Re: XTB - the Future of X10 has arrived!

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:44829278.99216578@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >"AZ Nomad" <aznomad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> ><ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> <stuff snipped>
>
> >So it's pretty clear that only someone with a very accurate crystal ball
can
> >tell when a technology is *really* obsolete.  Jeff's device corrects the
one
> >fatal flaw in X-10 - its weak signal - and elegantly fixes it.
>
> I don't mean to be critical of Jeff's device but it is sorta like a bigger
> hammer. ;)

It may not be so much "a bigger hammer" as "finally the RIGHT sized hammer."
What percentage of Insteon's transmission success lies in their stronger
signal?   IIRC (and that's a big if!) don't UPB and Insteon both boost the
voltage of the control signal beyond what stock X-10 uses?  If I could bolt
a same sort of performance boost(percent boost per buck) in a carbureutor,
I'd still be driving my big, ol' comfortable gas guzzler.  If a bigger
hammer is what it takes, I say "Bam Bam!"

> >Darn if you can't take a lamp from 1940 and plug it in to a wall and it
will
> >work.  You can also plug your brand new laptop into the very same outlet
and
> >it will work, too.  You can plug either device into a outlet almost
anywhere
> >in the country and it will work.
>
> But the lamp, if controlled by X10, might stop working when you plug in
the
> laptop. ;)

The landscape always changes and the smart DNA adapts and survives.  X-10
needs care and feeding - no doubt about that.  But an XTB will make any
existing X-10 network a whole lot less troublesome.  I haven't run any tests
without my notorious signal suckers unmasked but I'll bet their effect is
much less noticeable on the stronger XTB signal.  It's something I'll make a
note to try.

> >What I needed from X-10 and wasn't getting was reliability.
>
> >My guess is that 10 years from now, X-10 will still be hanging in there,
> >just like the national power grid.   I know the XTB has greatly increased
> >X-10's odds of dancing on its wannabe successor's grave.
>
> Dave Rye will love you.
>
>      http://www.x10minitimer.com/article_emerging_technologies.html

Great article.  I especially agree with this part:

"All this academic talk about emerging technologies is actually quite
humorous. It doesn't matter whether it's Z-Wave, Zigbee, INSTEON, or
whatever. They are all unproven technologies. All these emerging
technologies tout how they are "better than X10." By "better" they mean
faster transmission, or more codes, or no code wheels to set, or two-way.
They all say "X10 has technical problems." These new technologies haven't
been around long enough to even know what problems they have. They won't be
better than X10, they'll just be different."

We're already seeing that!

--
Bobby G.