On January 24, 2014 at 21:01, noboost4you said...
We just finished our home theater and neatly tucked away all the components behind some drywall.
Gee, I hope you can get to them! This makes it sound like they're sealed inside the wall!
Our integrator is suggesting URC's MSC-400 and MX-980, but at a premium.
What's "a premium"? To me that would be a $100 product for $120. If you're saying it has a price higher than you want to pay, okay, I understand that.
In addition to the equipment, they want $455.57 to program aforementioned equipment from URC. For the price of the programming, I could pick up the Harmony 900 and do it myself.
The Harmony remotes, in general, are not sold or programmed by installers because their operation cannot be made as simple as remote systems like the URC. The Harmony can get out of sync with the system, leaving the user to figure out what went wrong and correct it himself. Users who decide to go this route decide they will futz with the remote when it goes wrong. I think you can see that an installer cannot tolerate installing this kind of product, as the installer would then be on the hook to make it work properly again. The installer's choice of components, the URC, when set up, will work right every time (and will work easily if he's a good programmer).
I typically would go ahead with the integrator, but the last time we had them out to install a Lutron control panel, they sent a rookie who spent the entire time on the phone with Customer Support and still charged us $330.60 for labor.
What amount of time was billed? And how the hell does anybody in business come up with labor amounts such as $330.60 and $455.57?
When it was completed, the installer said I could have done this as apparently he learned how to do it that day, too.
If you're quoting him exactly, that's a non sequitur. You're saying you could have done this BECAUSE he learned how to do it that day. This even implies things might have been different on a different day!
If you're saying that he said it was pretty simple, that makes sense. Some individual parts of system installation are simple. The overall integration of parts, however, can easily become complex.
This put a sour taste in my mouth and would like to avoid another dealer-only item.
I agree with your reaction if you have accurately portrayed what happened. And, having that sour taste, I would have complained to the installer's company about how much time he was on the phone, how simple he said it was, and how many hours you were billed for the work (you didn't mention the actual time spent).
I suggest you gather the facts about that Lutron thing and start a thread in the Installers Forum, asking other installers if they feel you were charged fairly. You'll want to name the model of the Lutron product, the amount of hours billed, the billing rate, and, actually, the day of the week (Lutron's customer service is open on Sunday and that could have even been a factor in the charge). Be ready to be asked pointed questions if you leave out details. And if we agree with you, be ready to print out the discussion and show it to the installation company when asking for a refund.
I simply need the RF remote to control the AVR, projector, BD player, STB, Lutron panel and possibly another amplifier and/or processor. I don't need over-the-top programming ability. Macros needed for 'Lights On', 'Lights Dim', Lights Off', 'Watch Movie', 'Watch TV', 'Listen to Music', etc. Will the Harmony 900 fit the bill or do I need to foot the bill for the URC equipment? (If only I had the software for the MSC-400 and MX-980, life would be golden.)
Life would not then be golden, as you'd have to figure out how to use the software. While its basic use is not all that difficult, working out the macros to be as fast as possible, as efficient as possible, and as convenient and sensible as possible, are all skill gained by factory training and repetitive programming of remotes. And as an end user you won't have factory help available as they are ther to lend help to those who will program many remote systems, but not those who will only program one remote system.
