Lew Sichelman turns in a lengthy column that covers the promise of wireless home automation based on Z-Wave. Now, as I've written before, I'm fairly well impressed with my Z-Wave devices from Intermatic. I think the best thing about this article (which is otherwise a re-hash of press releases) is its discussion of a 1970s home that was retrofitted with Z-Wave based automation. No re-wiring was necessary, and is was done by a pro for $5000.
That's a reasonable price, but the best part follows that figure, where Michael Einstein of Intermatic says that a do-it-yourselfer could have completed the work for 1/2 that much. Now that's refreshing to read--not only is D.I.Y. automation mentioned, it is promoted by an automation company! That doesn't happen very often folks, and it just might indicate that the Z-Wave Alliance is coming around to the oft-neglected "hacker" portion of the market. Let's hope so, it could make a big difference in their success.