“I have used Homeseer since 1997 and have never looked back. I added the HomeTroller Zee S2 to check out how well this will work compared to my standard (Windows) base system and I must say it stands up very well. The only limits I see are the number of plugins you can install is limited to 5 but this is enough to get you going. Just pop it on your network then go to find.homeseer.com and you will be directed to the interface of your system.
I have just upgraded both my system to HS4 and I must say this is a great edition being able to now create events and view devices on a real on a mobile interface and not having to strain at a little version of the desktop page.
Having Amazon Alexa support with this is also great as I can just walk around and ask Alexa to turn things on and off and it is done.”
“I have had this for a number of years and it's been flawless. Never needs restarting. Works perfectly with google home. No complaints and looking forward to HS4 update. The interface isn't fancy, but it doesn't need to be. I don't need to access the interface that often because it's so reliable, so I don't see why it needs to be fancy. It just works. It's fast and works offline. Most of the issues are due to the fickleness of z-wave.”
“I bought this zee S2 nearly four years ago and as the title says, it's still going strong and hasn't missed a beat in all that time.
The app is, shall we say, functional rather than pretty but I take the view that if you've done your automation correctly, you shouldn't need to keep fiddling with manual controls. I've used JSON commands for those things where you might want to override the system (close or open a blind) which are easily issued from IPhone or Android standard apps.
I've used Zwave for most things, and other plugins to control Hue and Somfy blind motors.
I've integrated weather station reports too.
HS4 (the latest version of the software) is late arriving but promises a better interface. We'll see!”
“This tiny unit just works. Within a short space of time, I had this unit up and running and it's performed flawlessly. This is my first foray into home automation so I have nothing to compare it to, but it does what I want and I haven't torn my hair out achieving it.
I can see that the HS3 software is a little obscure in its menu structure, however it's not proven to be an obstacle. The app leaves a little to be desired, but again it's functional if not pretty.
All in all, I'm very satisfied. For me, reliability was the key thing.”
“Coming from Fibaro camp I have to say this just works. Sure it got it's challenges, however none are even close to all the struggle I have to go thru with my Fibaro HC2. It's a completely different ballgame.
Be prepared for a bit of a steap learning curve, ou might need a day or two to adapt, and frankly you need to understand scripting to get it working to the same level. I think one might say: Best GUI goes to Fibaro, the rest goes to HomeSeer - and GUI might be needed for some, I personally needs a box that just works all the time.
I need to have something I can trust. Fibaro I can not trust - HomeSeer, so far, has just worked. Beat that.”
“Having struggled with aged x10 technology for months the move to these products has been a revalation. Ease of use, flexibility and an interface to some of my working x10 has made this an excellent choice.”
“Having tried Vera lite, Vera edge, BeNext and Fibaro HCL
I finally got fed up of all the quirks and reliability issues and went for the homeseer zee S2.
I have ran this for 6 weeks now with around 30 sensors and switches in my house.
The heating is a secure programmable thermostat linked to a Fibaro dual relay switch. I also use the door sensor with a digital thermostat on my water tank. The advantage over the other systems is that I can out the secure thermostat into holiday mode.
I have a mixture of Fibaro dimmers, Fibaro switches, quibino switch and an aeon labs switch. All work flawlessly. I also have 4 Fibaro motion sensors, 2 danfoss lc13 radiator valves, sonos speakers and a couple of Fibaro door switches with temperature.
Everything works well and I have noticed the reaction times for triggering events is very fast. On the Vera I could be in another room before an event happened. The Fibaro HCL would give me dead nodes all the time and false alarms.
Making rules is easy and flexible too. Far more flexible out of the box than any of the others. Although I did rate the BeNext controller pretty highly for creating rules, next up was the Fibaro. Vera needs luup code or the dreaded pleg plug in.
Another plus point is the remote access. The out of the box HS touch is not pretty and not as good as any of the other apps to look at but works really well and is far faster than the others too.
I actually use imperihome now and have used that on Vera too. Again it is just way faster and more reliable than when it was talking to the Vera system.
The downside I suppose is that you have to pay for most of the plug ins. And the zee can only have 5 plug ins active. That isn't a real problem but if you want all singing all dancing then you should look at the SEL or the Windows version.
I did use indigo for a while but I didn't have a spare Mac to run it on full time. But that's was good too.
Over all after 3 years of using zwave and different controllers I have settled on the homeseer system and I am very happy with it.”
