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X10 Xmas Light Control with Pan and Zoom

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the chevy-chase dept.

zzxc writes "Last year, slashdot mentioned Alek Komarnitsky's 2002 Christmas Light display with the ability to turn ON and OFF each zone of lights. This year, he has added the ability to pan and zoom the camera in the web control, which works from 5-12 MST. You can select zoom from 1-5x, pan horizontally and vertically by selecting the angle, as well as turn each zone of lights ON or OFF. He also has sensors that tell you the current temperature, humidity, if it detects stars (vs clouds), and more. However after last year's 22,000 web controlled lights, he's "burnt out", putting up less than 4,000 lights. Last year, his lights pulled 78.6 amps of current. This year, he is only pulling about 14.7 amps. Also, last year his home T1 line was completely saturated by all the press attention. This year, he's ready. (Note that this is not referring to X10 wireless video cameras, but to power control devices using the x10 protocol.)"

5 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Actually.. by wackybrit · · Score: 3, Informative

    It looks like he got rid of most of the gizmos and only has three lights hooked up now. He used to have about 12 sets of lights, and you could also control a remote control car that had a camera on it. I guess that all gets a bit expensive to maintain though. Oh, and you could do the sprinklers, and look at his doorcam.

    --
    mogorific carpentry experiments
    1. Re:Actually.. by Restil · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually... I just moved and haven't finished setting everything back up yet. I was hoping to have it all done by xmas, but nothing ever goes according to plan.

      Don't worry though, in a month it'll be back up to where it was.

      -Restil

      --
      Play with my webcams and lights here
  2. Re:The wonderous side effects of annoying advertis by Turq · · Score: 3, Informative

    Er, yes, there are several dozen that make 'x10' hardware, x10 is a protocol, not just an irritating company; in fact, the protocol is older than the irritating company.

    --
    - Turq - "That's TRON, he fights for the users."
  3. At least last year by The+Tyro · · Score: 2, Informative

    this light orgy was powered by wind power (not generated by him, I gathered... he still had to pay for it).

    At least he's throwing a bone to the Enviro types... who apparently numbered exactly one. That's right... one person challenged him to put the display on wind power and sent him a check... and he was the only one to actually send money

    At least there's one guy out there willing to back up his environmental beliefs with cash...

    --
    Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
  4. Why not use LED based lights? by colink · · Score: 2, Informative

    LED based Christmas lights take about 5% of the power of regular bulbs but are a lot more expensive. Given the amount of power that he's drawing, why not switch over?