Design Time (Score 1)

"Most people try and go the easy way by using the off the shelf crap that is out there but the truth is that home automation has hardly begun because the real power tools are being largely ignored by the less than technically courageous types that typically do home automation." Design Time is very expensive, and off the shelf products tend to be very cost effective due to mass production. You can install a network of dimmers that will communicate with each other without a need for a central brain easily, provided that you have a neutral at the switch box. HAI http://www.homeauto.com/, uses UPB, which allows its dimmers to communicate using a carrier wave signal over the house's neutral. It is an improved version of the old X-10, which many of you are probably familiar with. Unlike X-10, it is not as finnicky and susceptible to harmnonic noise, which is very prevalent in most modern homes. You can have basic automated lighting with programmed scenes for about $60 a dimmer, and they all talk to each other, so unless you want more than basic lighting control, there is no need for a central "brain".