MisterHouse / x10 /home automation

[Colin McGregor]

I've played around with X10 and Misterhouse, but I have yet to get serious
with it all. I own 2 lamp and 2 appliance modules (2 bought via mail order
from X10, the other two I scored free from a former employer (they had
planned to use X-10 in the computer room to remote reset hardware, but found
X10 wasn't reliable enough, so the modules were unneeded/unwanted, and I got
them)). As well I have a few X10 extra goodies like a serial to power line
adapter (lets you send X10 turn on/off commands from almost anything that
can do RS-232).

As Michael Galea notes X10 is not good for anything that is critical, I have
an X10 controlled electric fireplace insert and maybe once a month I get up
in the morning to find the insert turned on (something that I attribute to
RF/power line spikes/interference)). In other words I don't consider X10 to
be reliable enough for much more than controlling some lights and/or some
light duty appliances (ie: stuff that would be a bother, but not a disaster
if it were suddenly turned on (or off) without warning at say 3:06 AM).

As for the Misterhouse software, that looks VERY cool, a bunch of PERL
scripts to run you house (which also means the scripts will run on also
sorts of platforms, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac, and those Microsoft "operating
systems"). Touches that appeal to me are the in-house robot DJ (that can do
things like let you know about new e-mail (with speech synthesis software)
between songs, tell you the time, etc...).

"Michael Galea" <MichaelGalea-4VtgCsEi+FIybS5Ee8rs3A at public.gmane.org> on Wednesday, December 03, 2003
5:52 PM wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mailing List [mailto:tlug-KfBRzk3UKwol8X4E99VVQg at public.gmane.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 10:11 AM
> To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org
> Subject: [TLUG]: MisterHouse / x10 /home automation
>
>
> Has anyone used x10 or home automation in
> their house?  Where is a good place to
> shop for x10 stuff?  Any recommendations?
>
> Robert
> --
I use it to turn a fan on in my attack, and it has worked
reliably for three seasons now.  I used an x10 motion sensor
to turn on a lamp in my hall at night so my kids wouldn't go
bouncing into things on the way to the loo..
Somewhere in my neighborhood, someone else started to experiment
with x10 and turned my tv set on a few times (select an original
house/device code and you can get around that..)
All that having been said, the technology has no capability for
error detection and retransmission and I never considered it
reliable, or used it for anything I really needed to depend
upon.  The fact that you can't pull data with it, just push doesn't
help either..
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--
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