Quick refresher about il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966).
Against the backdrop of the Civil War, these three men set off to find $200,000 in buried gold coins. Tuco knows the name of the cemetery and Blondie knows the name of the grave. Angel Eyes hears of the gold stash from someone he’s hired to kill. For the moment they’re dependent on each other. The three ultimately meet in a showdown that takes place amid a major battle between Confederate and Union forces.
The Good: Clint Eastwood Blondie: A wandering gunman with a strong personal sense of honor
The Bad: Lee Van Cleef Angel Eyes: A sadistic hitman that always hits his mark
The Ugly: Eli Wallach Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez: A Mexican bandit who only looks out for himself
Now that you know where I am coming from, let’s get down to some no nonsense talk about one of the most controversial DDC controllers in the market place today.
The Honeywell Spyder:
The Good: Well-priced, reliable controller, that runs with or without the network, that can be downloaded remotely through the JACE.
The Bad: Tedious tools, migration, and revision issues.
The Ugly: Not an open controller, unless the ransom money for an independent license fee is paid!
The champions of Open Systems blew the best opportunity to date, to deliver the best controller for the buck!
If you are feeling lucky, let me know what you think in comments.
9 Responses
Couldn’t have said it better!
Clint, thanks for your frank comments. I agree with the Good, our contractors find the Spyder to be very reliable, one of our contractors has installed over 400 Spyders and only had four failures, he is very pleased with the price and performance of the product. The Ugly seems to be a matter of great debate. Because of the great flexibility of the Spyder it is easy for a program to get overly complex. This has been a problem for many and a blessing for others. It seem alike Honeywell is addressing this with new wizards that should appease both the integrator that seeks a simpler Spyder, while also allowing the programmer than shuns wizards for flexibility the ability to configure the controller any way they want. I am very interested what others have to say about the ugly…
Again, thank you for your candidness.
I agree with the good! The bad has gotten better the new tool (5.201) seriously speeds things up, and the batch operations tool eliminates some of the tedious download issues. Personally I wish all spyders were of the ILC (independently licensed Controller) type it would make an integrators life much simpler!
I sure agree with Vince! Somebody is leaving a lot of money on table with the WEBs-way or the highway ultimatum. Vykon folks won’t budge on this issue and are changing into I/O lanes. I bet that somebody would like to have that decision back.
I do agree with all what was said about the Spyder, they was used for the whole City Cente project in Vegas. And we had are moments from buying ILC to jar files, to the tedious download issues. But it is a good controller with all the right usage and tools!
De, Thanks so much for your comments.
Clint,
Love that Western so it seems an appropriate use to describe your feelings on the Spyder. Always welcome the comment as we are always looking to improve the product and customer experience. Also want to thank those that commented as well. The tool has been our Achilles heal and we do continue to work on making it right and adding features to reduce engineering time. As you hopefully have seen we remain committed to improving it and making sure that it offers the most power and usability on the market. We haven’t reached our final destination but we have come a long way. Now with the addition of Stryker that will help the download issues for standard applications like VAV.
The key vision was to provide a powerful controller that can be programmed with a single tool. It was the original idea and created the groundwork for what Sedona is working to become.
Keep commenting and we’ll keep listening and making it better
Larry,
Good stuff! We are all anxious to get striking with the Stryker. Heard it’s due out any day now. Look forward to seeing you again at the next Momentum Meeting! Until then, let the Webs-AX be with you!
Well, all this depends on what market you’re trying to work in. If you want to do small/medium jobs but don’t do this every day then the issue is a complex program. If you are an integrator and you do this every day then your answer was already above. The product is good. The answer is complex currently. Hopefully, Honeywell will continue to make this product a great one for all markets. If it isn’t easy you miss a major market. Just ask Johnson. It is why they dominate a huge piece although their arrogance is changing that each and every day. Many are leaving. Can’t wait to see what Stryker brings.