Re: The problems with X10 ...

["accidental plumber" <aplayerinla@xxxxxxxxx>]

My showcase:

(sorry about Levitron, it's something else.)

I got the security system first.  Still working after 7 years.  Two PIR
on the ground floor making it fail safe against hot body intruders.  I
had a couple of magnetic contacts.  They are never enough for the
California architecture - huge windows on all sides.  So I use them
mainly for the doors and garage doors.  For the remaining rarely opened
windows I use tiny independent alarms once they fall to a few dollars.
The sound is enough to wake up everybody and the batteries last for a
long time.  Again I'll add some glass break detectors if I see
something cheap.  They seldom needed to be turned on or off.  I'm not
in a hurry as there is double protection.

Then a couple of light switches and lamp modules, trying to make the
house looked occupied when I'm away using the macro box with old serial
interface.  Actually I can't do a dust to dawn PIR triggered floodlight
with x10 components, so I brought one pretty and cheap lantern from
Lowes.  I have another old dust to dawn outdoor lantern.  So I just
screw in the x10 rocket to become a dust to dawn PIR triggered outdoor
light.  I don't actually deliberately buy all those modules, they are
in the starter kits and bundled in one way or the other.

By the way, I had a programmable timer to replace the light switch in
the dinning room.  Not from X10 but from Lowes.  After a year or two,
the battery leaked and the whole thing sort of degenerated.  While the
X10 craps are still going strong.

Then two more lamp modules and a stick on wall button switch and key
chain switches because I wanted to add two bed side reading lights as
in hotels.   They are the only dimmers that get used a lot.  Once in
bed, I don't need to get out of bed to turn off any lights.  I can also
turn on or off any lights in the bedroom at the door.  This is the most
used and most like home automation part of my system.

Then I played with those cheap eagle eye PIR detectors to see if I can
do perimeter defense.  No. Two much false alarms.  So I think someday I
will put them in the toilet, so the light will turn on when people
enter.

Then xcam's to monitor the front door so I only need to dress decent
and open the door when necessary.  Then another for baby monitor, them
more baby monitors.

Then someone do some harmless prank on my front lawn.  It's totally
harmless but I have to clean it up.  For the 2nd time I called the
police.  I'm in the sort of town that they are happy to sent a deputy
over right away.  But they told me that they can't do anything and
those who done it are probably kids.  I agreed because otherwise they
wanted to send me a message, but I don't know what it is.

So I have to do something about it.  So there are independent dawn to
dust PIR controlled lanterns around my house.  I tried to build many
cheap laser beam detectors to trigger alarms, so there will not be
false alarm if someone enter my lawn, just like the museums in the
movies.  The detector is trivial, aligning is easy but mounting them in
secure places around the lawn is difficult.  My "gardeners" will mow
them down in now time.

So alarm is out of the question, and it have to be cameras.  I played
with a night vision camera.  The night vision is OK but even if I put
on a high power IR source, the contrast aren't enough to trigger my
$100 DVR with motion detection at night.  The bottom line is that I
need a install-it and then forget-it system, running 24/7 on itself.

Perhaps x10 should go into those crap DVR's.  Nobody has VCR's anymore.
 And I don't want to give the space to put a big VCR box.  I don't want
to change tapes, period.  For $100 you can get a 20 GB MP4 recorder, or
a laughable 128 MB motion DVR.  I opted for the later as no human
intervention is needed.  The old images will be replaced automatically.
   Adding a 1 or 2 GB SD card will be OK.  It's trivial to change the
20 GB hard disk recorder to a security DVR aware appliance, but nobody
did it yet.  Both device are palm sized.  So if all come to the worse,
you can stick it next to the camera at the roof.

My Eagle eyes came to the rescue.  So the final system is something
like this.  There is a wall of cheap PIR around my house.  For dust to
dawn operation they are awesome.  You need to point it about 20 degree
downwards at 10 feet high to reduce false alarm.  So only people
walking into the front lawn will trigger anything.  Then each PIR will
trigger the same or different floodlight AND camera.  So the changing
of camera via X10 and the onset of floodlight triggers the motion DVR.
Even a 50W bulb outdoor is better than a night vision camera with 12
high power LED.

Look what I caught?  Teenagers and kids walking home alone at 9 pm.  I
was surprised as nobody walks even in day time.  People walking dogs at
10 pm.  Though I'm not sure if they are really neighbors or spies.
Anyway, I saw somebody jumps when the flood lights are on.  Now nobody
dare to walks pass the sidewalk in front of my house any more.  If
necessary, they all cross the road first before proceeding.