WAS Last Night in London? NOW moving away from the remote-control paradigm

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

Back on the 22nd June, I wrote:

>  Kieran has some interesting ideas about sensing, and automatic
control of what happens in the house based on what the house detects is
going on, rather than everything being remote-control-centric.

Well, I finally got around to trying to implement some of this, on a
very small scale, in my dressing room. The only sensor I'm using at the
moment is an MS13E, which is using a TM12U to signal back onto the
"real" X-10 carrier. The control system is Homevision.

The house now has two key modes: "Normal" and "Secure".
I have to admit
that I do use the Pronto to switch modes, but integration into my alarm
system is somewhere on the list.

When I'm in "normal" mode, then one of two things happens. During
the
daytime, nothing. During the night, however, walking into my dressing
room causes the lights to come on (and then go off again a minute after
I've left). I know that there's a latency problem in switching on, but
to a large extent, 3 nights has been enough to allow me to walk into the
room confidently, rather than stopping and reaching for the wall switch.

When I'm in "secure" mode, then movement causes the following to
happen:
- All the lights in the house start blinking on and off for as long as
there's someone around, and 10 blinks thereafter.
- The TV turns on, and tunes to BBC-1.

Obviously, the dressing room was chosen for the test, since I only use
it for two purposes - dressing and undressing (the linen baskets are in
there as well - and, as such, the behaviour model was fairly obvious.
Furthermore, when I'm in there, I'm typically moving - putting on
clothes, doing up cuff-links, choosing shirts - rather than coming in
and sitting down, and running the risk of not being detected despite the
fact I'm still there.

I think that Kieran's right, and that this is the way forward for me.

Many thanks also to James Hoye, provider of CAT5 cables to the Gentry,
for providing the long cable required to do the Homevision programming
in bed :-)

Mark Harrison
Head of Systems, eKingfisher