August 20, 2008
To Whom It May Concern:
I would like to recommend All In One Control.
In 2000 my wife and I began planning a new home. We began construction in 2003 and moved in 2005.
Aside from home automation everything went fairly smoothly.
Sometime in 2002 I provided plans to five different local integrators. Two were home security, intercom, and central vacuum shops, which had expanded into home automation (one was a Crestron dealer the other was an AMX dealer). The other three were medium to high-end audio shops, which had developed a line of video products as home theaters had become popular. All three audio/video shops were Crestron dealers and touted their expertise.
Quotes ranged from $120,000 to over $400,000. The proposed features and equipment specified closely tracked the bid prices. In the end I selected one of the high-end audio/video shops. I selected the shop that had been in the business the longest, had the nicest facility, and the smoothest talking sales person.
I had to pay for everything in advance—even labor. The contract price was just over $225,000. The shop always needed the money up front (nice business—no inventory—pay first and we’ll order your product).
Two days before we moved in the shop started installing the gear. Three weeks after we had moved in nothing was integrated. The doorbell didn’t even work (it was part of the Crestron intercom system). My wife and family were stressed by the move and the constant tramping about of the A/V guys.
The house has 16 audio zones, a theater, two media rooms, five HVAC systems with 10 total zones, a security system, security cameras with DVR, swimming pool and spa control, and a Lutron lighting system. The house is approximately 14,000 square feet. There are eight small in wall touch panels, two large in wall touch panels, and three wireless touch panels.
The shop kept postponing the walkthrough. Finally, the sales guy invited me to lunch. He showed up with the two owners—guess what—they needed more money. I told them no. They told me they wouldn’t finish. I threatened them with a lawsuit. They pressed on. Two weeks later they had made little progress. My wife and sons started commenting on how the Crestron programmer was talking to technical support all day. My wife issued an ultimatum. I called the sales guy over. He explained that the difficulties were not unusual—and that they needed more money. I said no and they pressed on with little progress.
A few days later the house across the street was struck by lightening. That house caught fire. The lightening also struck most of my A/V equipment. Suddenly my integrator was my best friend again—he was going to get to sell me all that equipment again.
It took about six months for the insurance check to arrive. As I contemplated what to do with the insurance money I searched and interviewed Crestron programmers/dealers from all over the USA.
I found David through a guy selling Crestron equipment over the Internet.
He was hired to program my system. However, I no longer had an installer. David coached me for what seemed to be endless hours so I could work on the installation. When we ran into issues I was unable to fix ha came out and took over the installation as well as the programming.
We programmed the entire system with the vast majority of everything working. Then to ensure David stayed on his toes, I changed the graphics and we redid all of the programming again.
My system has been running smoothly now for over two years. Anytime I have a problem I give David a call and we get it fixed. If it is programming he fixes it and downloads over the internet. If it is some sort of hardware issue he leads me thru some trouble-shooting and then tells me what I need to do to fix it.
David also works with me to add new toys that I find to my
system. I found an extended control module for my Dedicated Micros camera
DVR. We got it and David integrated it for me. He also integrated the weather
module that I love. It allows me to check the weather for anywhere in the US
from my panel. He is also working my new interface to allow me to control my
system from my iPhone.
David has everything working (better and more completely than I had originally contemplated).
David is honest, trustworthy, and reliable. I recommend him.
Sean