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LeftBrain Industries is the creation of Paul Rother. Mr. Rother has been involved with computers, control systems and automation for forty years. Starting with Lionel train sets, on to developing systems for computer animation (using punch cards in the mid 1970s), to motion control, microprocessors, optical printers, laser graphic systems, fireworks, irrigation control, lighting control, automatic synchronization, electronic rotoscope.
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Mr. Rother has continually developed custom solutions, which were implemented as universal solutions, solving current as well as future unknown desires, for universal usefulness. The art of Rother's implementations is to make it easy to create powerful programming ("business logic"), while at the same time making it easy to operate. Programming aids in the ease of use, letting the systems do what is actually wanted, in the lest number of button pushes.
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When he remodeled his Venice Canals home, he desired green technologies such as: LED lighting, solar energy and efficient heating. At the time, LED lights were new, and just developing into something that could actually work. There where many new companies and technologies, with little or no track records, never knowing what's going to last and be around in five years. Research comparing apples to coconuts was needed. And there was no single source of expertise. Then as now, changes and advancement are developing every day. He got super involved in designing, selecting, testing and implementing the lighting, audio, automation, security and all low voltage wiring. What he found was a mess of various, proprietary incompatible technologies, vendors create add-ons to bridge the gaps, but for the most part there's a lot that falls through the cracks requiring a lot of experimentation. LED lights are great and the future, but so incompatible with 115 Volts AC. Some of the more highend companies he talked to were totally resistant to teach him how to program the systems himself. Meaning he was to be trapped by their 150+/hour programming fees. Mr. Rother would never commission and pay for software, without owning and knowing how to compile the resulting source code. He bought a system that although crude (click and drag) programming, he could do himself. For the LEDs, he developed his own LED controllers, that take cues from an iPhone as well as the automation.
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Rother's modus operandi is to make the system he bought simpler and more powerful at the same time, as he have done numerous times in his life. In the coarse of all this research he learned so many of the technologies, and keep up on the advances. It's a wild world that not only includes proprietary protocols, but fire concerns that the electricians, inspectors and general contractors have to live with on a day by day basis. The technology is there, and cost is affordable.
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| © 2012 LeftBrain Industries --- |