Hi there,
Can anyone offer any thoughts or share any experiences regarding the Hills hub or Clipsal C Bus? We are looking into the Hills hub for our new build but was recently told that the C Bus is better but have no idea as haven't used either. What do you all think?
Any info at all would be much appreciated
Cheers
c bus is more home automation.
hills hub is more of electrical distribution.
like a colour appointment, you should see an specialist cabling/audio/visual consultant to help you achieve what you want.
Thanks adgn. Glad you know what you are talking about because I haven't the faintest!
Hi Linh, there's lots on here about this sort of thing - one thread is called Hills Hub I think. We have the HH but only use it for data points and the sound system through the house which is great ... I know it can do a lot more but we don't need it at the moment. I'm sure you'll get lots of responses ...
Thanks Annette.
Any one have a C bus system in their home? Can we have both Hills Hub and C bus or do we even need both?? Geez I am a bit of a techno reject.... LOL
Before anyone can answer your question you need to determine what your needs are with respect to audio and video distribution and data and home automation. It will also depend very much on your budget.
You need to see a specialist cabler.
C-Bus is a lighting and automation system from Clipsal, while Home Hub from Hills is for data networking (and audio/video but its AV capabilities are somewhat dated and haven't kept up with High Definition). The Clipsal equivalent to HH is StarServe.
Both HH and StarServe are kind of expensive for what they do and you can probably get better value for money using normal, commercial data networking equipment that cabler can get from any supplier.
C-Bus is also quite expensive, but it replaces your standard light switches with electronic ones. This gives a lot of flexibility in programming which switch controls which light as well as computer/iPhone control of your lights, "scenes", where a single switch turns on a number of lights at preset levels.
Some of the things I have done with my C-Bus installation:
* Scenes to turn on/off the various lights in the kitchen
* Movement sensors in the Kid's rooms that turn off their lights if they leave them on
* Integration with the alarm panel, so that all lights are turned off when the alarm is armed
* A single button in the master bedroom that turns off all lights in the house
* Infrared remote control of lights in the media room so that dimming is control with the same remote that operates the rest of the AV equipment.
C-Bus display switch
C-Bus standard switch
As you say that you don't really know what these things are, I would suggest you probably don't need C-Bus, but you should probably look at some data networking (even if not HH).
Paul
Yep, think you are all absolutely right. Might speak to hubby in detail about this. Haven't had a chance to. Wanted to get some info first. I might even get him to sort it out as he is the techno expert in the family, not me!
Thanks for the photos and input Paul and thanks for the input as well Crow.