Re: No more X10 at Radio Shack?

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:r0%

<stuff snipped>

> Ours still flashes 12:00 after an outage. X10 let us down here: We
> bought the X10 universal remote and on the picture it had a "Menu"
> button in the lower left. When I unpacked it I discovered that it had a
> "Guide" button in that space and no menu button. Hence we cannot program
> the clock or anything else at all except by unplugging again and holding
> some magic buttons on the VCR itself. Its original remote had died.

Is it *really* their fault?  If you're talking about one of their learning
Universal remotes, it *could* learn the code you're missing in all
probability, but your original died.  Which of the many X-10 remotes are you
talking about?

> Tried dozens of VCR codes in the booklet and none turns that useless
> guide button into menu mode :-(

If it's a learning remote, maybe there's someone that can lend you an
original remote just for learning purposes if you list the exact make and
model of the gear you want to control.

I just had a situation where I couldn't get my X-10 learning remote to learn
the codes to control my Sony DVD jukebox.  It was a real bummer because up
until that acquisition, the X-10 remote was able to learn any command it
didn't have embedded in its ROM.  Dave Houston helped me out tremendously by
suggesting that I use as short a teaching press as possible because (IIRC)
Sony used atypically short codes.  This was in direct contravention to the
advice I had gotten about programming my Ocelot, but lo and behold, I was
able to teach my X-10 remote to control the basic functions of the jukebox.
For some things, we still need the original remotes, but it's very nice to
have a remote that controls all the lights, the AV gear and the CCTV and can
perform 95 per cent of the work that needs doing.  Very nice.  Thanks Dave!

> > How many of the "new and better" systems will still be around 30 years
from
> > now?
> >
>
> Good point. "New and better" is not only about technology, they also
> need to understand marketing. So far I don't see that happen.

Dude.  They ramped up sales at X10.com using popunders, popovers, popups,
popouts and spam at a rate that kept breaking records.  I'm not saying those
were *good* tactics but they certainly moved the product.  And now I can
benefit from all of the 2 for 1 vouchers X10.com used to give away.  Those
vouchers caused people to buy far more gear than they ever needed (that's
the hallmark of effective marketing - selling snow to Eskimos).   I liked
the vouchers, personally, and I know a LOT of people here bought lots of
gear with vouchers.  The popup crap I could live without and did, as soon as
I got a popup blocker.

To get X-10 to work reliably in the new world, you need filters, you need a
meter and you need a signal booster like Jeff's XTB.   That's really a small
cost to protect for what some is a fairly large investment in X-10 gear.
IIRC, there was a comment here a while back that claimed over 5 million X-10
devices are in use.  If true, it's going to be a while before any other HA
technology reaches that number.

--
Bobby G.