Adding my $0.00025 here, for whatever its worth...
I have been more of a lurker than a participant, and I have seen some uniform experiences pretty much across the board:
1) Unless you have some technical experience, this is probably not the hobby for you - it is more than just a casual hobby, you need to commit to it (and then some!)
2) The components are cheap, both in price and quality, so it's pretty easy to just "walk away" from an installation, and keep the bad mojo going...
3) In terms of innovation, X-10 has not done anything much I can see to try to catch its competitors (Z-Wave, etc). For the most part, the components still look like throw-backs from the 80's
4) The QA for their code is at best slipshod. I have never owned a product that required so many workarounds (that said, its still cool as h311 though)
5) They don't seem to care much about the actual use cases presented by users on this forum - remember, the vocal minority often speak for the silent majority - and opens doors to more market opportunities
With the Airpad, I see them stepping into a new arena, into a new environment where they can potentially branch and grow. Unfortunately, I see two sides to this coin - either the Airpad is awesome, and will make them into a Tablet company (ask HP how that worked out for them) or maybe, JUST MAYBE, we could see the airpad as a jumping-off point for something bigger and better?
... like maybe a wireless CM15-like interface where everything is in the controller, and has built-in wifi? Control everything from the tablet?
Maybe, but I highly doubt it. It would be very difficult for them to erase decades of reputation and still keep with their existing name and expect to be thought of as serious players in the HA game. I would think that if that was their plan, they would be re-branding, or flat-out renaming, their organization.
Long story short - I think the Airpad will be a flop... Even if it is the greatest tablet of all time, they don't have the market clout to get it out into the distribution channels (retail, for example, like at Best Buy, etc) to go up against HP, Dell, etc who have strong, existing channel programs and partners. I doubt that with all the contraction that has been mentioned here that the product was fully designed and built by X10 - probably OEM'd from another manufacturer, and if so, that undermines their potential for success even further. All the new tablets are coming out with Android 3, and in order to run 3, you need very specific hardware - memory, processing power, etc, and their announced product does not have these. So they are essentially announcing they are selling an Android tablet that is a year old that cannot be upgraded, for $200. I got my HP Zeen tablet (to be a touch-based home HA controller interface, BTW) for $250, and it came with a big, nice color printer
I don't mean to sound negative, I just get the feeling the wheels are falling off the bus, and they are in a skid - who knows if they can recover. Their value proposition to me was they had what I needed, and while it was not the best quality, it was CHEAP and I could buy two or three of theirs for the price of one item from any other competitor.
I hope they find their niche - and soon - because I have (as we all do I am sure) a lot of time and money invested in their equipment, and would hate to have to replace it all with something else... And if they drop support for the software, then we are really screwed, since you know we are gonna fund bugs galore as time goes by...
Anyway, I'll get down off my soapbox
Bob
