RE: Power triggering

["Kenneth Watt" <kennwatt@xxxxxxx>]

Ah, see now you're starting to grasp the X10 thing!

If you don't want lights to come on full blast then use LD11's, a far
more friendly solution to the problem and with a little ingenuity you
can almost always find a way to get them fitted. These have
"memory",
i.e. they remember the last level that they were set to so when you
switch them on they return to the previous level. They also have
"extended" X10 commands, e.g. the en-suite lights in my gaff are
set to
level 62 of 63 during the day (the PIR brings them on) so they rise from
0 to 62 (100%) slowly, although you can tell them to go to level 63
which brings them on fully without the soft-start option. Sorry
soft-start/soft-off means the modules start from zero and rise to full
brightness or in reverse for soft-off.

As for your morning scenario that doesn't happen at all, the point of
this being that it's automated ;-) IMO the less user intervention the
better, particularly when it comes to SWMBO's (plural?) as they don't
want to get up in the morning and have to switch everything back on, as
you suggest. The trouble being that you *have* to customise this to your
own needs and determine just how much control and over what you wish to
have.

When I get up, or sometimes don't bother, I have a macro that fires and
returns the house to normal operation, but this is fully automated! It
runs at sunrise, or if sunrise has not been reached by a specific time
then the lights come on for me getting up, the coffee machine sparks to
life and the alarm goes off. This clears the "night mode" flags
and sets
HV up for another days work.

You're next question is how do you determine holidays and long lie-in
days and that's' just a matter of some clever programming or fudging it
in the programming of your chose controller.

Let me put it this way, my other half has to be able to press one of two
buttons to control the house...period! All she has to do is either tell
the house that she is going to bed alone or that we are both going to
bed. Now I'd wager money that as the kid gets a bit older that she may
well have to intervene a little more, but I'd also wager that I can keep
it down to one button on the Pronto ("kid in bed" button) and
that
should be that sorted.

>from
controller running and that is essential in doing what you want to
achieve here and it will open a whole host of opportunities for you.

All the rest is just programming really, the hard part is getting the
hardware then getting the hardware where you want it.

HTH

K.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: BUTLER, Tony, FM [mailto:tony.butler@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 13 February 2002 09:42
> To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
> Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Power triggering
>
> > Arrgh, see you're getting all complex on me now! ;-)
>
> As if :)
>
> > I have two settings for shutting the house down at night, one
> > for SWMBO
> > going to bed alone, used for all the late night drinking sessions
and
> [...]
> > certain appliances do not work. Since almost all the lighting in
the
> > house is occupancy detected this means that when you get up
>
> This is part of the problem - I don't seem to be able to dip my toes
into
> the X10 waters and come up with a SWMBO acceptable solution without
> reqiring
> the house (again) and putting in X10 din rails, PIRs etc etc.....
>
> > to go to the
> > loo in the middle of the night you're not blinded by mains
> > halogens, nor
>
> This is a case in point - I replaced our rotary dimmer in the bedroom
with
> an LW10U and now SWMBO complains (fairly IMHO this time!) that you
turn it
> on and it's blinding - you can't seem to turn it on at an initial dim
> level.
> SWMBO has to close her eyes & keep the switch pressed until she
thinks
> it's
> dim enough that she can open them again without being blinded :(
>
> > More or less to achieve what you want to do is simple enough and
very,
> > very easy to use for SWMBO which was the main criteria when I
> > put it all
> > together.
>
> Yes, your system does sound like the kind of thing I need to do -
however,
> the 'what do you do in the morning' issue is still there.
> If I'm rushing out the door and forget to turn the house back on, then
> SWMBO
> is stuffed - which is why I asked if one of these IR->X10
converters
could
> turn on a TV socket when she presses the 'Power On' button on the TV
> remote.
> Speaking of which, there are a no. of IR->X10 jobbies about - which
is
the
> 'best'?
>
> > One thing though, leave her bedside light as a normal lamp ;-(
>
> Oh, I learned that from my very first X10 experiment - one was not
amused
> :-)
>
> cheers,
>
> Tony
>
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