Re: No more X10 at Radio Shack?

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

> When I sell the house the new owners don't even need to care about the
> switches.  They're just like normal switches, requiring nothing special
> about using them.

But will you be able to recover the cost of your investment in RA?  I have
my doubts.  I'm not into making unrecoverable investments - too many years
of watching HGTV.  I also understand that there's a 32/64 device limit, well
under the 256 that X-10 offers.  That immediately puts RA in the back seat
because, believe it or not, I have 48 codes in play and will probably expand
that.

More importantly, RF is *always* subject to interference.  I suppose you can
Faradize your house to keep out EMI from some nearby government transmitter
but that would be a bitch.  Easier to filter the powerline as it comes into
the house than the entire radio spectrum as it pours through the walls.
More importantly to me, X-10 is really a dual protocol, using both RF and
PLC.  That gives me a fast fallback position if the local AF base begins
transmitting a signal that ends up jamming the RF.  Not likely, but not
impossible either.


> Unlike the X10 crap.

Yes.  It's all crap.  Anyone reading this should box all their X-10 stuff up
and sell it on Ebay before the bottom falls out completely.  Palmpads,
Stickaswitches and their larger AAA powered cousins, appliance modules -
sell them now before it's too late.  No reserve price either.  (But drop me
a line if you do!) (/sarcasm off)

> I switched to RadioRa a couple of years ago and it's been absolutely
> fantastic.  Absolutely no troubles whatsoever with switch operation,
> installation and reliability.  They "just work" as one should rightfully
> expect.  X10 is a fraud perpetrated on the public and deserves it's
decline
> in sales.  The stuff's just junk and nobody in their right mind should
waste
> any time or money on it.  Cheap is worthless when it aggravates like only
> X10 can.

It all depends on your "use profile."  Obviously, for a lot of people, X-10
still does the job.  Thanks to Jeff V. and the XTB, the major problem I've
suffered (weak PLC signal) has disappeared and now I am troubled more by the
rotten switch feeling of some of the switches.  Would I like something
better?  Sure!  But there's the little problem of never being able to
justify to my self or my wife any schema that involved a cost of over $100 a
load.  Or even $50 a load.  Her attitude is that we have HA because *I* am
too lazy to get up and turn off a light.  It's hard to advance that position
into one where we spend $1,000's on something that we'll never recover in a
sale.  For us, something like a granite countertop upgrade would be a much
better long-term investment in so many ways than something like RadioRA. . .

But it's really a case of "to each his own."  Reliability is important to
you.  Not breaking the budget is important to me.  Not putting lots of money
into a house we'll be selling soon is also important to me.  X-10 lets me do
a lot of things for very little money.  Not perfectly, but quite well enough
to suit my tastes.

--
Bobby G.