Thanks to our AVAD account manager Kevin Ezzell from AVAD South East, I along with two of my senior managers was able to meet with Mike Everett, Eastern Regional Sales Manager and Kevin Marty CTO of RTI this weekend at the EhExpo in Orlando.
I had a brief discussion with them concerning the development schedule for 2 way RS232 and how it would be implemented. I expressed to them that our use of RTI was not just for remote control use and that we had high hopes it would become a full blown control system when we started using the line. I expressed to them that I was very happy overall with the products but was frustrated with the slow development progress. They were very receptive to my comments and were eager to share some general information. As the meeting concluded, Mike asked me to post a thread on this forum to discuss what we had talked about. Mike specifically indicated to me that they read this forum but do not post.
I was told that two way RS232 is scheduled to be ready by CEDIA 2008. The initial release will include pre-written drivers. The devices that will be included first will probably be AVAD distributed devices such as Lutron and Marantz but they were open for suggestions. Mike asked me to send him a list of devices that were of interest to us but I am willing to compile a list from the user community if anyone is interested in providing input. See instructions for submittal below.
Kevin Marty mentioned that a development environment would follow at a later date (no specific timeframe) to allow the user community to develop two way drivers.
I asked specifically about string processing and it was mentioned that javascript would be used as the processing language on the front end.
As to the drivers you would like to see developed first, send an email to
rti2way@gmail.com. I will compile a list by number of requests and post results on this thread. Please list the equipment with manufacture and model in the order of preference. I'll weight them by scores and publish results. I will send a list sometime after April 1 so send your information before then.
Example:
1.Lutron,Homeworks
2.Elan,System12
3.Elan,System8
4.Ademco,APEX
5.Yamaha,RXV2700
I left the meeting with a sense that RTI does care deeply about providing a great product and that they do care about their customer base. I have a much better sense of where they are headed.