CompTIA Certifies Home Network Integrators

prostoalex writes "Consumer Electronics Association and Computer Technology Industry Association introduced a new certification for individuals and companies installing home networks and connecting consumer electronics devices to a central PC: 'The certification is geared to individuals who install, integrate and maintain "smart" homes, in which the PC is the hub controlling lighting, security systems, audio-visual and digital entertainment gear, including home media centers.' The home networking market is predicted to grow at 20% a year globally."

It's official. I can wire X10.

[lightversusdark]

Did any new standard supplant X10 in this field?

Isn't this basically an electrician with knowledge of niche product availability?

I can't imagine this qualifies you to build and install a soffit-mounted machine and code up some custom serial control. That's a service I would pay for.

CompTIA exams

[transporter_ii]

Got Network+ certified a couple of months ago. The actual test material isn't bad, and it covers a lot of networking fundamentals from a vendor neutral standpoint. I had heard they had really made the test a lot harder. Boy, if my test was hard, I would have hated to have seen the easy test. It seemed repetitive and all very easy, with a lot of port number questions, firewall questions, and basic TCP/IP utility questions, most of which I could have passed without hardly any actual study.

Now, I see no reason to make it so hard that hardly anybody can pass (Cisco are you listening?), but it would be nice to have a test that reflected the study material a little better. All in all, I have had Brainbench exams that were much, much harder to pass.

Transporter_ii

 

Re:I coulda used someone with that cert

[iamstretchypanda]

A double agent is someone who works in the field/makes house calls and inside the store. They usually seem to be the best from my experience (i.e. they can sell you a part without reading the specs off the box). Hope that helps :]

to cert or not to cert

[KenStech]

I suppose this goes without saying but certs are only as good as the person behind them.

A few years ago I helped a guy pass his MSCE exam. The funny thing was this guy knew zip about computers before (and mostly after). He had been a carpet installer in his previous life. Anyway he passed his exam and was then hired as a sysadmin for a small town municipality for about 50 grand. I suppose OJT is the best kind of training anyway.

Certs have their uses, but it's no replacement for real knowledge. Back when I was still repairing computers for a living, I got my A+ cert because I thought it would help my marketing. Big shock. The test was so easy I didn't believe it when it ended. My respect for certs in general plummeted after that.

It is possible for some people to screw it up however. One of my employers sent an employee to a 2 week $2500 A+ cert course (note, they never reimbursed me for the cost of MY test); She still failed. LoL! Maybe that's karma in some way. I guess that is the real purpose of the certs, to separate the genuine idiots from the merely lazy.

-Ken