Hello

Firstly this is a fabulous resource - I've seen a fair few forums for many things over the years but respective to product and focus this site is second to none.

I'm seriously considering purchasing the Beo5 remote tomorrow. Having embarked on a self build project, home automation is something I've been looking at for some time but with no real joy respective to controllers that are worth the money. That was until the Beo5...possibly!

The questions

1 - Do you really need a Bang & Olufsen product to start with? i.e. no beovision/beosound product means no control over non Bang & Olufsen products such as Panasonic TV, Sony Dvd etc. Some parts lead me to believe this was the beginning state of the product but not the current one

2 - MasterLink gateway. The main Bang & Olufsen shows a great informational on it but leads me nowhere afterwards. Any experiences integrating this item with other systems and then using the Beo5 to control the whole show?

3 - Configuration tool. Looking at a version available it seems you need to specify a primary Bang & Olufsen product first per zone before putting on the non Bang & Olufsen items. Is this simply to spoof the Beo5 controller or a hard requirement?

4 - Range. I see its IR based so how good/bad is range?

5 - Can you have more than 1 in the same household without issue?

6 - Control. How far has someone taken this unit? For example zoned audio/video control, temperature, lighting etc

7 - Is it easy to return to factory default settings should you encounter programming issues? Speaking from development teams experiences as if we only have one controller its not as if we can treat it like a development/integration item... everything would be a "Release to Production"

Kind regards and thanks in advance for any responses/information

A very warm welcome to Beoworld and your first posting on the forum.

Let me see if I can answer the questions you have raised:-

1. There are two ways of controlling non B&O products (3rd party products), either directly from the Beo5 without the involvement of ANY other B&O product OR via the Beovision which has a 3rd party STB controller called STB-C in older products or PUC in newer Beovision products. Generally speaking if you have a STB (Set Top Box) connected to your Beovision you would have it controlled by the STB-C or PUC to provide total integration. However for accessory products such as lighting curtains etc you would always control these DIRECTLY from the Beo5. You may wish to review the Beo5 pages HERE for further information.
2. The Masterlink gateway is a fairly new product and is a bridge between the B&O Masterlink (networking B&O products together) and certain 3rd party products. Unless you have B&O products masterlinked together, then this product will not be much help to you. You implied that you were going to purchase a Beo5 only which is fine, but in that case the Gateway will not provide you with any benefit.
3. You are correct. In the B&O Configuration Tool you must include at least ONE B&O product before you can add any 3rd party products. This is to set the base configuration settings, if you don't want to use this selected B&O product, then you just hide the icons created by it. The bottom line is if you want your Beo5 to control ONLY 3rd party products, you can, but you will still need to select at least ONE B&O product such as AUDIO1
4. The IR range is very good in my view and certainly better than most original 3rd party remotes it will simulate.
5. If you mean, can you have more than one Beo5 in your household, then the answer is Yes and without any problems, no limit on the number of Beo5's in a household. They can have the same or different configurations on them.
6. Frankly the options are near limitless, whilst there have been a lot of firmware and software issues, most of the key ones are now resolved, its a remote which can control almost any device which uses an infrared remote. The one limitation currently relates to the "repeat" function with some codes when you hold the key down rather than keep pressing teh same key. For common protocols such as NEC it can be made to work perfectly, but you cannot repeat if RAW (image copy) is used currently.
7. The beo5 can be set to a default setting and the configuration can be changed if the download setup has a problem.

I hope this has answered your qauestions.

Hi Keith

Many thanks for the reply. It aids tremendously and I pick mine up later today from Canary Wharf. First time I went there was when they opened in 2003 and left sharpish post a very aggressive sales person. Yesterday they were on form and had someone who completely understood the direction I was going in and didn't even push anything on me. Needless to say it was the best discussion at exactly the right time.

The items on display were also configure to run with Tvix and this led nicely into the distribution items I was thinking of. More to come on this respective to the Beo5 and overall intergration plan but this audio/video component is perfectly suited to my needs.

I did try and convince them to give me the software too but an unapproving glance from his manager and the livelihood at risk look on the sales person's face was enough for me not to push. My Lintronic items arrive tomorrow/Thursday so am looking forward to experimenting.

Kind regards and thanks again

Harinder