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Is Insteon Better than X10 for Home Automation?
Paul Carver writes "Smarthome has been advertising Insteon for a while now, but I haven't bought any of it, yet. I've accumulated a fair amount of X10 products over the years, including Smarthome branded signal boosters, signal couplers, noise blockers, and troubleshooting tools. Even so, I'm pretty much fed up with X10. Nothing I've bought has succeeded in making my X10 system more than 'just barely acceptable' and 'better than nothing but not by much'. A Google search for Insteon doesn't turn up much other than their own advertisements and a couple of vaguely positive but not detailed reviews. Is this new technology going to take off? What's the community's consensus on home automation?"
go to google groups?
Looks like a lot of info there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I was actually thinking of going with X-10 once, but the advertising became so annoying that when I finally saw the stuff for sale in a local store I changed my mind and decided to boycott the product instead.
If Insteon is better, I hope they are able to market themselves well. If only Insteon had an ad campaign like the one X-10 had going for a long while. I can remember when every single pop-up window was an X-10 ad (before Firefox :). I guess it worked since it appears the author of this post can't find any competitors.... ahh memory lane...
My experience with x10 is the same and I'm considering Insteon as well. I need something very reliable, and x10 does not seem to be progressing these days.
However, in the book FAB by Neil Gershefeld, there is described an interesting "Hello World" circuit, which is supposedly open-sourced in some manner by (MIT Media Lab?) - that uses a 2 or 3 wire physical layer protocol, coupled with a low-speed packet protocol, based on TCP, but in a much simpler format (similar to morse code) - it was supposedly dubbed "Internet0" or some weirdness. HERE IT IS - anyhow, I am pretty sure that is it - if not, it is probably located somewhere else in the FABLAB wiki. Also, look at this too...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Insteon is awesome. It takes away all the headaches I have had with X10 devices.
Now, if the question is really, "How does Insteon compare to other, more expensive, home automation devices?" then I don't know. My experience is only with X10 and Insteon, and compared to X10 Insteon is the bee's knee's.
There is not a very large selection of types of Insteon devices right now, but that should change in 2006. For us Mac folks, the current version of Indigo has pretty good Insteon support.
For all values of X. In particular, the values of X that really really look interesting are the ZWave things from smarthome.
http://www.smarthome.com/prodindex.asp?catid=50
There's another one called ZigBee that looks even better.
It's a brand new technology. They use radio communications, and a pretty neat broadcast algorithm that means your signals will get to their destination. Plus, you can get a response back.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I need some help here. I've been interested in X10 products for a while, and wanted to get one of the kits and such.
Is X10 a standard, or a brand name? Is this the same company that pioneered outrageously annoying popup ads?
I'm not sure my conscience could live with that.
Forget all those fancy light automation kits, all you need is the Star Trek one http://www.smarthome.com/2017.html which gives you the power of voice commands such as "Computer, off"; simultaneously turning off the lights and your female partner.
When I read about an Perl interface to X10 used in Make magazine to turn on the coffeepot, I knew that there were two groups interested: complete geeks, and technoweenies, technoweenies being the early adopters, the beligerent oaf at work who declaims loudly that everyone needs a P43.6HT else your computer is "obsolete", that sort of fellow.
Can anyone provide concrete benefits to this sort of trendy geek crap? Obviously I am biased. Other than "I can leave my PC on all day, and at 5pm, it turns the heat on for me!" is there any real practical application? Maybe THATS why X10 died/sucked/does suck.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I would like to improve the automation of my home. I have some vague images of the "Home of the Future" from early cartoons and discussions with friends. Some people worry about gender role changes and social impacts: http://askpang.typepad.com/relevant_history/2003/0 7/home_of_the_fut.html
http://samvak.tripod.com/home.html
Others just want better technology. For me it is really about common communication standards, even [gasp] network aware appliances. Leaning on communication over the power lines to achieve low-quality control with limited feedback is not good enough for me to adopt. My brother-in-law loves X10 though and suggests that wider usage will result in improvements that will bridge the gap. I am not convinced however. Ultimately for me its about what I can control and see from my office, but I am just a hopeless geek...
A year later I ripped it all out and threw it away. The crap was just too flaky -- the ones that didn't go totally Tango Uniform would change state spontaneously at totally random times. Changing addresses didn't help at all.
So, IMHO, the "better than X10" technology has been around since the 195h century.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
What's the community's consensus on Slashtroturfing?
I'd be far, far more interested in a "universal remote" that really worked, that was infinitely programmable without having to learn a new language of keypresses, that didn't lose everything it had learned every time it's dropped from a height of one foot (or the batteries go dead), and actually KNEW HOW TO FRIGGIN' TURN ON ALL MY JUNK AND WORK THE VOLUME AND CHANNEL SELECTION.
Here it is 2006, and I STILL have to turn my TV and home theatre receiver on manually, so the remote can do MOST of the rest of it.
Someone come up with a universal standard for communicating with the modest array of electronic home entertainment devices--and have them communicate with each other--and THEN I'll start getting hot-and-bothered about "home automation standards."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Basically, the idea behind Internet0 is the development of a small, easily implemented protocol to allow for "everyday objects" to communicate to one another. For the purposes of home/office automation (especially in the case where it may be a "noisy" environment, like a large office building - or one where installing a lot of communication or control systems is difficult), where you want to control lights and other electrical systems, such a protocol and the simple physical interface (the original implementation relies on an ATMEL uController, but you could easily get away with any such device) - which could be anything from a couple of wires, RF communications, or an LED/phototransistor pair (short range, of course) make it ideal for such needs. Of course, I don't think there are any commercial offerings of Internet0, yet (though I could be wrong). Also, because it is based off of TCP, building a gateway or other hardware to interface it to the rest of the internet is certainly doable...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
What I think we all really want to know is, is snargblaff better than wooblefloo at zorping the tarny gagglefoggs?
:(
A google search for snargblaff doesn't turn up anything
Forget about X10. It's always been a mess. Take a good look at ZWave Technologies. I've had very good success with it. It has alot of potential, so much so, that it seems that Cisco is buying the company in order to roll it out in its Linksys prodcuts.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
This article may be Slashvertising, but I do have to admit that Insteon works as advertised, and is much easier to integrate (no address assigning - all modules are hard-addressed)
Also, never, never had any spurious signals, like I sometimes get with X-10
-"I ate what?"
I had a long discussion with Smarthome about the license you MUST agree to in order to purchase their Insteon SDK, which includes nondisclosure terms as well as requiring you to get their permission before distributing anything. And other hostile legal stuff. The person I was discussing this started off trying to be helpful and then did a 180 and gave me a bunch of corporate doublespeak BS that clearly indicated that they weren't going to change anything.
Smarthome has in the past been friendly to free software developers, but with Insteon, they are hostile. Because, you know, X10 was popularized by commercial software folks, not those silly hobbyists.
There are several different companies with their own ideas as to how to replace X10. One good example is the Universal Powerline Bus, which is documented enough to write software. The problem with ALL of the X10 replacement ideas is that they're different. The reason I have X10 is because I can get cool dimmers and a USB interface from Smarthome, a repeater/bridge and wire-in switched outlets from Leviton, and cheap wall wart modules from X10.com. I have a lot of products to choose from, and different vendors selling similar products and price competition. None of the X10 replacement proposals are really and truly open, they're all really proprietary, but their vendor will happily take royalties from everyone else.
Until this situation changes, and the major vendors band together, make something truly open, and all unify behind it, we're stuck with X10.
I have the Insteon "starter kit" installed. It consists of the computer interface, wireless/wired signal bridge units, several lamp modules, 2 wall switches and a table-top controller. It has the ability to be backward compatible with X-10 addressing and the new Insteon protocol is actually a 2-way protocol that uses each node in the net as a repeater to ensure commands are delivered and acknowledged.
Bottom line is that it works. It works in places where old X-10 modules didn't. And it is MUCH faster than X-10 when respondng to Insteon commands from the controllers.
My biggest problem is that the current switch units REQUIRE a neutral wire in the switch box to work. Without it, the units cannot communicate between themselves. As my house is over 100 years old, the presence of neutral wires is problematic. Sometimes an outlet is close enough to a switch that I can snake a neutral wire through the wall, but generally my switches are wired as old-style switch legs with the switch in-line on the hot wire.
Other than that, the system works great and I'd happily change all of my wall switches over to Insteon in a heartbeat if not for the neutral wire problem. Rumor has it that they are coming out with units that install at the fixture, rather than the switch, making the neutral wire problem moot.
Upgrade if you can afford it. It is better technology than X-10 by far.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
Yes, it does actually work. It works because:
* every single device is a repeater!
* they repeat by simulcasting. if 10 of your 50 devices hear the signal, all 10 will retransmit together in unison, generating one seriously strong signal.
* Unlike X10, they are very very fast. X10 has 1/3 to 1/2 second latency. Insteon is practically instant. Certainly fast enough to be percieved as "instant", anyway.
* Unlike X10 which degrades as you add devices, Insteon improves as you add devices.
* You have RF bridges that you can add to bring the signal via RF to weak spots, if you somehow have any. Usually you need an RF bridge to cross phases in the house, but once you get enough devices even that is unnecessary.
I have 50-something of these installed. They are more reliable than UPB here. X10 was an utter disaster in this house... we have UPS's everewhere, loads and loads of noisy fluroescent lights, noisy fish aquarium electronics, etc. Insteon handles it without missing a beat.
HOWEVER.. All is not perfect. It is a young technology. Smarthome have made mistakes and to their credit are fixing them.
My current problem is that their Appliance modules seem to be troubled by electrical noise, eg: EMF spikes from turning fluroescent lights on/off. It seems to crash the microcontroller on them. Older models used to burn out their load sense circuit with those electrical spikes. They're fixing them, but just not fast enough for my liking.
Computer interface software has been very slow, but being fixed on a daily basis. 3rd parties are adding Insteon support to their home automation software on a near weekly basis these days.
Smarthome are providing a cost-cut version under the 'ICON' brand and are in the process of getting them into Home Depot stores. $20 for a decent remote controllable dimmer compares pretty nicely to the dumb electronic dimmers they have.
Yes, you can get developer docs via a SDK (comes with hardware to test with). Yes, it is easy to write unix software for it - I've done it myself. They do have a certification requirement if you're going to use the Insteon brand on your "product" though. But you can give it away as open source if you don't pretend it is certified.
I think Insteon will ultimately win the defacto standard stakes. ie: it will be as ubiquitous as X10 at its height.
X10 is mostly useless today.
1) X10 doesn't work with modern wiring.
It started degrading 10+ years ago, when building wiring improved and circuits and outlets started becoming more isolated. I've seen homes built as much as 20 years ago where the X10 signal only propogates from the upper outlet to the lower one, not to any other outlet. Plus, it never worked on surge protectors.
2) The workarounds are worse
Current X10 solutions get around this by having a wired-to-wireless bridge. This complication adds to the expense and defeats the entire purpose of having the electrical wiring propogate the signal. We need an all wireless solution.
3) X10 is too limited
X10 is limited to on/off/up/down. For example, you can't fade-up the lights on a home theater room if they were turned off. They first must "pop" to full brightness then fade down. There are complicated ways around this, but they really isn't worth it.
Now, with all that said, I've not seen the alternatives. But I imagine anythnig would be better.
if you don't have any interest or knowledge regarding this subject, then why comment? might I suggest a nice tall glass of STFU?
Odd; I and my associates have expressed the same sentiment about so many stories on ./ over the last 6 months or so that we've all sort of decided that the shark has been jumped here, so to speak. But I didn't think that at all for this story -- it seems legit, and I'm quite interested.
:)
Usually the stories I think are obvious shilling/astroturfing are for products or services that are not really new, not really available yet, or are of dubious merit and not an analogue of some existing, useful but decidedly imperfect product.
I wonder what signs make you think astroturfing in this case? I'm not really disagreeing as much as I am hoping to hone my shill-spotting techniques
everything in moderation
Dude, I didn't RTFA, but you really need to upgrade to X11. I haven't used X10 since the 80s.
Extend as you please: COMPANYNAME has been advertising PRODUCT for some time. I have not bought into it yet, but my friends tell me SUPERLATIVE1 and SUPERLATIVE2. In contrast, COMPETITOR's COMPETINGPRODUCT is INSULT1 and INSULT2. What does the community think? Is PRODUCT going to change the world forever? (I could not incorporate Piqaupeille (or whatever his name is) into the grammar though, would appreciate help).
Is this new technology going to take off?
Not any more than X10. See below for reasons why home automation in general, and these two specific products, has not yet taken off.
What's the community's consensus on home automation?
It would be great if it was:
* Cheap (less than 2 * the cost of existing switches and plugs)
* Easy to install and configure for both new homes and retrofits
* Super-reliable - not controllable from other sources, no chance of interference, no chance of failure after power outages, brownouts, etc, can survive multiple lightning strikes and other destructive conditions, falls back to a simple, obvious control state when there's a problem
* Secure
* Works like current technology - guests or prospective home buyers won't be left wondering what the extra buttons do, nor will they wonder how the light is supposed to go on.
* Handles all common types of electrical lighting and appliances correctly automatically - you won't have to worry about plugging a flourescent lamp or fan in where a dimmer module is - it detects it and controls it appropiately
The primary keys being that they be intuitive (ie, simulate normal dumb technology), cheap, and easy to install.
So far every system has failed in nearly every respect. I've been considering the problem for many years, hoping to design my own home automation system, but even if I ignore the installation and cheap aspects (since I'll be doing both with no intent to commercialize) it's difficult to make it so simple that anyone can use it, nevermind meeting the other goals.
So-
Home automation is something that is still very niche. It's expensive, non-trivial to setup, and therefore will not make a huge penetration in the market for some time.
Eventually it'll happen, but certainly not with these systems. The biggest advantage they have is no need for seperate or additional wiring. Insteon has a huge advantage over X-10 due to the wireless capability. Change that to Zigbee, manufacture plug units that are installed in the wall instead of plugged into it, build out the system options to include HVAC, garage door, sprinkler, whole house power consumption monitoring, very secure internet/cell phone access and monitoring, and drop the price to $3-$10 per module in small quantities ($2-$5 in hundred lots) and it'll be killer.
As the "internet generation" gets older we'll see more and more interest in this and the non-trivial setup will become less of an issue. The other issues still need to be addressed.
-Adam
Companies such as smarthome are not associated with the pop-up/unders you despise so much.
Too F'ing bad for them. The whole protocol is tarred with the "pop-up/under softcore porn ad" brush. I am not buying anything from the whole damn protocol.
X-10 softporn pop-up/under dealler. That is all you really need to know. That is all their marketing taught me.
Power line carrier data communication has always had problems. National Semiconductor
used to sell a device that functioned as a data trasceiver that used signals in the
50khz to 300khz range over the AC lines. The marketing idea was that communcation could be made between electronic devices without the expense of retrofitting buildings with additional wiring. There was even a prototype system set up in a grocery store that was fitted with HVAC equipment controlled via a central computer over the AC lines. The biggest problem was that the signals were attenuated by the distribution transformer between lines on different phases. So an expensive bridge repeater had to be installed. You could plug a unit into an outlet and the signal would not appear at another nearby
outlet as the AC line went all the way back to the distribution tranformer and then back into the store to an outlet that might only be a few feet away. I don't know if X-11
ever had any sort of bridge like that, but considering that houses have 2 phases I doubt that reliable communication could ever be made between every AC outlet in a house.
Since I've already posted and, thus, cannot moderate...
This is actually a pretty good "Ask Slashdot." When I made the jump to Insteon, the only information out there was on the Insteon and Smarthome websites. Since both of these places were trying to sell me something, it made sense to take what they said with a grain of salt.
Having made the purchase, however, I can honestly say that Insteon is what we have always wanted from X10: Reliable, fast, reliable, inexpensive compared to other protocols, and reliable.
You can call this whatever kind of turf you want if it makes you feel better. I am glad to add to the amount of knowledge on the Internet for anyone investigating the wonderful world of home automation.
I'll disagree, for me it sucks about as much as X10 did.
Insteon sells itself as a hybrid protocol, both RF and powerline but the switches are powerline only.. the only RF in the system is in the signal bridges AFAIK.
1. Whenever Insteon signals are traversing the power line the backlight on the KeypadLinc blinks. The labels on the keypad link look like backlite paper becuase of the white LED illumination. Uniform plastic labels, or different color backlight would help improve the look a lot. Construction and feel of the device is excellent.
2. Insteon programming seems simple, but you have to do weird things. Like when you program a button on the Keypadlinc if you want the light behind the button to track the state the fixture when the fixture is controlled from something other than the keypad lic you have to reverse program it.. and the system tends to get confused as to which unit will be the controller and which is the controlee. Once again, if you have noise in your environment.. forget it.
3. Acknowledged transmission.... Insteon devices will repeat transmissions until they get an ACK from the controlled device... but only for about 1 sec. Not enough time to bypass a noisy environment. Also the ACK does not appear to contain the device ID, so when two commands go out in rapid series the transmmitters both assume the first ACK is meant for them.
4. The getting started docs are too simple.. the full use docs are way too complicated.
5. Insteon has an X10 compatibility mode that works ok, but interoperation with X10 automation controllers is still a little dicey.
Mark
I once heard the [former] president/chair of a residents' organisation,
for people who'd bought into a "high-tech" residential development near
"The Levels" (ie, Mawson Lakes) north of Adelaide, South Australia...
He was speaking about the REQUIREMENT (ie, an encumbrance on the title
- ie, a lasting purchase-condition, binding on all [future] owners)...
that they design & build in systems of remote control & environmental
controls, etc. into their new homes in the estate.
He gave us to understand (in no uncertain terms) that folks weren't
very happy with the costly systems they had to install; I seem to
recall building costs were inflated (by the Hi-Tech add-on req'ts)
by around 20%... with little if any chance of pay-back over time.
From the demo he presented - with all kinds of screenshots & photos -
few at his talk seemed very impressed with capabilities or ease-of-
use.
Nevertheless, it seemed to be using Clipsal's C-BUS system, under-
the hood.
(I doubt that the disappoitments and technical problems highlighted
were in any way due to their choice of C-BUS; they were more likely
in the design of the system & its GUI bits.)
PS Are any Open Source projects designing / building envrionmentally
friendly homes / communities anywhere in the world? How'zit goin?
It's like any other field of hackery: if you want its benefits, even those you dream up, you'll tweak it until it delivers.
I'm somewhat hard to wake up at the best of times. Not good when there are kids to be gotten up, fed and clothed and off to catch the schoolbus on time. I use a combination of cron and X10 stuff to turn on lights before the alarm clock (so I'm almost awake), then play WAV sounds as timing chimes (even a Morse countdown to when each schoolbus is due to go by). In the evening, the same system turns on lights, reminds me to get up and fix dinner, drops the kids' Net access with firewall rules and time-chimes bath- and bed-times. After bedtime, a light-killer script runs for awhile to make those bedroom lights stay off.
To get my relatively simple system working right, I've gone so far as to open up X10 relay modules and clip out the local-sense resistor, so the Compact Fluorescent lamps I drive with them will stay off, and throw together a CGI buttons page on my LAN specifically to drive X10 units.
You can take it a lot further than I have (look up MisterHouse to see a comprehensive system that even yields fuel savings), but, like anything else that's worthwhile to implement, it'll take some money, some time and some learning; it's up to you where that fits into your scale of values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSTEON
Keep your eyes to the sky.
I have had nothing but bad experiences with X-10. I was about to jump on the UPB (Universal Powerline Bus) bandwagon when I got my recent smart home catalog promoting Insteon. So I'm curious how Insteon compares to UPB.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I can solder, and I could probably design a circuit that wouldn't immediately catch fire, but I'd rather not worry about such things.
My home is automated.... I call it having a wife. Everyday when I come home from work, my home
automation system has already cleaned the house and cooked me dinner. Granted, the upkeep on such a
system is quite expensive sometimes, but it's worth it for the most part.
I'm already planning on the Mark 2 home automation system referred to as 'children' in a couple of
years. This system takes a bit longer to train, but runs on peanuts.. or well.. maybe jelly beans.
Insteon will fail because parent Smarthome is competing with end user products directly with the OEMs that it needs to by its silicon. Oops.
Zigbee will fail because it has no enforced interoperability, so therefore it's suitable only for vertical applications. Think Bluetooth in '96 when products from different manufacturers didn't work together.
ZWave will win because they have built an enormous keiretsu of companies that are #1 in their niches that are shipping real product in very significant volumes, easily 10X any competitor. Leviton, Intermatic, Logitech, UEI, Wayne-Dalton, etc - this market is ZWave's to lose and they don't appear to have any intention to do so.
Reasons Insteon is better:
- Does not rely on sending signals thru the electrical system and all
the problems that go along with that.
- Each unit has a hard-coded address so you don't have to mess with
house and unit codes.
Reasons X10 is better:
- Mature technology, all that gotchas and quirks are well-known.
- Once you understand how house and unit codes work it's very easy to
set up room control just by ganging multiple devices onto the same
code. Using different house codes to "zone off" your house is
convenient and slick.
- The Insteon Powerlinc USB contoller sends signals thru the power
lines to the nearest repeater, so your wiring is still a potential
point of failure.
- Insteon software support still sucks. For the Insteon Powerlinc
serial controller there is no software support at all.
- The internal IDE and API for the Insteon controller is hideously
complex and poorly documented since it's a moving target. You have to
master this thing called a "Salad IDE" and it just seems like massive
overkill if all you want to do is simple home hobbyist stuff,
especially if you want to do it from Linux.
- More hardware available for X10. Try finding hardware for Insteon other
than lighting control (you want to control your thermostat or your garage
door or add a motion sensor to your lighting system). So what you end
up with is a hybrid Insteon and X10 environment no matter what you do.
So then you have to wrestle with Insteon, X10 and the Insteon-X10
integration issues. So now you have 3 problems where with X10 you
only had one.
Overall I think Insteon has a lot of promise, but I'd wait another
year or two for it to be more stable and for the variety of switches
and the software support to improve. If you think Insteon will "just
work" and you won't have to mess with it like you do with X10 you may
be disappointed.
Having never heard of it, I checked the website. The first thing I noticed is that the software development kit (which includes the protocols) costs a hundred bucks. The X10 protocols are widely known and lots of software (both free and otherwise) has already been developed. If these guys expect to make a dent in that market, they'll need to re-think their pricing structure.
What's the community's consensus on home automation? Before its time.
Is this new technology going to take off? You want us to predict the future? OK. Yes it is.
I have been installing Insteon products in my home and believe they are excellent products. I'm currently using x10 signaling instead of the Insteon since things like my alarm system only speak x10. The only problem I've encountered with the Insteon products is the signal absorbtion. X10 doesen't use ack's and I find the more switches I put in the less reliable the system becomes. Smarthome is currently working on a X10 to Insteon translator. Some of the beta models were sold last year. Once this product is available and mature I imagine things will be drastically improved since I'll switch over to Insteon as the primary communications protocol. As far as the Insteon protocol itself it seems to work great, but the only means I currently have of testing it is in linked switches (2,3,4 way switches etc.)
Every Lowes store sells the Intermatic ZWave devices now. I understand that the USB dongle and software so all ZWave devices (from any manufacturer) can be controlled from the PC will go on sale at Lowes in another month or so for $49.
I automated my home with HAL 9000. It works wonders. But I can't seem to find my dad...
My karma makes buddha cry.
I used x10 to run a traffic light I bought off ebay. Sucked. Used it for about 120 seconds before I decided it wasnt going to seem cool to visitors. There were 2 options. The "lamp" modules have a 1/2 second or so latency before the command gets to them and they activate. The appliance one, on the other hand, is very "instant", but it makes a loud pop when it activates. So I could either have the world's most retarded looking traffic light, or POP POP POP every 20 seconds. Stupid.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Brand X has been advertising Brand X product for a while now, but I haven't bought any of it, yet. I've accumulated a fair amount of Brand Y products over the years, including Brand X branded signal boosters, signal couplers, noise blockers, and troubleshooting tools. Even so, I'm pretty much fed up with Brand Y. Nothing I've bought has succeeded in making my Brand Y system more than 'just barely acceptable' and 'better than nothing but not by much'. A Google search for Brand X product doesn't turn up much other than their own advertisements and a couple of vaguely positive but not detailed reviews. Is this new technology going to take off? What's the community's consensus on home automation?"
could someone explain what on earth this is about. geez i laugh when people see something like PSP or DS and complain about it not being descriptive, but this is just extreme. Guys April fools was almost 2 weeks ago.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I'm really not at all familiar with this smart home technology. I live in an old development in the Northeast where my home and the vast majority of my neighbors homes date to around the early 1920s. The neighborhood is designated as a protected landmark so there hasn't been any new home construction really.
Is this technology common in new developments or at least in high end developments? Or do you retrofit your own homes, including older houses?
I guess what I'm trying to get is, is it just a novelty or a real "killer app", and two, does it work with all the legacy hardware in my home or would all the electrical wiring, fixtures and appliances have to be ripped out and replaced?
I'm not sure what you think astroturfing means, but I'm just a person who has wasted too much money on an unreliable X10 home automation system. I haven't bought any Insteon stuff and I said so. Home automation certainly seems to me like a topic where Slashdot readers will have a fair amount of experience and knowlegeable opinions about what works and what doesn't.
If you've got something specific against Insteon I'd love to hear it so I don't waste my money. If you've got nothing of value to add to the conversation though . . .
As a student living in a dormitory, X10 or Insteon isn't an option. Too expensive, and meant for an actual house, not just a room. My plan for next year is to buy a K8055 USB controller board to control the room. Ceiling lamp, shades, window, lava lamps and anything else I can think of. I already customized the program and secured an iMac G3 from the computer teacher to run the system. Going to be all voice activated with different modes for sleep, study, and party. Need ideas for other things to plug into the 8 on/off and 2 leveled outputs as well as the 5 on/off and 2 leveled inputs. Thoughts?
Applesauce!
The dimmer modules are nice. But the appliance/switch models suck. They're still using relays! Use a triac. I know triacs switch at exactly the wrong time and may put noise into X-10 and Insteon communucations, but regardless, other devices use triacs, so they're just going to have to work around it. And then use triacs themselves.
Other problems:
The modules are all switches. If you buy just two dimmer switches for a 3-way system in your hallway, one of them is never used as a switch, yet it has all that switch/dimmer circuitry. Why? It just needs to transmit data.
The software is still a bit wonky. They have multi device control panels that fit in outlet boxes, but using them confuses other devices a bit. For example, one thing you might want on a panel is a button that turns on the light the switch is near and another that turns on all the lights in the house of area (panic). But since the two buttons are on the same device, other devices can't tell them apart very well, so, for example, you can't program one button to turn on the lights partially or smoothly, and the other full on instantly.
The RF modules are a joke too. They are ugly, block an outlet, and don't even behave as a switch to a device plugged into them! And Insteon acts as if you shouldn't use the old RF bridges to connect the legs in your house.
Plus, the switches, even the good ones, are made from cheapo plastic.
All in all, perhaps it'll win out, after all it is better than X-10. But I don't see it really taking off. A good system like this would just plain replace all dumb switches in all future construction. This system just isn't straightforward enough or reliable enough to the user to allow that.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
After beating my head against a wall trying to convince people x10 was the right thing from a cost/value standpoint, I've finally seen a better solution by far than what is currently available. At a recent visit to Sprint/Nextel's office in Northern VA, I got to see a presentation of Motorola's wireless Home Automation solution that has similar benefits as Z-Wave as a pure wireless system while adding what I've seen as solving the biggest stumbling block in the business - the contoller.
s p and SmartHomeUSA is selling it now for a couple hundred bucks to set up. No good if you've already loaded up on x10 like I have, but a something to think about.
Motorola allows its phone to be a controlling interface along with a web-PC interface as well which is a great way to connect to what you want to, when you want, where you want. They could use adding home phones to the system and tapping into a more open system (maybe an x10 converter box?), but frankly, having to mess with lighting remotes, other remotes AND a wireless phone just doesn't make much sense.
PC Mag posted this a while back: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1659672,00.a
Working to make ideas into reality. www.i4e.com
While I have only one X-10 device at the moment my ex-girlfriend has a number of them.
In my case the pole-lamp is in the corner of my living room and difficult to get at to turn it on or off, a remote is far easier and I had the equipment already from a previous installation. You just plug in the devices and it works. (yes there are limitations...).
My ex-girlfriend has a number of them spread around the house. 3 in the living room to control the lights; they are programmed on a set pattern but can easily be turned off on demand. My hand it was an issue as all the lights in the living room are connected to outlets and only some of them are on a switch. (And the switch is NOT in a convenient place anyway, the house was build in the 30s.).
A few lights upstairs are controlled by switches as well, but except for one it was just because. One of them is on a motion sensor and turned the light (when it is working) as you enter the bedroom. again, older house and the light switch is hooked up to a fan/lamp as such it is always on so the fan runs.
Using X-10 in an older house is easy enough, but it can have issues if significant parts of the house are on opposite sides of the circuit. It can be difficult to get some devices to trigger reliably, as well as it may need multiple receivers, but you have to be carefull or the signal they generate will interfere with each other on the powerlines.
Looking at this proposed solution, it looks quite good. The breakdown of the other protocols is realistic with cost being a significant component of the reliable alternatives. They stress the dual nature of their technology, radio and powerline a lot, but I can honestly say that only 1 or the other does NOT work well. It is common to have dead-spots where radio signals don't propagate well as well as devices that cause issues with the powerline signal. A combination of both should eliminate the common problems in all but the worst case scenario.
I started using X10 almost as soon as it was commercially available (I still have one of my original Rat-Shack appliance modules that kinda sorta works if the load on it isn't more than a 60-watt lamp). I started writing my own software for it when the original X10 "computer interface" was available (CP-10?) because I didn't like the boxed software (which, of course, was Windows-only). I "graduated" to the ActiveHome setup several years ago - once again writing my own software because the AH stuff sucked - and the on-board memory of the CM11A was junk. Which meant I had to do "work-arounds" to enable even basic "scene" controls.
I got "into" Insteon in November and my wife (non-geek) has been so impressed with it's capabilities, we're junking all of the remaining X10 stuff and going full-blown Insteon. In fact, **SHE** is so hooked, she won't even consider the Icon brands.
Writing the software (because I wanted to and, once again, it's all Windows - except for one rather expensive Mac package) is quite a bit different because of the enhanced communications capabilities, as well as the VERY rich command-set. However, you don't even need to get any software if you want to just stick with the hardware: you can set up some very elaborate scenes in the devices, fresh from the factory.
The caveat is that it is a very new system and protocol, so you don't have all of the various devices available (e.g. wireless) that you do with X10. Yet. With the number of partners SmartHome has in their program, plus the SmartLabs themselves, I have no doubt that there will be quite a few new hardware choice coming in the next few months.
1. X-10 is a standard, not a brand.
2. The company that makes Insteon stuff also makes X-10 stuff.
Clear, Dark Skies
I've been using X10 for years. I've really liked it in some houses, have hated it in others (like my current house - doesn't work worth jack, and I haven't spent the time and money to get it working as of yet).
It looks like this new tech (Insteon) also mostly broadcasts over the power lines.
I have a question about this... in today's (often) wireless homes, WHY aren't there power control devices that work like X10, that just use a straight 802.11 wireless network? I have complete, strong, coverage in every part of my house. A wireless router is pretty cheap, and I would imagine that most people that use this type of tech will likely have one. It sure seems like this would work... could do bi-directional comm. Create a common standard (web services on the device maybe??). Is this just a cost and space issue? Shoving a wirelss device with a light computer built in? I'd personally be willing to pay a fair amount for something like this, if it worked 100%.
Anyway. I'll be very interested in seeing what other tech others point out - I'd love to get back to a house that was doing some like X10 for all lights/switches/etc., that was reliable (and just WORKED, on my wiring!)
I was all jazzed on X-10 when it came out, so we replaced all of our light switches with X-10 light switches throughout most of the house.
After about two months, lights would turn on and (worse) off at random. We coped with that for a while until eventually ripping out all of that horrible technology. Is insteon going to be more of the same? It's not an experience I want to repeat.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Insteon from Smartlabs (http://www.smartlabsinc.com/) is not affiliated with X10 at all, it is a recent spin off from Smarthome. In fact X10 was designed decades ago and is an anchient technology. Insteon is a fully redesigned protocol that uses both RF and Power Line broadcasting. This redundancy makes the system very reliable. There are several software packages out there that are adding support for the hardware. Girder (http://www.promixis.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14 489), pretty much the oldest package around has recently seen a flurry of activity around the Insteon hardware. They are still in beta with that support but hopefully they get it done soon.
I have half my house now running on Insteon and I am very happy with it, response is very snappy and I love my Keypadlinc which allows me to select scenes. A scene for the non-initiated is a group of lights, with dim rate and dim level. So for my movie watching nights all lights go off. Some romantic lighting, sure hit button 2, lights come on slowly to a low brightness level.
Only downside is that Insteon is only being developed by Smartlabs, I think they would do well opening this up for other manufacteres.
I have been a user of X10 and all I can say is that Insteon works as advertised. At the end of the day it is backwards compatible so it is easier on my pocketbook to upgrade. I bought the starter kit with switches and the table top controller (the controller is not that pretty, the Insteon people need to do a much better job at design if they want this everywhere). It was easy to install and it was easy to setup. I was able to use it in Insteon only mode and it performed very well, gave it an X10 address and it worked fine with my x10 stuff (although my X10 stuff works maybe 7 or 8 out of 10 times). I am going to probably do my whole home with Insteon because of what I have seen so far (with their Icon line, the switches are only $20). I hope that they come out with more products soon. Some software would be nice as well. Overall very pleased and recommend Insteon. I had one question on linking and the tech team at Smarthome did a great job at answering my question. Good luck with your install.
Price: 95%! $15 is not too much to spend.
Ease of use: 100%! X10 does very well here; since I never really took it out of box or tried to install it on anything, it was very easy to use. Simply put it in the garage and forget about it.
Functionality: 1% based entirely on the ability to write this review, which is the only real use I've gotten out of this device.
All in all, a decent buy; I can definitely recommend it if you don't have any other use for $15.
I'm doing my whole house with insteon, and so far so good. Support for Homeseer (a popular home automation and remote control software for windows) is real sketchy right now, but it will improve over time. With Insteton, it's easier to make 'scenes' or ganged light operations without needing a computer controller. So if my homeseer server goes down, my lights don't suddenly stop working. My rule when installing it is that the main switches on the wall just needed to work if the computer dies.
I had a lot of problems with signal interference with X10 and the usual problem bridging breakers or phases.
There are not very many specialty devices and controllers for insteon right now, but all inseton products are two-way compatable with X10 if you need an X10 contact closure or other widget.
I have about half the rooms done with Inseton, and the kitchen and master bedroom to go. So far so great!
--M
One newer company that I saw at CEDIA 2004 is Control4. Their products are all zigbee-based and are aimed at average folks. I use some Crestron equipment in my home, which is very stable and reliable. There is a lot of older Crestron equipment you can buy on eBay that still works wonderfully. This is also the case with AMX equipment. The problem with these solutions, as well as cheaper solutions like HAI, is that you have to have the programs to actually program the equipment and it's not easily accessible as you have to be a dealer or work for a dealer of their products to get them. Aurora Multimedia is another company with a lot of great IP based control products. There are a lot of solutions out there for the average consumer, more than most people realize. It's good to go to local homeshows and read home automation blogs. I hope some of this information is helpful. It's my opinion that it's better to spend more on reliable equipment than to buy cheaper stuff that just doesn't work.
Has anyone integrated any good home automation SW with the Asterisk PBX?
--
make install -not war
but I'm disappointed CEBus never really got its act together. Good protocol, good language; it was obvious the people who designed it had put a lot of thought into it. I was kinda jazzed about it, looking forward to automating my house with it, and then... pfttt! A whole lotta nothin! It seems to have made it's way into high-end home-theater type things, but not the everyday, actually useful stuff you could use to control your lights, hvac, ordinary television, etc. Bummer.
Cheers, Tim -- Tim Janke Part mad scientist, part lion tamer: sr. software engineer, global team leader, project mana
Calling X10 home automation is like calling CATV the Internet.
X10 is hardly useful in any retrofit jobs since old wiring is typically bad, at best.
Some better options are RF for those of you who don't want to break much drywall or, ideally, running CATV to every switch in your house if you want the real deal. Plus distributed audio, video, security, etc all integrated. Lets see your X10 do that. No, I'd rather not.
My opinion, it's better than X10. I use it I, like it (that's the short answer). Contact me, use one of the links below in my sig. If you want other's opinion go to :
http://www.accessha.com/forums/
The one thing I have noticed in the various info above is that there are a lot of people sending out a lot of info that just wrong. I hope this message doesn't get lost in the noise. BTW, I'm still working with Smarthome on an Open Source license it's just I'm working on a book and it's keeping me busy. When the book is done it's back to Insteon and an Open Source project for it (see links below for what I've done so far).
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
My house is almost all Insteon. I use Insteon and X10 together and it works great. I designed a graphical virtual house interface using the Insteon controller. It is Open Source and shows what can be done even in a 40-year old house like mine, for cheap. Check out the videos at www.vCrib.com Vaughn
i found a lot of useful insteon info on the http://www.cocoontech.com/ forums. there's a few guys there that have deployed a hundred or so devices. lots of other general HA related topics as well. check it out
Your home just isn't old enough. The building my apartment was in was built in the 1880s, so the electrical wiring is not original.
I had a pretty large X10 setup that was always a problem. When I found Insteon I read the whitepapers, tried a few switches, then ripped all my X10 stuff out and replaced it with Insteon. It retrofits as easily as X10 (easier in the case of lights controlled by multiple switches). It does both RF and powerline networking. Decent adaptive mesh routing to get around interference in either mode. Positive ACKs. Large address space. Solid as a rock. I'm very happy.
Just wondering, is X-10 the protocol that used to be used in those Radio Shack home automation products back in the 80s/early-90s? I never owned any, but I remember looking at them in the catalogs.
They were little boxes, they had low-wattage ones for lights and higher-wattage ones for appliances, and each had two little dials on the front. I think one was for "zones" or something and was lettered, the other one was for "device" and was numbered. I want to say that one dial was red and one was blue or black, but I might just be making that up. (Yeah, I spent waaay too much time looking at the catalog.) I can't remember the name of it though.
Then there was a central command console that you could put somewhere in your house that had switches on them, and I assume you could set each switch to control a different device. It was fairly primitive, and if there was a PC interface I didn't see it or didn't remember it. (There may have been one, but I was in the habit of ignoring computer stuff at Radioshack, since I was an Apple user and they didn't swing that way.)
I haven't seen the RS catalog in a while (since my local store took out its aisle of small electronic parts to replace it with shitty plastic crap I basically lost interest), but if these used the same protocol then I assume there are probably a lot of them hanging around in basements and attics.
Anyone know if it's the same thing, or even remember the RS product I'm talking about?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I have 3 dwellings on my land - a large house, a small ranch on a seperate meter, and a detached garage/office served via a 60AMP 220V branch from the main panel in the large house.
For various reasons, my main X10 injection points are currently in the small ranch (RF receiver and HA controller TW-523) This means X10 signals to devices in the garage have to go from the ranch panel, through the meter, into the splices underground, back to the main house, and out to the garage via a 150 foot underground feed. My X10 devices work very well and false triggers simply don't happen. The garage units work just fine.
My setup is not super complex, but I did take some precautions. The small ranch and the main house each have a Leviton bridge/repeater units in their panels. The two panels also have the LV6289 RF filters which eliminate noise outside the narrow band X10 uses. They are wired in the panel between each hot leg and neutral. I have probably 6 UPS units in the house, but only have the 2200W server UPS on a 15A X10 block. I've never needed them with these filters in place.
X10 is cheap and it is not very tolerant of noise. However if you take the time to prep your home for X10, it can work very well. Plus you get what you pay for. X10 units use custom ICs design in the 70s. If you want quality X10 devices, go with Leviton. You'll pay more, but Leviton units use small microcontrollers to process the PLC signals and have much better signal conditioning than the X10 devices.
X10 may wane over time, but it has been around for decades and continues to survive because it's cheap and usually works. If you don't feel up to the added cost of the next generation stuff, some simple upgrades to your eletrical infrastructure can make your X10 much more reliable. I'm perfectly happy with my X10 infrastructure and don't have problems like I used to before I added the whole house repeaters and filters. IN my experience, anyway, the filters were the key to finally having a stable X10 network. THe repeaters simply help the signals reach the far away places like the garage.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Well I'm not going to take Insteon seriously unless they start throwing a lot more popups my way. Maybe you're having trouble because you're not using your X10 gear the right way - I never really read into it, but from the popups I ascertained that X10 cameras were for spying on scantily clad models - is that what you mean by "home automation"?
ôó
Yes. Radio Shack had a line of X-10 products, as did Sears. My mom still has a radio shack X-10 desk clock/x-10 timer ca. 1980 that still works.
I am not a crackpot.
I use both X10 and Insteon. The insteon is the way to go in moving beyond X10. The Maxhome system is made for these and all kinds of other home integration, security and energy management. http://maxhome.org/
Both, but different systems.
In new high-end construction, you'll sometimes put in a hard-wired home automation system. Since the walls are already open and you're already pulling wire, it's easy to do. These systems tend to be more reliable day-to-day, because they're hard-wired. They also usually have a terrible manual and interface. Once someone teaches the homeowner what to do, they can get the lights on and off, but they'll typically call someone out to reprogram the system. They can be nice in that they can coordinate systems that are usually separate, such as turn on all lights when the smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night. There's also some nifty tricks you can do, such as call the house as you leave work and have it heat up the hot tub, or have the lights fade to on/off instead of switching. However, these systems are by no means necessary.
X-10 and the like are usually not used in new construction, but are used in older homes where the lights and plugs aren't placed well. For example, older houses tend to have very few ceiling or wall lights, but lots of switched plugs. Usually, the switched plug ends up in the wrong place among the room's furnishings. A home automation system like X-10 fixes the problem, and is simple enough to be a do-it-yourself job. However, these systems aren't very reliable, and are really just a step up from running an extension cord around the walls of the room.
does it work with all the legacy hardware in my home
The wiring and hardware in your home should not need to be replaced, with the exception of replacing some plugs and switches with the home automation-controlled plugs and switches. If a particular wire can handle a light when you flip a switch, it will still handle the light when the home automation system flips a switch. However, the lawsuit-phobic side of me has to tell you to consult an electrician before doing anything with your electrical system. There are some fire and electrocution hazards with very old electrical systems, and I can't see your house from here.
This is redundant:
I bought some X10 automation equipment several years ago when they were advertising a special deal -- for $10, you got a basic automation system; add another $5 for connectors to other devices. No cameras were included; just the basic automation stuff and you plug in whatever devices you want switched. $15 seemed like a good deal to get into the automation game, and when I got the stuff, I looked at the stuff in the boxes, looked at the instructions, and put the boxes in the storage room to look at later. This was about 8 years ago, so I feel confident in my ability to offer the following evaluation based on having X10 for this long:
Price: 95%! $15 is not too much to spend.
Ease of use: 100%! X10 does very well here; since I never really took it out of box or tried to install it on anything, it was very easy to use. Simply put it in the garage and forget about it.
Functionality: 1% based entirely on the ability to write this review, which is the only real use I've gotten out of this device.
All in all, a decent buy; I can definitely recommend it if you don't have any other use for $15.
Dude they still sell that stuff.
If it weren't for that last sentence, that is.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Neil, is that you? :)
+++ATH0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standar d)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSTEON
Read people, READ
Let's resubmit this one like,
"Hi I'm automating my house using a CAN based network and I'm wondering what kind of devices people are using in their systems."
For those who don't know, CAN is what most modern automobiles use as a network. The advantage over something like TCP/IP is that it allows you to resolve conflicts between devices at the network level. To use the car analogy, it would help to prevent a prolem with the stereo from screwing up the ignition timing despite having both of them tied to a common network. It's also used in all sorts of industrial machines, robots and the like.
This seems like a decent first step for serious home automation. Anybody gone this route? Care to provide details like what brand controllers you used so such things?
The best stuff I've found to run X10 devices is http://tanj.com/heyu/heyu2/.
I am biased as the primary author of this and I are members of the same lug. He's added scripting support and it's a huge improvement over what is available for Winders.
CAN (http://www.can-cia.org/can/) as already mentioned in http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=183002&cid =15126393
is the way to go. I've seen several smart home implementations using that car network successfully - higher bandwidth means you can do things like stream audio easily.
Anyone using European Installation Bus ? I've filled my house with it ... bus or star topology, multiple vendors (Berker, Merten, Gira), open protocol so we have Linux software that can sniff the bus and put signals on the bus ... it's quite nice :-) .
Yup! It's me. :-)
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Here's the deal with me. There are two reasons why I will probably stick with my X10 over Insteon.
1. It took me almost two years to get my Home Automation system up to the level it's at now. I don't have to mess with it or tweak it anymore. Right now, it's doing everything I want it to do. Motion Detection to turn on lighting, voice activated commands to say get the current weather conditions or traffic reports plus a complete Home Theatre control system through touchscreens. To be honest with you, I don't feel like going in there and messing with it.
2. I got most of my X10 products off of ebay at a fraction of what SmartHome is selling their stuff at. So for me to replace my X10 products now with Insteon would cost me almost 5 times the price it cost me to get up and running with Insteon. Not to mention, I'm sure I'd have to recode some stuff to accomodate Insteon. The little extra bit of technology I'd get out of Insteon wouldn't justify me uprooting all of my X10 code and components.
My 2 cents
The Clapper has worked for fine me since 1985 and I ain't about to switch to some new fangled gadgetry now!
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
I used to use X10 in my studio for light control, I'll tell you what, It works quite well, never had a problem with it. I controlled 7 different "zones" with one controller which *was* a nightmare to set-up, the $19 outlets, $45 controller (wasn't even wireless). I do like the technology, if I had a new construction house built, I'd get x10 in it; it's been around for years and years people still don't know much or anything about it, maybe if places like "rad-shack" and "pricey-depot" would push it more (as in educating people, not hard selling) they could get this into homes and everyone could use it (even your mom, just don't let her wire it).
What's the 22th? Is that short for twenty-twoth?
Brings back memories...
I used to have a Motorola ISDN "modem" that would randomly/frequently hang. The only way to unhang it was to push the reset, or... cycle the power! Neither is very easy from a remote location. So, I got a firecracker, the RF receiver, and a switch. I wrote a script that would ping my gateway on the far end of the ISDN link every minute and if the ping failed it would switch the modem off and then back on.
My only experience with X-10 stuff, and it worked like a charm.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
"- Does not rely on sending signals thru the electrical system and all
the problems that go along with that."
Yes it does.
Each switch is only hooked to your power lines and has no radio antenna. How do you think they get and send commands?
The RF units on Insteon is only for bridging and maybe for remote controls. The 2nd is up in the air because I don't think they have a wireless remote yet (didn't two months ago).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
And I don't have neutrals on most of my switches either. I even have ground in every junction box (even switch boxes), but no neutrals in some switch boxes.
Why? Because you don't need them. There's no safety issue or anything.
The neutral runs straight to the light, and only the hot is switched. That's 100% safe, and all that is necessary. Go to home depot and find a light switch. It has 3 terminals. 1 is ground. The other two are interchangeable, but we'll call one "hot in" and the other "intermittent hot out", that is, the terminal that is switched. Where is the neutral connection? It doesn't have one, you don't need it, there's in fact no place to attach it.
It's easy (apparently) for you to say bring this up to code, but doing it is rather difficult.
You're right, that in the end it has to be done, no device that actually draws power can be used in these switch boxes, not just Insteon. But it's still a big impediment to Insteon adoption.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Love that. It's so easy to describe.
I take it you have paint still sitting around for every room in your house, so ripping out switches of wall, replacing them, retexturing them and painting them is a snap.
But for some of us, it isn't so easy. Paint matching is very good nowadays, but you still need to paint an area larger than a few feet with the edges right at eye level. Basically, you end up painting an entire wall.
This stuff isn't a snap.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I'm having a custom home built this summer and as a long-time X10 user I'd like to include some kind of home automation. Since this is new construction I may have some options that aren't pratical with existing homes.
Anyone have any suggestions? I'm mostly interested in light control, so Insteon might be a good option. I'd like something other than X10 as I've found that frequently the problems with it aren't worth the trouble to fix.
Insteon is a proprietary format of smarthome and is not catching on. UPB (Universal Power Bus) how ever already has several companies that have adopted it. Much more reliable and faster than Insteon, not to mention x-doesn't work for crap-10.
WHen X10 was brand new, I bought a couple of units. SHortly after that pop-up ads where...well.. popping up all over the place.
X-10 was brand new in 1978. Were you even born at that time?
Humm. Maybe I'll choke back my disgust and go back in there again sometime, just to have a look.
I think if I ever decide to get into the home-automation stuff (I can think of a few things it would be useful for; mostly just as a glorified light-timer), I think I'll buy one of the Insteon control modules, since they're backwards-compatible with X-10. But I'd probably start out getting some of the X-10 modules, because they're so much cheaper and apparently available everywhere. If they don't work well, it's not a lot of money down the drain and I could upgrade to the Insteon ones.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Seeing a lot of X10 bashing here and rightly so. It is what it is - cheap and full of quirks. I use it to 1. turn my porch lights on in the evening and 2. record motion events (e.g. front door, garage etc..) I use a hacked up version of the excellent X10Controller http://sourceforge.net/projects/x10controller/ I find it quite reliable w.r.t. the motion events, but less so w/ the porch lights (maybe works about 80% of the time).. was better until I installed a UPS. To improve the reliability I simply send multiple on events. The light will eventually go on, maybe not exactly at dusk. I bought the smarthome phase coupler (plugs into dryer outlet) and solved the 2 phase problem, for the most part. So in short you just have to accept the reliability issues decide if you can live w/ something that works most of the time, or shell out the cash for something better.
X10 may have its issues but it has a ton of open source software. I might like to record events to a database, or send an IM when someone is at my front door. Is there an sdk for insteon? is it open? last I checked there wasn't.
I've been curious about home automation for a while now, but have done little except dip my big toe in the water by getting a free starter kit from x10.com (through /. atually...many years ago).
Philosophically, I do have a problem with some aspects of home automation. I do not want to further increase my laziness (and waist size) by having a remote to turn off the lights (or whatever). I'm attempting to control my weight, and this would not be very helpful. It's a small thing, but many labor saving devices have made America an obese nation.
So, the other aspects do interest me such as security (outside lights on at dusk, possibly exterior cameras, etc), actual automation (switching the HVAC, "watch movie" macro, etc), and intercoms.
While I realize it's possible to do much/most of this with X10 and/or Insteon, I also realize that I can do most of what I want with other cheaper products. I already have a programmable thermostat which has saved me a lot of $$ recently. I can get dusk/dawn motion lights at home despot. And there are separate intercom systems I could get, but I already have a cell phone and it seems lazy to use it when two people are in the same house.
So, part of what keeps me away is cost. Part is hassle because these existing things (programmable thermostat, cell phone, etc) meet my needs. Perhaps there's something I don't know I "need", but I'm getting along fine without it so far.
Just my $0.02. I'm not condemning this discussion or home automation, just explaining what keeps me away from it.
Syndrome: You have a Compact Fluorescent lamp powered through an X10 Appliance Module (Am486 or equivalent). You command the X10 module to turn off power to the CF lamp, and it does, but, after a second or two, it turns right back on.
This is repeatable, consistent behavior when the CF lamp is the only load on the X10 module, but things behave properly (off means OFF) when you plug an incandescent lamp into the module in parallel (low-wattage, 7W and up, will fix this behavior, but that's 7W of power wasted on heating up a resistor until it glows). Oh, and, to limit this to something about which I have direct knowledge, your local power mains are 110VAC, not 220VAC, although all of this except for the module model number may directly apply to the 220VAC version as well for all I know.
Cause: The X10 module has a "local sense" feature intended to allow you to command the module to turn on by physically switching the controlled device off-and-on; the CF lamp is triggering this feature.
The Compact Fluorescent lamp, as a load, does not behave like a simple resistor, instead its loading fluctuates at its own flash rate. It contains an electronic circuit in its base which rectifies and filters mains power to feed an oscillator, which then flashes the fluorescent lamp at a rate much higher than 60Hz. When the power is switched off, there is enough power stored in the filter's capacitor for the oscillator to trigger the local-sense circuit in the module.
Cure: Disable the X10 module's "local sense" feature.
There are several writeups on this around the Net; a quick search ("Am486 local sense") turned up this pageand this one, both of which discuss several forms of X10/CF misbehavior and point to how-tos specific to the Am486 module. If your module is different, search using its nearest-equivalent X10-brand model number (Radio Shack, for one, sells house-branded X10 modules with different numbers but obvious similarities).
Remember, you are dealing with mains power, which can kill people and set fire to things if abused; use caution, patience, and the right tools here.
I haven't tried these yet, but was planning on using them in my kitchen - a recent remodel leaves me with WAY too many switches to diddle with. Actually, I'd planned to install Lightolier Compose PLC dimmers. The Insteon products looked attractive, though, because of the interchangable colors for both the switch itself and the lights. (I can get the Lightoliers in grey, but they have to be special-ordered...)
But they currently don't have a trailing-edge ("electronic") dimmer. This is needed for some older electronic-ballast track lights (most newer ones now work with leading-edge dimmers). It's also needed for electronic transformers commonly used for under-cabinet lighting. I talked to their tech support, and they didn't seem to have a clue.
At least they do communicate with X-10 devices, so I could install a different brand dimmer for my under-cabinet lights. (Which use an electronic transformer that can only be dimmed with a trailing-edge dimmer.)
The technology looks promising. But they need to expand the line out to handle a full compliment of load types.
BTW, Lightolier went the other way - the Compose line now has ONLY trailing-edge dimmers. These will work fine on all three types of loads - incandescent, inductive, and, electronic.
Off-topic...Thanks Stormbringer, sounds like that is what's going on. My motion switches aren't X-10, but I'm guessing same theory applies.
Years ago I was asked by a rich toymaster (one for who money was no object) whether X10 consumer products were 'a way to go' for a his überhouse. I told him the protocol and transport was iffy, the standard was designed for discrete TTL logic before LSI chips and slow... and to achieve reliability with off the shelf stuff (RS) you'd have to crack the units and replace the deliberately small (almost fire hazard) transformers that they use to cook themselves to death. He had no problem with this... he understood retrofit expense and compromise. then I explained the house code thing. "A-H? You mean someone could frig with the house from outside, flip the lights?" Of course, I said. I could probably open your garage door too. "That's insane."
This was years before PGP, let alone PKI friendly chipsets, et. al. He wasn't looking for missle silo grade security (little did we know the Permissive Action Link code was all zeroes!) he said, but is there ANYTHING out there not succeptible to simple guessing and aligator clips? He loved 'Mission Impossible'.
Now there is. IF COST IS NO OBJECT and he asked that question today... what are the 'thinnest' most self contained clients with which one could build a 'Really Secure' PKI home control system... complete with a CA computer in a vault signing transactions (open the valult and all bets are off -- he'd understand that), perhaps even a panic function for repudiation broadcast etc. etc.... The werks, Mission Impossible proof?
X10 and Insteon aren't the only technologies out there these days. Z-Wave is an RF based system that I have been using for a while now. Its unique in that every device in the network acts as a repeater, so the more you add, the more reliable. Check out HomeSeer technologies, they have an awesome message board with tons of info (www.homeseer.com)
Home automation technology has been around for several decades, and even the most recent, such as Smarthome's Insteon, suffer from a couple major problems that'll ensure the technology will never be adopted.
First, they're outrageously expensive. A simple -enabled light switch or plugin module can easily run for $50 to $150. Combine this with the fact that these modules usually only allow you to turn lights on and off, and maybe dim (not *sense* if they're on or off, or do more general purpose IO) and the expense becomes hard to justify.
Also, the software to control these things just plain sucks. If the company provides any software, it's buggy, non-customizable Windows software. Usually, they'll just provide a small remote control, allowing you to turn lights on and off by entering a serial number. There are a few incomplete, unmaintained Linux drivers floating around, but they're hard to get working, much less get into the kernel.