Re: is x10.com dead?

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uMWdnfDRWvuaZ2TenZ2dnUVZ_sSdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > There's the rub.  A light switch shouldn't require that.
> >
> > And sending an email shouldn't involve learning about firewalls,
patches,
> > viruses, POP3, ISPs, file types and so on.  But we live in an imperfect
> > world.
>
> The two don't conflate.  An internet solution is hosted through an ISP.
> Wall switches are installed in a home.  If you're going for analogies,
pick
> something that works.

Sure they compare.  If you want to use PC's, you have to make an effort to
understand them, their liabilities, their strengths and weaknesses and how
to configure them.  You face an assortment of perils from phishers to
hackers to version conflicts to incompatible hardware.  You've got to put it
a lot of smarts to be able to use the technology that's labeled,
facetiously, plug and play.

X-10's a slightly different sort of technology and was ironically born just
about the same time as personal computing.  It's no surprise that you still
have to learn the ropes with either technology.   To escape that learning
cost you have to take something that's been around for 80 years like an
electric drill.  Anyone can drill a hole without being an expert on motors.

HA and PC's are not commodities like power drills or hair dryers.  They both
have serious gotchas.  The "gotcha" for Lutron RA is that it doesn't offer
anywhere NEAR the breadth of options that X-10 does.  For me, an "F" in that
column means I won't buy it, no matter how reliably it does whatever else it
does.  Lutron RA gets a big "F" from me in terms of available devices and
interoperability with other HA and security devices.  It also gets a big "F"
for cost.  Two "F"s means I probably wouldn't buy it even if it was the only
game in town.

> > Proprietary solutions that could blow away at the next economic
downturn.
>
> Umm, X-10 /is/ proprietary.  You do recall their attitude regarding
patents,
> do you not?

Wrong sir, it's lost its patent protection and is now an open standard.

> > Picking an HA strategy involves evaluating some fairly disparate
> qualities,
> > among them cost, reliability, functionality and support.  X-10 has spent
a
> > lot of money giving away starter kits to make HA accessible to the
> > non-technical.  To that end, I think they've succeeded.  The question is
> > "Now what?"
>
> Giving away shite doesn't take the smell off it.  Giving away crack still
> has you ending up living in a crack house.  No thanks.

Disparaging my analogies and then comparing X-10 to crack tends to cast
doubt on your ability to evaluate analogies, yours or mine.  Is this where I
say listen to your own advice and "pick an analogy that works?" <g>   HA and
PC's are both modern technologies, crack is an addicting drug that destroys
people's lives.  I leave it to you to decide, rationally which analogies
hold true.

> > You're seeing the half-empty glass.  I would rather have a protocol that
> > allowed for such fixes (your eggshells) than one that didn't like
> > videodiscs.  When VD technology was through it was dead and gone very
> > quickly.  No fix of any kind would let you put a 12" videodisc inside a
> DVD
> > slot.  At least with X-10 you can buy phase couplers, repeaters and
> filters
> > that can usually insure a working X-10 installation.  Yes, there are
> gotchas
> > waiting down that path as well, but they are almost all solvable.
>
> Again, pick better analogies.  Instead of X-10 just pick solution that
> doesn't depend on it's unreliable protocols and poorly made devices.

We've already covered reasons why that's not acceptable but I will review.
The reasons Lutron RA gets an F in my book are:  Lack of devices and too
high a price.  Failure on both counts.  No amount of work arounds will make
Lutron devices out of something else.  No amount of work arounds will make
Lutron RA palatable to me, pricewise.  Yet poor old maligned X-10 *does*
allow me to increase my reliability factor.  It is what RA is not, it is
flexible and its shortcomings are overcomeable.  With RA, I would not have
devices I need nor would I be able to afford to automate what I wanted to.
I would not be happy with a Lutron RA solution for any number of other
reasons as well.

> You're
> apologizing for a solution that I've found to be completely unsuitable,

The magic buzzwords "I've found" translate it the famous YMMV.  Mine
certainly does.  Apparently others have found differently from you as well.

> Why is it X-10 needs so much apologizing for it?

We're not apologizing, we're merely explaining.  X-10 was born in an older,
simpler era and had to find its way through an increasingly more complicated
and unfriendly environment.  I feel it's done admirably.  That hardscrabble
life story appeals to some of us, I guess.

--
Bobby G.