Having worked for several home automation companies, I've learned a few things. One of these things is that home automation companies throw away perfectly good home A/V equipment all the time.
Let me explain: we will go into a customer's home for an equipment upgrade, the vast majority of these customers are very wealthy (hence why they have home automation) and don't care about the old equipment... so they ask us to take it and throw it away (this happens 9 times out of 10). The home automation company then takes their old equipment and brings it back to the shop. Then the equipment is free for any of the ~10 employees to take home and use.... but after a while, all the employees have acquired the equipment they want and refuse most of it.. so most of it goes straight to the dumpster.
My tip to you is to look up home automation companies in your area, find their location, and then regularly check their dumpsters for thrown away equipment. In my experience, you will mostly find A/V receivers, security cameras, home automation controllers, large network switches, high end commercial network routers, speakers sometimes, and every now and then, you may find a high end thermostat, or a flatscreen TV. And you'll almost always find a LOT of differing types of wires - HDMI cables, CAT5 and CAT6 (Ethernet) in bulk, RG6 (coax), composite and component (RCA), and much more.
From scavenging my own company's dumpster, I've acquired a 55" Samsung smart TV that works flawlessly, a 50" Samsung flatscreen TV, 3 A/V receivers that work great, a HUGE battery backup system that will power even my refrigerator for over an hour (I've tried it), two EXTREMELY high end Sonance audio theater amplifiers, four ICRealtime IP security cameras worth about $2000 altogether, 3 high end Luxul commercial network switches, 1 Luxul commercial PoE network switch, a high end 4x4 HDMI video matrix, a Ruckus R500 wireless access point (a ~$400 wifi access point), a set of pristine Celestion Ditton 33 speakers, MANY Control4 home automation controllers, and the list goes on.
Go dumpster diving at your local home automation company. You most likely won't be disappointed.
November 14, 2017 at 04:47PM
