Telephone control of X10

Greeting, I located this unit:

It's still for sale - I just saw one at Fry's a few days ago. Smarthome has them too. I have one I'll sell to you for $29 delivered in the US.

You want to reset a device affected in God knows what way by a "power surge" remotely via your telephone. I would strongly suggest that you not do this.

Why not? I do it all the time when a router locks up or a camera or other device needs a reboot. Been doing it for years and it's saved me having to call friends to go to the house I'm away from to do it for me.

I've seen power surges take out power supplies in ways that aren't pretty. Mind you, when the house fills with smoke, I imagine you'll get a text message telling you so... :-) In an installation we recently took over from a large national alarm company the technician had stuffed all the paperwork inside the common control which would have resulted in much more than simple smoke.

All true but keep in mind that the X10 relay being controlled remotely is still likely in the ON position that it was in when the surge occurred so, turning it off and back on will just do nothing if the PS is totally fried. If the breaker popped then X10 controls won't respond anyway. But if what you're trying to do is simply reboot a confused cable modem, router or PC that's become unstable for whatever reason, the X10 telephone responder will work quite nicely.

I suppose. But then I'm not living in paradise. With a place like yours, you'd have a hard time getting me out of the pool. If you were successful in dragging me out, the concrete would be scored with my fingernails and the neighbors would be filing a noise complaint. :-)

It's the TR-16A.

Hi Bruce,

I am interested, but can we continue this off list. I tried sending a couple of messages direct to you, but evidently didn't make the correct mods to your email address. Thanks