Patience, patience… you are dealing with Velbus every day, most of us have an opportunistic interest when we try to do something and is not the top of our agenda. I installed Velbus in 2015 and it runs well ever since, so: it is not on the top of my priorities, which is the greatest thing about Velbus, actually. It is so robust and dependable that you can have an install and forget experience nearly as good as simple switches and wires.
I agree with our Dutch friend, that is typical for the Netherlands. Belgium is very different. More individual builds or refits because a lot of land is in the hands of private owners. The Netherlands works completely differently. I lived there for 10 years. The Dutch system is “efficient” but also extremely corrupt. An individual does not get the chance to develop an own project unless that individual is extremely well off and has contacts with “lawmakers”. The average person has no choice but to buy a house that has been built by a very rich developer who paid off the local politician to be allowed to build 200 copies of the same expensive to buy but low quality house. The Dutch are used to that and call the Netherlands “Organized” and “Tidy¨, while Belgium to them is a uncontrolled mess. In return, Belgians find most Dutch developments depressing, lacking personality. It is a cultural thing. To get Velvbus installed in a Dutch home, you need to bribe the big developers. So I would not bother with the Netherlands.
That is why Velbus has stands on fairs in Belgium and not in the Netherlands: they have no money or interest to step in the Dutch corruption. In Belgium people have a lot more authority over their own house project. Belgians that do such a project visit fairs. Velbus is even regularly on the news.
The issue Velbus faces, though, is the fact that most people do not understand it. It is not easy to explain. When I did my project… I am a process control professional, when the developer I used told me about Velbus I had never heard of it before. And when they explained it to me, I realized it was the only DCS home automation on the market, using open source standards (except Windows for the VelbusLink) and I was immediately sold. The complexity is not an issue for me, I am used to things that are a lot more complex. But that is not the case for most people.
So the most important thing to hit home for potential new clients is that it is almost as good as traditional switches in the “install and forget” category, where the competition wants to continuously sell you new hardware because the proprietary software is no longer supported on the old hardware, costing almost as much as a complete new install to “fix¨. The TCO is the biggest Velbus selling point.
In Belgium, electricians installing Velbus are trained and they do the software to the wishes of the client. After that, you can leave it running for decades. That is not the case for competing offerings. Velbus is like Linux. The others are like Windows, with mandatory upgrades that cost you lots of money.
Velbus may have limitations in the logic in the native version, but that is precisely its strength. Who needs the sophistication that breaks? I do everything native. I could do a lot more, but that would be hobby, spending a lot of time and effort for little true value.
Another big point is the backward compatibility. There still are modules from the old days around, some you can even still buy, and they are still supported.
The reason why my developer started talking about home automation is that my wishes would translate in lots of copper and very expensive complex wire runs. I said I did not care because I was not amused by the way the traditional home automation companies were strangling the client. And TCO would be lower with all the copper. But then they mentioned Velbus and I was sold in a heartbeat. It saved me 2k€. And the ability to tweak and perfect the config is of course priceless for someone like me… but that is not true for everyone, far from it. My electrician asked my config to learn about how I did certain things… that is not your average customer.
Hope this helps.
