Re: Getting Started Project, advice please

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

While those who frequent a nmessage board dedicated to a (non-budget)
software package that does not support X-10 may proclaim the death of X-10,
I think it will be a bit harder to kill because of people like you who want
a low cost retrofittable solution for HA.

You might try to get some advance information from Insteon. They obviously
plan to offer Insteon in Europe but when that might be is unknown.

Hmmm. Z-Wave started in Europe and it's going to be another year before they
will actually offer products in the UK? I suspect Z-Wave will be dead long
before X-10.

There is a contemporaneous thread here where a rather complete line of
(future) Zigbee HA modules is cited. Hawking Technology plans to release
their "HomeRemote - Wireless Home Automation" line in a few months. I have
no inkling about prices but Hawking tends to price all of their products at
low budget levels.

An Ocelot still uses X-10 for lights/appliances and requires other modules
and hard-wiring for everything else.

"MrTea" <hilton.jon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Ok here's the thing.
>
>I have looked at Charmed Quark, and in fact various other systems but I
>am hitting a more fundamental problem.
>
>Being based in the UK, my options re budget home automation are
>somewhat limited.
>
>We seem to be some distance behind the US in this area, and as such X10
>is still very much the obvious choice for budget HA installations.
>
>There are others but they are either too expensive or not quite
>available yet (take Z-wave, looks like it will be 2007 before we see
>any modules for that)
>
>So I'm a bit stuck because I want to get started, I don't really want
>to run cables everywhere (awkward retrofit) and I dont' want to spend a
>lot of money on this, hence X10 being the obvious choice.
>
>But then I read about X10 being "dead" and notice from a few threads on
>the Charmed Quark message board that this is the general sentiment and
>that they are reluctant to support devices like the CM11 (or CM12) as
>it is known over here.
>
>Given that I'm pretty much stuck with X10 and the CM12 for the time
>being, this makes me nervous and somewhat unsure what to do.
>
>I had decided to go for Homeseer but notice there are many problems
>with V2, I have looked at Charmed Quark but without CM11 support it's
>not much use to me, and all the time I have this nagging feeling in the
>back of my mind that I shouldn't be using X10 anyway.
>
>A hardware controller may be an alternative option, I saw an Ocelot on
>Ebay for about £60 but let it slip through my fingers.
>
>Any ideas?