better utilize the small screen, and I desperately wanted to be able to flick-scroll through the list of songs on my Request Server page. Pressing 'Page Down' to see the next 10 items in a list on an AMX touchpanel doesn't seem so bad, but doing so on an iPhone felt utterly archaic.
Bottom Line:
iRidium has done a truly tremendous job with porting AMX's communication layer to the iPhone platform. The phone showed up in the online tree as an iRidium device and worked flawlessly. The bigger problem that I discovered is that TP4 graphics are entirely too limiting when put on a modern day touchpanel OS.
I think the solution is to use iRidium's communication platform and use that to populate text and accept button presses from that native iPhone UI layer. That way you get to take advantage of the iPhone platform's polished UI (scrolling list boxes, gestures, flick to scroll, zooming, panning, etc).
My initial thought for this is to use a basic wire-frame graphics editor to layout the main menu items, which items flip to pre-drawn hvac/security/etc pages, which items create an accordion drop down with a sub menu, etc. The wire-frame editor will also let you enter channel codes and ports. This will populate an XML file to assign the button coordinates and properties for everything. This type of application would really cut down on graphics time for each job and provide a very polished appearance because it will take advantage of all of the iPhone platform's included button graphics, list structures, etc.
Additional though: the panels have got to be the gold in AMX's cash flow. Think about it, a single job can have one NI-4100 and 20 touch panels. You think they want to lose maybe 4 or 5 panels on one job?
the question is, do they want to lose the entire job? expecting to hold clients hostage with high-priced hardware has seldom been a successful long term strategy.
This cliffhanger is the geek equivalent of ?Who Shot J.R?? .
It's certainly the oddest product launch of all time. How many hits do you think their website gets, just to see if there is any news - any day now. promise it's coming soon, etc etc...
If this does ever appear, they will have a lot of work to do to build a level of trust...
It's gone past end of business here in the UK. That's all over the UK cos as far we know they might be in Cornwall or in a flat in Aberdeen, but and still we have no news from TPC. I'm sure they'll pitch up. I'm just not sure how much baggage they know they're carrying.
If you've got a global audience of maybe 5000 AMX programmers (and I suspect I'm overstating the case there) you don't need to approach a launch like you're releasing the latest series of Lost...If we don't like it you don't have a product so pissing us about isn't that sensible really.
It's gone past end of business here in the UK. That's all over the UK cos as far we know they might be in Cornwall or in a flat in Aberdeen, but and still we have no news from TPC. I'm sure they'll pitch up. I'm just not sure how much baggage they know they're carrying.
If you've got a global audience of maybe 5000 AMX programmers (and I suspect I'm overstating the case there) you don't need to approach a launch like you're releasing the latest series of Lost...If we don't like it you don't have a product so pissing us about isn't that sensible really.
Comments
I find it very strange that in such a small community (particularly in the UK), that no AMX programmer ever saw a beta of this in person or heard of anyone that did, has no information about the developer and that the only thing that showed this to be real was a youtube video (which has been pulled), I can't remember all the claims TPC made, but appearances are no substitute to a real product.
As for Linux and Gentoo...
I'm a Gentoo user as well. Haven't hacked the CTron, but I did mount the filesystem of an 8400 in Gentoo and poked around. Looks like it's running Montavista Linux. I found the VTG app which runs the touchpanel files and even tried to emulate the RISC CPU and run it, but no luck. I haven't had major problems with the 8400 other than an occasional hardware failure that was repaired. Seems pretty stable to me. Just don't like the form factor and battery life anymore. It's getting dated.
Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me ? you can't get fooled again.
Paul
Or not but I will stay tuned to this channel to see what actually happens in "the next few days" as this drama continues.
Well I hope they do come clean on what happened. I suppose its nosey but If I'm going to buy a product over the long haul, I'd like to know about the potential stability of the company. I hope they tell us what the delay was caused by.
__________________
I was sent an updated version of each file in an email, only to find out they had an even more updated version on the website. Trying to use the graphics check box during conversion did not help me. No matter what I did, the result would always be square buttons. I only have a very limited window of time to dedicate to this program. If I can't get it to work, I have to move on, whether it's the program's fault or a byproduct of my own stupidity.
Here?s a what if scenario for you:
The last thing TPC was working on before the release of their app was a web based interface for transferring TP4 files to the iPhone.
What if AMX decided to buy them out and then work together to add iPhone/iTouch/iPad support natively into TP4.
Maybe that?s been the reason for the delay? Or maybe it?s just wishful thinking on my part.
I seriously doubt that AMX's success or failure as a company will be attributed to one piece of software that they didn't even write.
I'd love to see this as a product but I'm not holding my breath.
The C-tron app (from C-tron mobile) is older than the TPC app...
From the C-tron website:
http://www.********.com/products/show_products.asp?jump=1&model=********-MOBILE
iPad support is, as I already stated, nothing spectacular, it's just a scaled version of the iPod/iPhone app
The TPC people are sure good at creating drama (albiet in our very small slice of society). Hopefully they will have something more than just words. Otherwise they're just a bunch gossipers looking for an audience.
When I said: I meant that with out certain tools or capabilites that resi customers want and expect in todays market AMX's seemingly unwillingness to cater to resi customers wants and needs will cost them and us sales. As it is AMX & C restron aren't the only elite players anymore and more and more dealers and customers are shying away from them in favor of more progressive companies.
I think AMX is still the best product for commercial installs and I want AMX to be the best solution for resi installs and I believe they still have the edge over the competition but only in the areas of control that are meaningless to the end customers. So the bling, bling that the less capable companies offer are what's getting the sales.
Yuri wrote: Yeah, I know but they get to market a solution so they stay relevant. It really doesn't matter how long it's been out or even how well it works. They can honestly say they have an in house created/supported app for the iPhone & iPad so customers will give them the nod when comparing a solution for their project side by side.
It's confirmed a few things to me. There is a lot of power there. The user front end is truly horrible. It's possible to do some bread and butter things astonishingly quickly and the OLED remote is a very nice bit of kit.
I'm there because I think that a control paradigm focused exclusively on specialist (and limited) touchpanels is a bit tired and I've had no support or indication that AMX has any intention of moving away from that. Having spent 5 years building a very nice AMX business I'm rather aggrieved to be sitting down to go through "This is how we do source selection, this is how we do IR, this is how you can write your own drivers for stuff that isn't available yet." At the same time I'm quite excited.
I personally hate the idea of having a TV on to do stuff with music, change HVAC settings, alter lighting. However, it doesn't matter. I'm astonished by the number of potential clients who think it's a great model. And there is a perfectly acceptable iPhone interface / a Sonos module / an AppleTV module etc. Analysis suggests our revenues tend come from customer spend rather than our own prejudices.
The interface is something its own mother couldn't love. It looks like it was knocked up by drunken lunatics with a Fisher Price obsession. Nasty, Nasty. But even hobbled with that it has pretty good customer acceptance. 2.0 looks a whole heap better
Unlike the sham that is NetStreams DigiLinX, C4 is a proper grown up, capable control system. I really hope AMX is awake to the threats in its marketplace. I'm going through this because we no longer have any confidence they have.
So. Cheer me up you denizens of Houston. Tell me flirting with the Fisher Price Fetishists is lunacy and ship me some good news. If TPC resurfaces with AMX support AND it's any good (bit of a rider there) I'll be chuffed to bits.
The interface is not the nicest, but it is FAR better than some of the AMX/Ctron panels I have seen in the last 5 years. I really think that one of the nice things is the tight control their have on their UI that prevents dealers from doing stupid things. I cringe to think what abominations will come about when dealers can make their own interface.
If you use their touch panels, you don't need the TV on to control. You can also use the list feature on the remote to do some control things without turning on the TV.
On to a more positive aspect of carrying both lines. We have found that carrying both lines actually adds value to our AMX offerings. When people see them side-by-side and can compare the graphics and the speed of operation, most decide they like the AMX system more and are willing to pay the premium because now they see why the premium exists. There are a few people that decide automation is not that important to them... or they can't afford AMX, and that the C4 operates at an acceptable level.
We have a very clear internal distinction as to where C4 is allowed (anything over ~8k sq ft is out). We also do not do anything extreme in the programming of C4. If it's not built-in, we don't do it. We also limit the number of lighting buttons with logic as this can get out of hand quickly. Other than that, it has been a reliable solution for us.
Jeff
P.S.
The training should also open your eyes to the level of some of the competition. You may or may not have someone fail to complete the final exam, but I definitely had at least 1 person that could not even finish it. I have a suspicion that a couple others failed it, but were a little quieter about not "getting it". When you see the final, you will truly understand my shock, but in case things have changed, the final basically told you exactly what to do step by step and all you had to do was click the right buttons. It was also open book
There are a few complaints/issues that I ran into that fall into 2 categories:
1. iRidium Bugs - I could not get iRidium to use chameleon images to shape buttons and ended up with all square buttons on the iPhone. I am using chameleon images to shape the buttons and png files for the button images. Checking/unchecking the system graphics option had no effect on this. The AMX icon font did not transfer, so I lost all of the transport icons on the buttons on the iPhone. Neither of these are big deals because I can just create separate png's for all the buttons to get around the problems. Other issues include popup borders not scaling entirely correctly and dynamic images not scaling when the 'System Graphics' box was checked. The final issue (and this may be an iPhone OS issue) is that the program takes a little over a minute to reconnect to the AMX master upon waking the phone up if the phone goes to sleep while the application is active.
2. TP4 Graphics Files on iPhone - the first time I pulled up a touchpanel with iRidium on the iPhone I was shocked at how apparent all of the limitations of the TP4 UI capabilities. I immediately wanted to be able to zoom in on an area of the panel and scroll around to see different sections. I also wanted the ability to create animated "accordion menus" with scrolling to better utilize the small screen, and I desperately wanted to be able to flick-scroll through the list of songs on my Request Server page. Pressing 'Page Down' to see the next 10 items in a list on an AMX touchpanel doesn't seem so bad, but doing so on an iPhone felt utterly archaic.
Bottom Line:
iRidium has done a truly tremendous job with porting AMX's communication layer to the iPhone platform. The phone showed up in the online tree as an iRidium device and worked flawlessly. The bigger problem that I discovered is that TP4 graphics are entirely too limiting when put on a modern day touchpanel OS.
I think the solution is to use iRidium's communication platform and use that to populate text and accept button presses from that native iPhone UI layer. That way you get to take advantage of the iPhone platform's polished UI (scrolling list boxes, gestures, flick to scroll, zooming, panning, etc).
My initial thought for this is to use a basic wire-frame graphics editor to layout the main menu items, which items flip to pre-drawn hvac/security/etc pages, which items create an accordion drop down with a sub menu, etc. The wire-frame editor will also let you enter channel codes and ports. This will populate an XML file to assign the button coordinates and properties for everything. This type of application would really cut down on graphics time for each job and provide a very polished appearance because it will take advantage of all of the iPhone platform's included button graphics, list structures, etc.
I believe this is due to the limited font base of the iphone OS rather than the app.
the question is, do they want to lose the entire job? expecting to hold clients hostage with high-priced hardware has seldom been a successful long term strategy.
Does the upcoming release have the blessing of AMX? It will be interesting conversation either way.
It's certainly the oddest product launch of all time. How many hits do you think their website gets, just to see if there is any news - any day now. promise it's coming soon, etc etc...
If this does ever appear, they will have a lot of work to do to build a level of trust...
From what I understand, that only affects pre-orders placed in the last couple days. They sold out of the first batch.
As for the TPC announcement.....it's MONDAY! and aren't they in London... which makes it early afternoon now?
Jeff
It's gone past end of business here in the UK. That's all over the UK cos as far we know they might be in Cornwall or in a flat in Aberdeen, but and still we have no news from TPC. I'm sure they'll pitch up. I'm just not sure how much baggage they know they're carrying.
If you've got a global audience of maybe 5000 AMX programmers (and I suspect I'm overstating the case there) you don't need to approach a launch like you're releasing the latest series of Lost...If we don't like it you don't have a product so pissing us about isn't that sensible really.
Preach it brothah!