What are smart world doing...

[charlie crackle]

New website

http://www.smart.com.au

can not find thinkboxx anywhere ?

[Forumadmin]

They are getting all warm and fuzzy. ;)

[rhamer]

What the ?????

I think they've completely lost it this time.

Jeeves Bstro? I thought I was good getting him just to make coffee.

I wish they spent as much effort on returning emails as they have on the fantasy land web site.

Cheers

Rohan

[anonymouscoward]

It amazes me how a company with limited stock , no real development team and their heads in a cloud can still be in business.

Davo.

[Drew]

It's really simple - the steps are:

- buy a great little inovative company in Perth
- throw out it's genius father
- cause the software developers to leave and grow wine
- then, stop all development
- relate it to another synagistic business - the 'Athens Olympics' !!!!!!
- screw the relations with customers and partners.
- forget to protect the name Thinkboxx Internationally
- don't return exsiting customers emails or calls
- pretend to produce new automation products to keep people interested
- pretend to still be a player in the automation business.
- when finally the banks give you no more money
- sue one of your previous partners for their use of a lighting topology which they developed and you did not have anything to do with.
- hope they will settle with cash as opposed to elongated court proceeding.
- then, if money is forthcoming - shutdown the comapny & website and run back to Greece to retire !!! (this is where the Olympic experience counts)


The question is - why couldn't the last step have been the first - imagine what could have been !!!!!!! :(

[Forumadmin]

Yes one has to wonder what could have been. Such a great product is no more, or is it.

[rhamer]

Despite all the ill informed slander heaped on Jeaves/Minder/Thinkboxx by people with little or no experience on other forums, it's a fantastic product.

Even more so when I ran out and bought my first Jeeves straight after seeing it on "Towards 2000" in the early '90s.

This original unit is still functioning, sitting proudly next to my 3 MK2 units (I can't resist grabbing them cheap when I see them for sale)

Cheers

Rohan

[charlie crackle]

I just hope that if they go under that the program that makes the activation codes from the serial numbers becomes avaliable. I have a very full thinkbox (telephone interface, cbus simm, 3 io boards, 5 keypads, IR, card reader) I have two old minders as backup but the problem is if it dies so does the software activation and how do I get the thinkboxx licence transfered if smart have gone.

Charles

[Drew]

Hi Rohan - Well another Jeeves-Thinkboxx tragic and I thought we were a dieing breed - well much the same story here, whilst travelling in the states on the very early '80'sI saw the Jeeves win the home automation award, saw to my amazement it was a Perth company. Came home and rang them and installed it in a ski lodge for remote automation of all systems incluidng generator, boiler, water,entry, security etc etc - and its still working perfectly today (same unit) 18 years or so later !!! Then used Jeeves and Thinkboxx's for various roles at Channel 7 and at home. My thinkboxx's run like a charm and like you I have three spare systems - just in case. If only Dave Mittenach had bought the company !!!!!

Re the future - it couldn't be that hard to redesign the main board with a more a grunty processor and more scenario and device memory.. Get a touch screen manufacturer to interface the serial bus and it would still be a winner. For my bit, its still better than any other systems around despite the few bugs. I do hope Bob Selby @ Senot/Thinkboxx does something with it other than sell the old stock from the states.

enough reminising .............

[Drew]

[QUOTE=charlie crackle;42878]I just hope that if they go under that the program that makes the activation codes from the serial numbers becomes avaliable. I have a very full thinkbox (telephone interface, cbus simm, 3 io boards, 5 keypads, IR, card reader) I have two old minders as backup but the problem is if it dies so does the software activation and how do I get the thinkboxx licence transfered if smart have gone.

Charlie - give Bob Selby a call at Sentor in Sydney (see www.Thinkboxx.com) and see if he has any answers to the software problem - I think he may have rights up until v4.04 which pretty much does all you need and certainly carries spares.

Drew

[rhamer]

This is where I get all confused, who ownes what?

There was a guy that popped up about a year ago from the US I thought, was that Bob? I can't remember.

Cheers

Rohan

[vincentb]

Out of curiosity, what specific features does Jeeves provide that are so unique?

Reason i ask, is because my company - future Touch - developed a Home Automation software over the last few years, called MyServant. It interfaces with HAL2000 and provides unique features like logical lighting intelligence, touch screen floorplan control with status of lights, and lots more stuff (eg: HVAC control, security, weather, phone book, etc). We developed it to meet the requirements we kept getting from customers. Actually, we just released v3 only about a month ago. More information is available at www.futuretouch.com.au/index-3.asp

I know there's several home automation software apps already out there, but we developed it to meet missing needs... so forgive my for my naiveness, but I'm just wondering what Jeeves provides that wasn't available in other home automation apps?

[chrism]

Jeeves wasn't a software app. It was a hardware controller that operated in a stand-alone fashion (didn't need a PC).

[vincentb]

aah, so it was a competing device to an Ocelot then? Could it do anything more than what the Ocelot can currently do?

[charlie crackle]

http://www.smartworld.com.au/

Change again with even less infomation !

[SimonG]

It's really simple - the steps are:

- buy a great little inovative company in Perth
- throw out it's genius father
- cause the software developers to leave and grow wine
- then, stop all development
- relate it to another synagistic business - the 'Athens Olympics' !!!!!!
- screw the relations with customers and partners.
- forget to protect the name Thinkboxx Internationally
- don't return exsiting customers emails or calls
- pretend to produce new automation products to keep people interested
- pretend to still be a player in the automation business.
- when finally the banks give you no more money
- sue one of your previous partners for their use of a lighting topology which they developed and you did not have anything to do with.
- hope they will settle with cash as opposed to elongated court proceeding.
- then, if money is forthcoming - shutdown the comapny & website and run back to Greece to retire !!! (this is where the Olympic experience counts)


The question is - why couldn't the last step have been the first - imagine what could have been !!!!!!! :(
Yes and now history is repeating itself AGAIN with this SMART product and technology.

Now the current sole director of Smart World Enterprises runs a sandwich shop (C`est Ci Bon Snack Bar on 133 Waymouth Street) and barely know the difference between a ThinkBoxx and a FruitBoxx.

He would not have a clue what the quote "Don't mention 011011010110100101101110011001000110010101110010" means..... ;-)

[MrAnderson]

Yes and now history is repeating itself AGAIN with this SMART product and technology.

Now the current sole director of Smart World Enterprises runs a sandwich shop (C`est Ci Bon Snack Bar on 133 Waymouth Street) and barely know the difference between a ThinkBoxx and a FruitBoxx.

He would not have a clue what the quote "Don't mention 011011010110100101101110011001000110010101110010" means..... ;-)

Great one SimonG, had to pick myself up off the floor,

"Don't mention 011011010110100101101110011001000110010101110010"
=
"Don't mention 0x6D696E646572"
=
"Don't mention minder"

Maybe I will drop by and pick up a fruitbox tomorrow, hopefully it comes with a complementary copy of version 5.0 s/w that I have been eagerly waiting for...