Customer Reviews

Hawking HomeRemote Pro HRPS1 Home Control and Remote Monitoring Starter Kit

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've had the system installed for a little over a year now and have given up - it's just too flaky.

Probably OK if you are at home and can unplug it every once in a while to force a reboot and re-association with the Z-wave devices, but just not robust enough if you are away for more than a week or two. What happens after a while is either a) the gateway doesn't respond or b) it no longer sees the devices. It would probably help if one could reboot it remotely via the browser, but that isn't possible.

When it works it works fine, but the web browser interface is too limiting and at any one time there is probably a 40-50% probability that remote control over the web will work.

I purchased the gateway and three lamp modules-setup is easy and quick. From there on this is a piece of junk. Tech support from these people is non existant. The only way to get it back running is to reset the gateway and detect the modules-a little hard to do from a remote location. They need to change the name from home remote pro to remote control from your computor when you are home. Dont buy it.

I bought this kit in January 2009 and it was dead at just under 8 months. RMA process was easy and smooth. When I decided to sign-up for a pro-level, the replacement and the server couldn't talk to each other and am struggling to get it to work with help of tech support and Crayon Interface (the provider). So, if this works for you out of the box (which it's more likely to), then it's a great gadget. If you however run into a trouble, it may be difficult to get it resolved by phone/email.

Update: This thing is NOT reliable enough to be used for remote control. I used this in my observatory and I couldn't count how many time I am unable to control it from the HomeRemote Pro website (it was online and communicating). The button status changed and a log line was added but it didn't actually do anything. This happened about half of the time. However, when it works, it works well. The workaround is to put it on a timer to cycle its power daily.

i dont know what the other reviews are talking about but this product was just what i needed. i wanted something to control my lights and therostat while i wasn't home and this did the trick. i even installed it myself and i'm not that technical. cell phone works fine (blackberry) and i'm thinking about buying the HRPC2 night vision wireless camera next. no bugs or hitches so far and i've had the product for a month. i was hesitant at first from seeing the one bad review but i must disagree completely with it now.

This is a followup to a previous review-I wish I had the time to write about a hundred of them-all would be bad. Hawking Tech. stopped supporting this piece of crap January of 2011. They kept taking my money for the hosting of their gateway, but never bothered to tell me they were discontinuing support of the product till renewal time came up this July 2011-and even then they were trying to charge my credit card. The customer support number takes you to some guy in India who was as helpful as my weiner dog. But the good side is they will give you a 'partial credit refund' if you return a working model to them. Credit on this particular piece willl be about $40.00. What a deal.

The firmware on the gateway is at an alpha level of quality. You can create schedules and access your zwave network through a web portal (which connects to the gateway), but device-linking, event-notifications and cell-phone access do not work. Neither does Hawking's customer/technical support.

Note that you *may* be able to use any IP video camera with this product, but you will probably have to log directly into the gateway through your LAN (admin/1234) and by-pass the gomoshi website account. But I haven't tried installing a camera, just my Leviton Vizia network. Given my experience so far, I won't be spending any more money to find out what else about this product does not work.