Strange X10 Lamp module problem

There have been many reports of sudden plagues of random ONs and/or OFFs after the installation of a "Smart" Meter by various electrical utilities in various parts of the country. All of them appear to use LonTalk (although identifying it by the ANSI standard number) to communicate between meters and the Data Aggregator which usually serves all of the meters on the same transformer. It appears to affect X10-made modules and switches (but not those made by Smarthome).

We have an RF reading electric meter in this house. The guy from the power company parks up at the top of the mountain and can access everyone below. But this problem occurred at night and the modules both appeared to lock up in the off condition, until they were power cycled. If it were only one, ok, but 2, side by side, on the same house and unit code? And, there were not other lockups in the entire house. Weird.

Per dlh:

Just to make sure: would it affect hard-wired X10 modules?

I've been beating my brains out for the better part of a year trying to figure out why one of my modules (located in a relatively inaccessible place) keeps getting turned on.

Until now, I've been thinking either defective module or some neighbor using X10's on the same-lettered scheme.

I don't recall anyone reporting problems with hard-wired modules specifically but I suspect they are as vulnerable as the others.

Who is your electric utility? Duke Energy seems to have the most problems and it's not only when the meter is being read.

It's definitely Duke. The power is not very constant. I even see voltage drops from heat pump motors starting that are not in my house .... most likely, the guy across the street on the same transformer. But, X10 had been really clean. Much cleaner than in my old house in suburban Chicago (for X10, that is). I have called Duke for voltages going high, like 125 -130 volts. When I called them, they immediately said it was their problem and corrected it within an hour or so. But, over the months, it has crept up again, to about 120, which I guess is ok. I think it crept up because others on the same feed complained about low voltage and they corrected it the easy way. BTW, at 123 volts or so, I've had some electronic equipment get squirrelly. That's what made me start looking at voltages.

1. The Noise could be code dependant.. switching to different module/house code.
2. I have found that certain motion activated or dusk/dawn light (inside or outside) control units often generate lots of RF line noise.. Ergo the problem shows up at after dusk.
3. Any of the cheaply made non-fcc approved, ac to dc walwarts could make lot's of RF noise.. (Start up-plugging things, or flipping breakers.)

Duke and other utilities are using an Echelon Data Concentrator (or similar devices made by others but still using LonTalk). I think there is one per transformer and they act as a router with the ability to query the meters, shed loads, etc. and send usage data to the central office over the powerlines. They may not have implemented all of the features initially. In the Cincinnati area numerous X10 users have seen random turn-ons which appear to be caused by very high amplitude

86kHz signals from the data concentrators. Duke has told one person that Echelon is working on a filter that they will try at his residence when received.

Jeff Volp has found a combination of clamp-on ferrites plus a filter across the two hot legs that also seems to filter the signals.

I suspect it's the amplitude (which rises in response to "noise") of the signals that is causing the problem, acting like spikes which X10 has acknowledged causes similar issues. In two cases, people experiencing the problem found that Smarthome made X-10 modules set to the same address appeared to be immune. This was, however, a very small sample size so YMMV.

This may or may not be the cause of your issue but I think it's worthwhile for all X10 users to be aware of it with the nationwide rollout of smart meters.

I live across the river from Cincinnati and my area was an early test area for Duke about 5 years ago. I saw no X-10 issues (most of my gear is not X10-made) but did have some inexpensive appliances with electronic controls go berserk.

Well, this was a random turn off, but once it was off, it was locked and could not be turned back on, until I power cycled the modules. And, in my area, Duke uses an RF system to read the meters. I talked to the Duke guy, whose son lives in my subdivision, and he said that he goes to the highest point and reads all the meters below, from his truck. He actually changed out my meter because it was not the proper type that could be read from his RF reader. Also, this happened at night, maybe

10PM, when I seriously doubt that he was doing any meter reads.

When a lamp gets turned off the impedance of the house circuit increases and the noise can be higher at the unit than if the circuit had more load on it. Standing waves and reflections can increase the amplitude of the noise when unloaded.

I always had problems with my wireless X10 units. They would think they heard signals and repeat them. Usually all lights on signals would happen or they would lock up and send continuous noise locking up the system.

Many smart meter systems send signals regularly and intermittently to the other smart meters so that the master data gatherer can access meters "hidden" from where it sits. Number of data jumps can be limited in the meter software as that can also lock up the network by perpetual repeats of data bouncing around.

10PM, when I seriously doubt that he was doing any meter reads.

What's plugged into it?

-- Bobby G.