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My suggestion, if you have the money to spend, is an engenius. We use a pair at work and aside from a flakey power system they get great reception and distance. Analog I believe. We get through 5 stories of concrete building plus the perimeter and into the neighboring buildings.

We tried most consumer products before purchasing these and nothing came close to the performance of these. The 5.8 ghz phones, from panasonic, could hardly get reception down the hall. All of the 2.4 ghz phones we tried couldn't reach another story. The 2.4 ghz I use at home can't reach to the other end of the house while our 900mhz (digital) can penetrate the house and surrounding acreage.

Finally, I can tell when my father uses our 2.4 ghz phone when I'm on the perimeter of the linksys 802.11b/g border. Depending on what my signal strength is, it'll drop or weaken.

Why not use put an X10 appliance module (Or several of them, if you like) on the line to your system, then buy an IR-to-X10 interface, and tell your ultraspiffy IR remote to cycle the power (Module A1 off, Module A1 on) to your AV system and force all of it into a power-off mode before giving out commands to the devices themselves? (X10 DOES have discrete commands for 'On' and 'off')

It'd be nice in paving the way to little perks like having the system dim the room lights when you press 'Play', too....

Cooler laps are well and good, but I note the reviewer didn't do any analysis of what happened to the CPU temperature when using these pads. If the heat is being redirected right back at the laptop, it may be defeating the coolant systems on the laptop.

For example, Dell Inspirons have a fan on the bottom that blows straight down. Not bad on a hard desk where the air will blow away. Not good on a bed comfortor that smothers the airflow. Where will these pads fit in on the spectrum?

I think what's needed is a pad that works to draw the heat away from both lap and laptop, maybe something like the Chillow for laptops.

Now I can listen to my MP3s on my stereo without having a 100 foot cable snaking around the room.

There's a solution for every problem.
Why don't you just use one of these?

I've seen water detecting devices, motion detectors, power controls, etc. that communicate wirelessly over the X10 protocol. SmartHome sells some such devices.

For 3 computers, a rack is serious overkill. Unless you can do something like an underdesk rack. I found these rack rails last week while searching for something. I want a rack that is sturdy enough for me to move from house to house without disassembling, and came across these.

You could use 2 pair of these to build an underdesk rolling rack cage (3 4U servers is only 28 inches).

Have you considered the use of Macromedia Director?

Director has a pile of extensions to allow it to receive input from external apps -- serial port, X-10, etc. It's also much more suited to presentation work than, say, HTML or Powerpoint.

Just use an X-10 contact receiver to your existing doorbell, wire up your Mac/PC/Linux box with a reveiver and software and set your system's macros to emulate keypresses or launch the presentation from a black screen.

The guys above who said just rig an old keyboard's key to start / restart a presentation on a keypress have a great idea as well -- not as elegant, but way cheaper and easier.

Have you considered the use of Macromedia Director?

Director has a pile of extensions to allow it to receive input from external apps -- serial port, X-10, etc. It's also much more suited to presentation work than, say, HTML or Powerpoint.

Just use an X-10 contact receiver to your existing doorbell, wire up your Mac/PC/Linux box with a reveiver and software and set your system's macros to emulate keypresses or launch the presentation from a black screen.

The guys above who said just rig an old keyboard's key to start / restart a presentation on a keypress have a great idea as well -- not as elegant, but way cheaper and easier.

Use this X-10 module to interface to the computer easily. You could roll your own at a lower cost, but this is really easy off-the-shelf method.

For the interface, you could have it fire up an mpeg/divx player, run a flash-based presentation, or run an Impress slideshow. All of the above should work on Windows, MacOS, *BSD, or Linux equally.

You might find the best X-10 software for Linux and *BSD, however.

"firewalls create problems while performing daily business tasks on the server from home"

Not a well-configured software one. It's not as safe as a hardware firewall, but it is a heck of a lot safer than running around with your pants down, not knowing when your machine is connecting and what it is sending. It makes it difficult to connect *to* the machine, but your home winbox shouldn't be a remote server anyway.

Grab ZoneAlarm NOW, and put up with a few extra dialog boxes until it is trained.

Furthermore, good Antivirus software will detect many trojans. Get AVG if you have alredy abandoned your AV of choice.

This must sound like free windows security 101 by now, but get AdAware and / or Spybot, and schedule a regular download / check for once every week.

For encrypting sensitive or old data, you can either use windows built-in encryption (which uses your user password, enable this now if your machine is fast enough) and / or pick up a (non-free) copy of Dekart Private Disk, AKA The Bat! Private Disk, a simple encrypted virtual disk creator. Anything you really don't want people to see should go here... Just remember to shut it down when you're done.

Furthermore, don't use I.E. and don't use Outlook. What many people refer to as "computer" viruses or "windows" exploits are really just I.E. exploits or Outlook viruses. Firebird, I mean, Thun... Firefox is a powerful little internet surfer, which while not as flexible as my beloved Opera (ducks), does render pages faster, is more beginner friendly, and is free. Thunderbird is a good mail replacement, though pegasus mail, Opera's built in e-mail client, and the non-free The Bat! are all good choices. If you want the most security possible, try Secure Bat. At 140 dollars per copy, it isn't cheap, but it does encrypt all of your personal files and utilizes hardware token authentication to ensure that you really are who you say you are.

Finally, don't forget to regularly back up your disks to something not normally connected to the computer. For simplicity's sake, I'd attach an external USB drive and run Polder Backup once a week, removing the drive when done. For a more automated approach, get a PC controllable X10 unit, and have it turn on and off the external USB drive, so that backups can be completely automatic.

1. X10 controller
   1. SmartHome.Com
   2. web-based X10 controller
   3. Complete listing of X10 software
   4. Linux-based HomeVision
2. GNU Automaton
3. an established IPv6 tunnel with your own IPv6 address subnet (it's a whole new world out there)
4. SMS server for your cell-phone (good with X10)
   1. X10 event to your SMS phone (via paging)
   2. Control X10 from your WAP cellphone
5. Mobile IP server for your roving laptop

Coffee Maker (this one needs an Java-Dispenser SNMP agent badly)

We're almost there...

This powerful 600W switch offers nearly all the same benefits as our top-of-the-line SwitchLinc 2-Way Dimmer, including scene lighting participation. . The only feature left out is two-way transmission, or the ability to send X10 signals to other receivers. By omitting this feature, we've drastically reduced signal absorption, allowing your home to support more of these switches.

Does anyone have any recommendations for this application?

Any budget: Car-Tell vehicle detection + HAI OmniPro controller + hardwired ALC lighting.

Low budget: X10 floodlights set to turn on X10-compatible switches when motion is detected after dusk.

I've considered that, but you are ignoring the most expensive part of all that: my personal time in setting that up and getting it balanced out to where my family and I find it usable. It is the difference between a TiVo and MythTV: where I am concerned I would choose the latter, but because my family gets put into the equation I go with the former. Could I have gone with a Radio Shack learning remote? Sure, but throw my then-6-year-old into the mix and I went for the Pronto so that they don't have to remember "AUX1 is for this, but you have to hit AUX2 anbd power after that." I don't want the family to have to reboot the system because they're friggin freezing and some stupid patch hasn't been put up on a site yet. Besides, a lot of the digital thermostats from sites like SmartHome integrate into MisterHouse which runs on Perl and doesn't bog my server down. Best of both worlds.

The project was born out of a total and absolute frustration which in turn was a result of a fruitless search of information about existing temperature zoning solutions. The only information available on the zoning system manufacturer web sites was usually "call us for an estimate". The estimates were usually being performed by salespeople. Technical people were difficult to get. Read the complete story for details.

The author obviously didn't look in the right places. Here are a few links to get started:

SmartHome
HomeTech Solutions
Bass Burglar Alarms

I've done business with all three, and have retrofitted my home with a two-zone system powered by an RCS zone controller and electronic dampers. All three have been extremely helpful in providing technical advice.

One thing to remember: The HVAC business (as well as the burglar alarm business) are very protective of their turf. You stand little chance of finding an HVAC contractor willing to work with you on designing a custom HVAC system.

A repeated theme I see is that you need a separate DTV receiver for each TV. This is not necessarily true if you use a multi-room distribution system that typically runs less than $200. You take the output of up to two video sources an plug them into the multi-room box and then you can send up to 5 feeds via ordinary coax antenna cable (rg-59 works okay) to points around the home. The system includes ir targets and an ir blaster that allows you to control the single DTV receiver from any location. It is very clean and works very well. Of course, the video is the same on all the TVs but if you are single this not a problem. You could always add a second receiver with this system for added flexibility. Channel-Plus makes these devices.

Snooze is evil. Pick a time you want to wake up, and force yourself to get up then. If you have the option to snooze, most people will use it. On top of this get the X10 Alarm Clock Timer and a couple x10 recievers and go to town. Anything you can plug into an outlet you can make go off with it. Lights, sirens, electrodes.. whatever.

for your needs. . .or not. A friend of mine uses a programmable X10 controller to gradually ramp up the room lights and stereo volume starting 30 min. or so before desired wake-up time. Required: the controller, either clock- or PC-driven; the newer lamp dimmer module(s) that'll start from "off" (the older ones have to start at full "on", then dim); X10->IR interface & emitter for the stereo. Browsing SmartHome, it looks like the IR coupler for volume control is the expensive part; everything else can be had for probably $30 if you shop around a bit.
Of course you can add wattage and intelligence to the setup as needed. He's currently working on an applet that'll take input from one of those cheap four-button Radio Shack controllers as a one-keypress "wake me in 6/7/8/9 hours" override of the default wake-up time.

Um, my lowly RedHat 2.1 Linux box was doing all this (except video) back in the early 90's.

Web, File & Print? Trivial.
Lights / HVAC? X10
MP3 music: SliMP3
(and no, you don't need to buy to use their software -- I just happen to own a couple of them :)

Answering machine I hacked up waaay back when myself (still use it via ISDN inbound :). Today MP4's are flying across the network to a Powerbook for watching movies on any TV wirelessly.

For $15K I'd spend it on a Dual G5 with Dual monitors (why not? :) and every toy out there. Probably have a few $K left over... And no, I did not read the article.

Now -- I did look around the (html version) of the site. Nice little product, though IMHO over priced. I hacked it all up for under $3K (including X10 re-wired outlets as needed). A couple of [radio] all-in-one remotes from The Shack and I can control the lights, TV, and stereo as needed throughout the house. I have a remote for each floor actually, though Radio Shack has since discontinued the model I like -- the new one doesn't work with X10 unit codes 11+ anymore for some reason.

Another use I've heard/read about is a "smart" refrigerator that can tell you, for example, when you need milk. Of course, most homes have solved this complicated problem with the extremely advanced pen/paper system (some VERY rich people substitute a dry erase system, but I've only read about homes so equipped in magazines) combined with opening the refrigerator door.

I really wish manufacturers would come up with something truly useful and unique to do with these appliance-connectivity solutions. I love spending money on mostly unnecessary gadgets, but I need a LITTLE justification.

TM

Personally, I'd never build my own, as it'd require a lot of precision drilling and tapping, and I'm just not set up for doing that sort of work in my shop.

If space is an issue, you can use a "telco frame", basically a standalone pair of heavy-duty standard rails with a flat base for floor mounting.

Try here for reasonably-priced rackmount rails. They aren't really quite proper for computers, though.

I also have a catalog from Hammond Manufacturing which sells racks piece-by-piece, including rail sets. Their catalog shows a lot of detailed schematics for their racks, as well. You can get a catalog free from their web site.

I use a couple old HP half-height racks (really using only 1 right now, 1 more sitting around). They aren't deep enough for proper cases, though, so I use shallow cases for now.

I'm planning to do the same thing as you, at some point. I've considered some $300 racks off eBay and the normal $250 shipping, but I'd rather build a nice wood-exterior cabinet that would look good in the home. Besides, I need something that is closer to 'normal' specs than the racks I have now. Rack hardware: I'd stick to eBay. Shelves, blank panels, etc. are all much cheaper that way. I also bought a rackmount APC UPS--look for one WITHOUT batteries, and shop around online for replacements. You will pay less for shipping all around, and the batteries are usually crap anyway, unless it's a trustworthy seller who says they put new batteries in it. For cable management, I prefer a simple lacer bar, unless you really have a ton of equipment. Of course, if I had money, I'd get rails and cable management arms...but I was doing good to buy the rackmount cases, as the rest was (mostly) free for me. For rackmount computer cases, I've used Case Outlet for a while. They barely speak English, but they resale decent cases at decent prices. If you are using any kind of multi-drive enclosure or removeable drive racks, be sure to gett the DEEP cases! You can also try KRI Computer for rackmount equipment. I've never bought from them before, but I've heard good things about them, and they have good prices and a good selection. Welcome to the world of Ultimate Geekdom!

Not to dispair, lots of other people make hardware compatable with the X10 protocall.

check out SmartHome for the hardware and Misterhouse for the open source software.

The stuff is child's play to set up, and hard as hell to troubleshoot if you've got problems. I've been using X10 based items for 5 years now, and still several times a week, the computer will pick up line noise as a command and all sorts of funky stuff happens (wall switch units seem to be the worst offenders).

Happy to answer any X10 protocall questions anyone here might have - but truly I am a novice.

X10 had a niche product - home automation products. Not everyone is willing to replace plugs and switches in their home with x10 enabled smart ones.

And if you are, you're probably getting something of slightly better quality than that you can get from the X10 company itself -- there's several manufacturers making better-quality modules. I use Smarthome's *linc products very happily, although I've heard others complain about their reliablility. I also use a lot of Leviton stuff, which is very solid.

Oh, and Obligatory X10-related Plug: check out my X10-enabled Lego Office.

People tend to forget that X10 is a communications protocol designed to send signals over the 60Hz wave in your house's wiring. The X10 Home Solutions Company does not have exculsive rights over the X10 protocol. It's like naming a company TCP/IP. If you'd like to buy home automation devices and not support this company, a simple google search will bring up many companies. I've used SmartHome's products before and have been happy with them. Hell, even IBM got into the game for a while until that part of the business spun off into Home Director Inc.

People tend to forget that X10 is a communications protocol designed to send signals over the 60Hz wave in your house's wiring. The X10 Home Solutions Company does not have exculsive rights over the X10 protocol. It's like naming a company TCP/IP. If you'd like to buy home automation devices and not support this company, a simple google search will bring up many companies. I've used SmartHome's products before and have been happy with them. Hell, even IBM got into the game for a while until that part of the business spun off into Home Director Inc.

• SmartHome
  
• PCS
  
• Leviton
  
• ACT/Smart Products
  
• Lightolier
  

This was a fairly vague question. I moonlight as a home automation consultant. Most people, when they think of "home automation" they are really thinking about "home theater" or whole-house audio and video. There's a lot more to it, from structured wiring to control of lights, appliances, HVAC, and other items via relays, IR, etc. There could be many ways of doing what you want, depending on issues such as desired price, reliability, and how you plan to expand your system in the future.

I'm going to assume you want a simple starter solution that allows you to control an appliance (your radio), and uses a Linux box as a controller. You need at minimum two devices: A PC-to-powerline interface, and an appliance module.

For the powerline interface, pick up a CM11A which interfaces with a serial port. This is one of the few X10-the-brand devices I recommend*. Other companies make far superior X10-the-protocol equipment.

For the appliance module, pick up an ApplianceLinc. You can get one with two-way communication so that you can also request a status response (on/off) if you need to know that. Believe it or not, most of the time you don't need two-way X-10, and it's better from a signal-strength standpoint to minimize the number of transmitters on a circuit.

The simplest Linux software is heyu. This is extremely easy: just ssh into your machine and type 'heyu turn radio on', where radio has been set up in heyu as an alias for X10 code A1, or whatever X10 code you configured the appliance module to be.

The reason I said "at minimum" above is that this may work, but for a truly reliable X10 infrastructure you may need additional hardware, particularly if you decide to expand your system. In this case you'd need to get a coupler (to bridge the two 110V phases in your house) or better yet an amplified coupler/repeater such as the ACT CR230 I recommend, available at Home AutomationNet. There are others on that page as well. If you're not electrically inclined, there is a plug-in coupler.

With the above, you're almost there. Some electrical equipment attenuates X10 signals. Some computer power supplies, laser printers, and some TVs can affect signal strength. To isolate them, you may need to use some plug-in filters such as the FilterLinc or the ACT filters on the bottom of this page. If you want to get serious about obtaining a rock-solid X10 infrastructure then you can use an ESM1 signal meter. Also a new plug-in amplifier has been getting good reviews by early adopters.

* An alternative to the CM11A interface is the PowerLinc USB. Currently, the only linux support for this is in the wish project. This project seems VERY cool. Set an X10 address by just writing to a /dev device. You can also read status this way. Any shell script or language can therefore control your X10 stuff. The only downside is that it currently requires recompiling your kernel sources, except for a couple of specific RedHat kernels for which RPMs have been built. Man, would it be great if this project made it into the kernel source tree...

Hope this helps

-bp

This was a fairly vague question. I moonlight as a home automation consultant. Most people, when they think of "home automation" they are really thinking about "home theater" or whole-house audio and video. There's a lot more to it, from structured wiring to control of lights, appliances, HVAC, and other items via relays, IR, etc. There could be many ways of doing what you want, depending on issues such as desired price, reliability, and how you plan to expand your system in the future.

I'm going to assume you want a simple starter solution that allows you to control an appliance (your radio), and uses a Linux box as a controller. You need at minimum two devices: A PC-to-powerline interface, and an appliance module.

For the powerline interface, pick up a CM11A which interfaces with a serial port. This is one of the few X10-the-brand devices I recommend*. Other companies make far superior X10-the-protocol equipment.

For the appliance module, pick up an ApplianceLinc. You can get one with two-way communication so that you can also request a status response (on/off) if you need to know that. Believe it or not, most of the time you don't need two-way X-10, and it's better from a signal-strength standpoint to minimize the number of transmitters on a circuit.

The simplest Linux software is heyu. This is extremely easy: just ssh into your machine and type 'heyu turn radio on', where radio has been set up in heyu as an alias for X10 code A1, or whatever X10 code you configured the appliance module to be.

The reason I said "at minimum" above is that this may work, but for a truly reliable X10 infrastructure you may need additional hardware, particularly if you decide to expand your system. In this case you'd need to get a coupler (to bridge the two 110V phases in your house) or better yet an amplified coupler/repeater such as the ACT CR230 I recommend, available at Home AutomationNet. There are others on that page as well. If you're not electrically inclined, there is a plug-in coupler.

With the above, you're almost there. Some electrical equipment attenuates X10 signals. Some computer power supplies, laser printers, and some TVs can affect signal strength. To isolate them, you may need to use some plug-in filters such as the FilterLinc or the ACT filters on the bottom of this page. If you want to get serious about obtaining a rock-solid X10 infrastructure then you can use an ESM1 signal meter. Also a new plug-in amplifier has been getting good reviews by early adopters.

* An alternative to the CM11A interface is the PowerLinc USB. Currently, the only linux support for this is in the wish project. This project seems VERY cool. Set an X10 address by just writing to a /dev device. You can also read status this way. Any shell script or language can therefore control your X10 stuff. The only downside is that it currently requires recompiling your kernel sources, except for a couple of specific RedHat kernels for which RPMs have been built. Man, would it be great if this project made it into the kernel source tree...

Hope this helps

-bp

This was a fairly vague question. I moonlight as a home automation consultant. Most people, when they think of "home automation" they are really thinking about "home theater" or whole-house audio and video. There's a lot more to it, from structured wiring to control of lights, appliances, HVAC, and other items via relays, IR, etc. There could be many ways of doing what you want, depending on issues such as desired price, reliability, and how you plan to expand your system in the future.

I'm going to assume you want a simple starter solution that allows you to control an appliance (your radio), and uses a Linux box as a controller. You need at minimum two devices: A PC-to-powerline interface, and an appliance module.

For the powerline interface, pick up a CM11A which interfaces with a serial port. This is one of the few X10-the-brand devices I recommend*. Other companies make far superior X10-the-protocol equipment.

For the appliance module, pick up an ApplianceLinc. You can get one with two-way communication so that you can also request a status response (on/off) if you need to know that. Believe it or not, most of the time you don't need two-way X-10, and it's better from a signal-strength standpoint to minimize the number of transmitters on a circuit.

The simplest Linux software is heyu. This is extremely easy: just ssh into your machine and type 'heyu turn radio on', where radio has been set up in heyu as an alias for X10 code A1, or whatever X10 code you configured the appliance module to be.

The reason I said "at minimum" above is that this may work, but for a truly reliable X10 infrastructure you may need additional hardware, particularly if you decide to expand your system. In this case you'd need to get a coupler (to bridge the two 110V phases in your house) or better yet an amplified coupler/repeater such as the ACT CR230 I recommend, available at Home AutomationNet. There are others on that page as well. If you're not electrically inclined, there is a plug-in coupler.

With the above, you're almost there. Some electrical equipment attenuates X10 signals. Some computer power supplies, laser printers, and some TVs can affect signal strength. To isolate them, you may need to use some plug-in filters such as the FilterLinc or the ACT filters on the bottom of this page. If you want to get serious about obtaining a rock-solid X10 infrastructure then you can use an ESM1 signal meter. Also a new plug-in amplifier has been getting good reviews by early adopters.

* An alternative to the CM11A interface is the PowerLinc USB. Currently, the only linux support for this is in the wish project. This project seems VERY cool. Set an X10 address by just writing to a /dev device. You can also read status this way. Any shell script or language can therefore control your X10 stuff. The only downside is that it currently requires recompiling your kernel sources, except for a couple of specific RedHat kernels for which RPMs have been built. Man, would it be great if this project made it into the kernel source tree...

Hope this helps

-bp

This was a fairly vague question. I moonlight as a home automation consultant. Most people, when they think of "home automation" they are really thinking about "home theater" or whole-house audio and video. There's a lot more to it, from structured wiring to control of lights, appliances, HVAC, and other items via relays, IR, etc. There could be many ways of doing what you want, depending on issues such as desired price, reliability, and how you plan to expand your system in the future.

I'm going to assume you want a simple starter solution that allows you to control an appliance (your radio), and uses a Linux box as a controller. You need at minimum two devices: A PC-to-powerline interface, and an appliance module.

For the powerline interface, pick up a CM11A which interfaces with a serial port. This is one of the few X10-the-brand devices I recommend*. Other companies make far superior X10-the-protocol equipment.

For the appliance module, pick up an ApplianceLinc. You can get one with two-way communication so that you can also request a status response (on/off) if you need to know that. Believe it or not, most of the time you don't need two-way X-10, and it's better from a signal-strength standpoint to minimize the number of transmitters on a circuit.

The simplest Linux software is heyu. This is extremely easy: just ssh into your machine and type 'heyu turn radio on', where radio has been set up in heyu as an alias for X10 code A1, or whatever X10 code you configured the appliance module to be.

The reason I said "at minimum" above is that this may work, but for a truly reliable X10 infrastructure you may need additional hardware, particularly if you decide to expand your system. In this case you'd need to get a coupler (to bridge the two 110V phases in your house) or better yet an amplified coupler/repeater such as the ACT CR230 I recommend, available at Home AutomationNet. There are others on that page as well. If you're not electrically inclined, there is a plug-in coupler.

With the above, you're almost there. Some electrical equipment attenuates X10 signals. Some computer power supplies, laser printers, and some TVs can affect signal strength. To isolate them, you may need to use some plug-in filters such as the FilterLinc or the ACT filters on the bottom of this page. If you want to get serious about obtaining a rock-solid X10 infrastructure then you can use an ESM1 signal meter. Also a new plug-in amplifier has been getting good reviews by early adopters.

* An alternative to the CM11A interface is the PowerLinc USB. Currently, the only linux support for this is in the wish project. This project seems VERY cool. Set an X10 address by just writing to a /dev device. You can also read status this way. Any shell script or language can therefore control your X10 stuff. The only downside is that it currently requires recompiling your kernel sources, except for a couple of specific RedHat kernels for which RPMs have been built. Man, would it be great if this project made it into the kernel source tree...

Hope this helps

-bp

This was a fairly vague question. I moonlight as a home automation consultant. Most people, when they think of "home automation" they are really thinking about "home theater" or whole-house audio and video. There's a lot more to it, from structured wiring to control of lights, appliances, HVAC, and other items via relays, IR, etc. There could be many ways of doing what you want, depending on issues such as desired price, reliability, and how you plan to expand your system in the future.

I'm going to assume you want a simple starter solution that allows you to control an appliance (your radio), and uses a Linux box as a controller. You need at minimum two devices: A PC-to-powerline interface, and an appliance module.

For the powerline interface, pick up a CM11A which interfaces with a serial port. This is one of the few X10-the-brand devices I recommend*. Other companies make far superior X10-the-protocol equipment.

For the appliance module, pick up an ApplianceLinc. You can get one with two-way communication so that you can also request a status response (on/off) if you need to know that. Believe it or not, most of the time you don't need two-way X-10, and it's better from a signal-strength standpoint to minimize the number of transmitters on a circuit.

The simplest Linux software is heyu. This is extremely easy: just ssh into your machine and type 'heyu turn radio on', where radio has been set up in heyu as an alias for X10 code A1, or whatever X10 code you configured the appliance module to be.

The reason I said "at minimum" above is that this may work, but for a truly reliable X10 infrastructure you may need additional hardware, particularly if you decide to expand your system. In this case you'd need to get a coupler (to bridge the two 110V phases in your house) or better yet an amplified coupler/repeater such as the ACT CR230 I recommend, available at Home AutomationNet. There are others on that page as well. If you're not electrically inclined, there is a plug-in coupler.

With the above, you're almost there. Some electrical equipment attenuates X10 signals. Some computer power supplies, laser printers, and some TVs can affect signal strength. To isolate them, you may need to use some plug-in filters such as the FilterLinc or the ACT filters on the bottom of this page. If you want to get serious about obtaining a rock-solid X10 infrastructure then you can use an ESM1 signal meter. Also a new plug-in amplifier has been getting good reviews by early adopters.

* An alternative to the CM11A interface is the PowerLinc USB. Currently, the only linux support for this is in the wish project. This project seems VERY cool. Set an X10 address by just writing to a /dev device. You can also read status this way. Any shell script or language can therefore control your X10 stuff. The only downside is that it currently requires recompiling your kernel sources, except for a couple of specific RedHat kernels for which RPMs have been built. Man, would it be great if this project made it into the kernel source tree...

Hope this helps

-bp

This is pretty dumb. These are just the latest toys. And many of them are not new at all.

-a second, smaller flat-screen LCD monitor next to the Jacuzzi bathtub;
--Not new -- just getting cheaper

-motion-detection lights that activate when guests enter the room;
--I had this when I was 12. (1990 or so) Bought something at radioshack to do it.

-a biometric room safe that uses a thumbprint as the lock and key;
--Not new -- just getting cheaper

free broadband, accessible via laptop or the TV;
--Not free (paid a premium for hotel room)

a Panja touch-panel remote control that manages lighting levels and room climate; opens and closes the drapes; controls the TV, radio, and DVD player;
--Can set this up using devices from http://www.smarthome.com

and even repositions the head and foot of the king-size bed;
-http://www.craftmatic.com/ Craftmatic has been around forever.

a compressor-less mini-refrigerator that is completely silent;
-- and here http://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/BB52.ht m is the "amazing" silent refrigerator.

a Panasonic massage chair, a heated toilet seat/bidet, a computerized five-nozzle shower, and a defogging bathroom mirror.

ahh nevermind

i guess it is kinda cool.

But it seems a bit much to get THIS excited over.

blah, blah, blah. im tired of typing

No reason, except the original poster mistakenly thinks X10 refers only to a advert-happy producer of spycams, while infact it is also a set of standards and a communication language for controlling house appliances, lightning and the likes.

The cable I have is made by CommScope and is on a 500' role. It's a little more than a 3/4" bundle and an orange jacket. There's lots of different places that sell it and similar with or without fiber, smarthome.com has it I know, but not sure if it's the best prices. The jacks are super easy to wire *IF* you have or invest in the right tools such as a quality wire cutter, punchdown tool, coax stripper & crimper, etc. I already had all these, but you're talking a good $150 for all the tools (if you want good ones to keep forever) The fiber I just cut and left in the wall for future use. I don't have tools to terminate it, nor have I thought of a use for it. If I had to pay for the cable I might not have gotton the kind with fiber in it.

Do not dismiss X10 (the technology) just because some lame company has hijacked it and promotes the use of the products for illegal surveillance (yes, making a recording of you trying to boink your drunk and ugly date without her knowing is indeed illegal).

There are plenty of good companies to get X10 products from without going through X10.com. Smarthome and Radio Shack are a couple.

It's a shame X10.com chose the sleasy marking route because it really has tainted a pretty decent and useful technology.

-S

SmartHome is my preferred supplier of X-10 equipment.

I'm assuming by "they" you mean X10 the company, and not X10 the communication language (standard?). They are not one in the same. You can build an entire "X10" system without purchasing anything from the company that calls itself X10. There are plenty of companies out there that make higher quality X10 components.

. . . you need one for both phases of the power in your house . . .

This product seems able to handle your situation, and can be used for more than just the remotes.

MisterHouse has been around for a while now and mainly relies on X10 modules. It works fairly well but as one other poster noted it really does need a dedicated box with a bit of muscle or it's a bit slow and frustrating to use. I came across it while looking for X10 software for linux, which it runs on as well as OSX and most versions of Windows. There are many similar products out there for Windows, Mac and even a few simple ones for linux. The most popular/commercial product was a piece of software for the ActiveHome module that came as part of IBM's Home Director kit (I can't remember what the old version was now it comes with HomeVoice). In all my years of using X10 I'd still have to say XTension for the Mac was one of the coolest products out there as it let you create a floorplan pretty easily and it ran well on an old 75Mhz PPC. Lately I've just been using Heyu which is a simple command line interface for linux that supports macros. Anything I want to do I can set a cron job to do automagically or start an ssh session and do from work or wherever. Sure there's no voice control, but personally I always felt a little weird even using speech recognition on the Mac, it could never quite understand "Who's your daddy?" -peel

MisterHouse has been around for a while now and mainly relies on X10 modules. It works fairly well but as one other poster noted it really does need a dedicated box with a bit of muscle or it's a bit slow and frustrating to use. I came across it while looking for X10 software for linux, which it runs on as well as OSX and most versions of Windows. There are many similar products out there for Windows, Mac and even a few simple ones for linux. The most popular/commercial product was a piece of software for the ActiveHome module that came as part of IBM's Home Director kit (I can't remember what the old version was now it comes with HomeVoice). In all my years of using X10 I'd still have to say XTension for the Mac was one of the coolest products out there as it let you create a floorplan pretty easily and it ran well on an old 75Mhz PPC. Lately I've just been using Heyu which is a simple command line interface for linux that supports macros. Anything I want to do I can set a cron job to do automagically or start an ssh session and do from work or wherever. Sure there's no voice control, but personally I always felt a little weird even using speech recognition on the Mac, it could never quite understand "Who's your daddy?" -peel

There is one company that sells cheap X10 technology that does the infamous pop under ads. Unfortunately, I think that the company is x10.com or something like that.

X10 itself is just a technology and there are several other companies that make X10 stuff besides the annoying pop-under folks. Check out smarthome for some products that aren't advertised by annoying popunders.

Montag

I think your question boils down to: "I want to watch one video signal on multiple televisions", right? Get a video splitter/amplifier and a bunch of coax.

"I have only one TiVo (making "multi-room viewing," as they've defined it, useless)"

The safest thing would be to somehow add one of these to ensure that you don't go away for a weekend and find your system has pulled an Athlon ;)

You should be able to use any graphics card/HDTV, you just need a converter like this. They also have a magic box to go the other direction. A bit pricey, though. I'm sure there are a bunch of these kinds of gadgets being developed.

See, now that's a good capitalistic business model, wait for a huge crisis (OK, OK, maybe crisis is too strong a word), and come out with devices that solve the problems... or even just bandaid over the problems until a real solution arrives.

-If

Check out smarthome products. Sounds like you need to add an attnuator to your TV and computer.

Might also be a good idea to add a bridge accross your wiring legs. I think none of these things require a scredriver -- just plug stuff in.

http://www.smarthome.com/about_x10.html

http://www.x10.org/

To quote from the x10.org website: "X-10 is a powerline carrier protocol that allows compatible devices throughout the home to communicate with each other via the existing 110V wiring in the house."

Incidently, notice that the x10.org's product search link points to smarthome.com as opposed to x10.com, and none of the products on the smarthome site link to x10.com yes, x10.com does sell home automation gear, but in the context of the article they were talking about the protocol, not x10.com gear specefically.

I've also found Smarthome.com to be very usefull, and fairly ad-free.