Re: X10? Any good? Need some advice.

[not_real@xxxxxxx (Beachcomber)]

>
>My comment wasn't meant to be "snide" .  Just factual.  I'm just trying
>to let you know that in my experience over 7 or 8 years in this
>Newsgroup made up of professional installers, that you'll not get any
>endorsements to use X10 alarms or CCTV equipment ..... because it's not
>considered professional equipment .....that's all. In fact I HAVE used
>quite a bit of their power line carrier equipment through the years,
>but in recent years, other companies have improved on their original
>ideas and they haven't. I could have given you my explicit opinion
>about their equipment,  and made comment about your using it, but since
>you're obviously happy with it, it would serve no purpose. If it serves
>your purpose that's fine. As I told the OP, he could perhaps try the
>X10 camera equipment and if it didn't work our maybe he could return
>it. The specifications given for their CCTV equipment is usually pretty
>vague so it's difficult to tell if it will do what you want it to do
>without acutally having the equipment and trying it.
>
>Sorry if I offended you, I was just trying to save someone the trouble
>of wasting their time and money.
>
>The end.
>

I've tried the X10 cams for my own surveillance systems.  Here are the
problems I experienced.  YMMV...

1.  The aforementioned problems with lighting.  No servicable picture
at all in the dark or in dim lighting conditions.

2.  Often in bright light, the auto-iris would get stuck resulting in
a washed-out unusable picture.

3.  The X10 program that sent X10 signals down the power lines to
power wireless X10 cams up and down through their wall-wart
transformers was an extremely primitive solution prone to failure.
Sure, the program is free, but you just can't spend endless hours
troubleshooting the X10 paths.

4.  The X10 wireless cams were extremely temperature sensitive and
when the local temp dropped into the 40's and 30's, I could not get a
usable picture on my porch cams.

5. The low power RF signals from the wireless cams was prone to
interference in my area.   You need good-line of site paths and better
antennas (then the factory supplied version) to make any use of these
cams.

6.  There is no external RF security.  Someone driving by your house
with a simple receiver can view your cam signals (and hear your audio,
if so equipped!)

On the plus side, the X10 cams were super-cheap.  They have their
useful applications, but I would never use them for a mission critical
security application.   Again YMMV...

Beachcomber