"Jeff Thies" wrote in message
...
On 10/25/2010 2:31 PM, Robert Green wrote:
"Jeff wrote in message
...
I've been redoing my house and I'm thinking this is a good time
to
consider some home automation. I notice that there is a slew of
options,
upb, Insteon, Z Wave, among others.
The price per switch, from what I can tell, seems high. What is
reasonable and doable? Or is this not quite there yet?
Jeff
I and many others use X-10 successfully but with important caveats. Out
of
the box, the signals aren't strong enough to cope with today's noisy
environments. But there are fixes that when all is totalled are still
less
$ than Insteon. X-10's patent has expired, so many people are making
X-10
gear.
I like that.
Me too. I've been screwed a number of times by companies going south and
taking their patents with them.
Who would support the proprietary Insteon line if Smarthome went
bankrupt? I've found that the much cheaper, license free, non-single
source
X-10 protocol gear is more than up to the task of automating most homes
but
only *with* addition of Jeff Volp's XTB line of X-10 signal boosters.
http://jvde.us/xtb/xtb_reports.htm
I'll look into that.
I firmly believe that X-10 is not "doable" without it, although some lucky
folks seem to be able to make it work with stock equipment. The XTB is the
nitromethane fuel of the X-10 world.
After I purchased the XTB-IIR I went from having X-10 issues every day
to
maybe one every two months or even longer. I have X-10 gear from 10
different manufacturers and the standard's an open one so there's no
proprietary BS to deal with. With the XTB-IIR, I press the buttons and
the
lights do what they should. The only really bothersome problem left is
the
CFL issue: lights turning back on by themselves or flashing even when
turned off. Other protocols don't suffer from that problem because they
don't even offer the option to turn equipment on and off via local
control,
a feature I find quite useful. That means that you can control a device
remotely, but you don't have to. Anyone who's had a lamp on a 24 hour
"peg"
type timer and had to reach behind a table to turn it on manually knows
what
a pain a lack of local control can be.
snip
If you're going to do it big time, X-10 makes sense and costs less.
I had written off X10 but I think it is worth another look, if for no
other reason that I can't afford the other gear!
It's almost sinful how much you can buy from Ebay for pennies on the dollar.
There isn't an HA protocol that has anywhere near the choice of gear and
manufacturers that X-10 has. And now it's off patent so anyone can dive in
and make compatible equipment.
I'm putting in some overhead lights in the kitchen and wanted to
control some of them individually. The option being running multiple
power down to a bank of switches, which didn't make sense. At
$50+/switch for the others, that didn't make sense either.
Do you know where I can find just the module without the plug and
outlet? I haven't seen it yet, but it would seem like it has to exist. I
can think of more uses...
Search for X-10 in-line modules - they come in lamp and appliance mode
(dimmable thyristor control and relay only). If you're not a stickler for
NEC rules, you can always make an inline module by cutting an extension cord
in half and attaching the ends to the plug and outlet of the module you're
converting.
--
Bobby G.