Re: XTB, reliablity, etc.

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

<craft.brian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1165613746.198598.192620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Marc_F_Hult wrote:
> > On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 09:16:57 -0500, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote in message  <CbKdnWAfvr2a6OTYnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@xxxxxxx>:
>
> > Four _more_ ? Have you ever calculated what all the X-10 expenditures
have
> > cost you over the years. And how much you would have earned had you
spent the
> > time tinkering with it on, say, a paper route or mowing lawns instead?
Or
> > better yet, pulling wire?
>
> Pulling wire. Yeah, I've been thinking about that. The ads that suggest
> x10 as a way to "add a light switch anywhere" are clearly nonsense. It
> takes far, far less time and money to pull romex and install a switch
> than it does to make x10 reliable.

Maybe one switch.  How about 16?  What if you've got a bad situation like a
very old house with some totally inaccessible spaces?  I'd say X-10 does a
pretty good job if the installer understands its real world operating
parameters.  Oh, and since X-10 *can* be made reliable without hiring an
electrician, usually within the constraints of the UL and NEC, it trumps
pulling that old 12/2 romex any day.  There's usually no one who would
consider pulling a new hardwire 3 way switch as easy as an X-10 based
solution except an electrician or a *very* seasoned DIY'er.

> But for true automation applications, what wire can be pulled? My
> impression was that hardwired systems are all fantastically expensive
> and available only to dealers/installers.

Not true.  As noted elsewhere, there's quite a spectrum of hardwired HA
equipment.

I've not found exactly what I want yet, but I believe that in another ten
years it will be commerically available because the subsystems to make it
are coming on line.

My preference would be an HA system that was ethernet based, used standard
hubs and switches, allowed each switch to act as a mini-server, capable of
generating and receiving messages and taking actions as well.  That switch
would also be a lot smarter than any wallswitch around today.  It would know
dark/light, current temperature and humidity at that location, have a mic, a
PTZ camera, a PIR, an ultrasonic detector, a microwave emitter and detector
and an LCD display.  All things that could be comfortably handled via
ethernet.  It would also look just like a toggle switch - if you wanted it
to.

I'm glad that it's not here just yet because I am not ready to act on it.
If I were building new, I think I'd go with ALS/HAI at the moment.  If I did
win the lottery and were to start building tomorrow I use that and pull one
or maybe two more CAT6 cables to each switchbox.  Instead of all the scenes
and ramp rates and all the other BS controls offer, I'd like a switch smart
enough to know someone's *really* left the room so it had better turn out
that light!  Smart enough to know the room's too cold, the floor vent is
closed; too hot and humid, someone left the window open and the AC on . . .
you get the idea.  A "smart" home.  Not one where lights just turn on and
off by remote.  That's not quite here yet, but it's coming.  In the
meantime, X10 does just fine!

--
Bobby G.