X10 Lighting Monitoring - Probe Zone Hub Review

["Mark McCall" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

An excellent article, complete with photos...

M.

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1817.html


Submission By: Marcus Warrington

Introduction
Like almost all the currently available UK X10 modules, the LD11 does NOT
support status response. This coupled with the fact that X10 commands can
sometimes "go astray" and seemingly disappear into the electrical
ether
before reaching the chosen device, means that the tracking of the current
status of a device is very error prone. Intelligent controllers like
HomeVision and software like Homseer make a valiant effort to track the
current status of devices by listening for the X10 signals on the wire but
commands are sometimes not heard or can be misheard and any device that is
locally controlled will have its state changed without the status change
being announced on the wire. This last point was a real bug bear for me, I
just didn't know if someone had switched on a light by hand.

The possible solution
One new solution to this problem is the use of Frank McAlinden's Probe
System. This system was originally designed to allow Homevision to obtain
the current status of A/V Equipment in multiple zones (see This Article),
but Frank has now expanded on this with a probe that uses a Super Bright
white LED and detector designed to read the status of an LD11 unit..

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1817.html