Why do so many here still cling to X10 when there are more dependable mesh networks available like zwave, insteon, etc.? Reading through the past posts there are so many war stories with X10, at what point are these headaches no longer worth it? I waited 3 years to install the switches/load handlers in my basement remodel, simply because I had had enough with X10 and ACT's A10 and I knew other mesh products were coming. I'm glad I waited and wonder why others continue to patch a leaky boat.
That's a fair question. Probably for most it's a case of "the devil you know" or the extremely low cost to get started. It's easy to install, there's lots of product options and, once you get it tweaked it's pretty reliable for most users. I recently converted one home to Insteon which has had it's growing pains but is now very stable. My other, smaller home still uses X10 because it works very well and, except for the odd item that throws it a curve ball once in a while, it requires very little maintenance. That being said, if starting from scratch as I will be doing when we move, I will put in all Insteon devices and leave the X10 with this place.
X10 can be virtually 100% reliable. It also offers a lot of bang for the buck.
UPB was supposed to be a panacea, but recent threads indicate it may have a problem with line transients. I recall reading something about a mod coming to address that issue. Noise from CFLs can be a problem for Insteon as well as X10. Insteon also seems to have a reliability problem with the hardware itself.
It seems like every system has its own warts. It may be reliability, cost, limited number of devices available, few sources, ...
X10 patents have expired, so there is a rich selection of devices out there. There is also a range of quality from the low end devices made by X10 to the Leviton switches with gated AGC, which have worked perfectly here (even before I designed the XTB).
Maybe there are more war stories regarding X10 because many more people are using it than the newer systems.
My problem is the age of my wiring. I don't have the separate power supply required for an Insteon switch... only two wires in the box. In fact, I recently bought, and returned, a collection of Insteon products because I was unaware that they required modern wiring to function. SmartHome was gracious enough to refund the vast majority of the purchase price, even though the items had been opened. Their on-line chat help was, well, helpful! Despite the problems I have with X-10, I have very little alternative. But, when a two-wire Insteon switch is available, I'll be first in line!
And, since you're too modest to say it yourself, probably the singlemost improvement in X10 reliability to come along since 1982 has been your XTB and XTB II product line.
Kudos to Smarthome for accepting the return. I hadn't realized that Insteon required a neutral wire to function properly. While X-10 switches do work without a neutral, I have not had any that would work with CFL's in that particular configuration. In my house, that's just the overhead fixtures which we rarely use anyway, so it's not too big a deal. For others, it could be a real PITA. I had one lamp seem to work at the front door but a few hours later the neighbors were asking "why is your front light flashing?" because they thought it was some sort of "help needed" alarm. (-:
Another serious impediment to switching over for me is also the age of the wiring, but for a different reason than yours. I've already broken off wires and had to rip out plaster to fix the problem. I'd really like to avoid that happening again. I intend to replace all the X-10 switches with the original manual switches when we move. That means I want to make sure there's at least one OUT/IN cycle left on the wallbox wires. That makes me really inclined to leave them alone.
Bingo! I read an interview with David Rye that implied that there are at least 2 million X-10 households out there and perhaps as many as 5 million. That's probably more than all other HA protocols combined and multiplied by a number that might be more than a single digit. I believe I quoted that article a while back in another one of these numerous "X10 is dead" threads.
For me, one of the biggest draws is that there's SO much compatible gear out there. In researching another thread's post, I came across another "must have" item for X-10. A device that can spit out complex X-10 macros in response to IR inputs. Now that I've got an X-10 aware video switcher it will be a lot easier to control from a single remote if I can trigger macros via the IR. I'll report on it in another thread.
Since new gear is still appearing for X-10 like the MMIR and the XTB-IIR, the reports of X-10's imminent death seem a little premature, at least. And for the record, I'm betting on there being an XTB-III just because something will turn up that needs it and because the summers are apparently only going to get hotter and hotter leaving less hiking time but more soldering time.
While I left X10 for ZWave, I do miss the richness of the product offerings and the near perfect interoperability between vendors. Zwave has been 100% in all of our installations, but to keep it tight, I have to stick to one vendor.
Yes, indeed. Three cheers for Jeff and his creations, the XTB's! What Jeff's done in many cases is to buy people enough time so that they can keep X-10 going in their current home until they move to a new one. Changing over HA equipment is usually a lot easier to accomplish via moving to a new home rather than retrofitting an old one. Moving time is when lots of people appear to be willing to leave X-10 behind for something more reliable. The longer I can put off switching, the better. It means I won't be locked into early production runs of newly designed equipment that might have serious flaws compared to later models.
And IIRC, you rebuilt your home after a tornado and still chose X-10 as the protocol of choice, even though that would have been the ideal time to move up to something different. The bottom line to the "why use it?" is that it does indeed work most of the time and then next serious step up in reliability carries a price tag that IMHO, doesn't compare favorably. IOW, paying four times as much for a light switch doesn't translate into four times as reliable.
Once I found a source for X-10 filters for $5 each, I didn't feel so badly about factoring in the cost of a filter for all the UPSs, PC's and switch mode supplies I run into. If you're willing to buy an XTB, a few filters and a good X-10 meter, the X-10 world is quite tameable. Look at how quickly Bruce solved his glitch. Sure it would be nice if X-10 were immune to switch-mode power supplies, but since they didn't exist when X-10 was invented, it was hard for the designers to forsee the problems those power supplies would cause.
I find that at least a little odd since I was under the impression that there was only one source of Z-wave chips. With the heart of each Z-wave device made by the same manufacturer, you'd think there would be near perfect interoperability. I recall that someone decided to add more hops to their products, so it's probably fair to say that the Z-wave protocol is still evolving. Let's hope it's evolving and not devolving into vendor-specific fiefdoms.
So far, no one's come close to offering the same range of products that X-10 has, and I am beginning to doubt that they will for a number of reasons, the most important being that it takes a certain critical mass of users to support such a rich palette. People create new equipment with the hopes of reaching the largest number of people and in the HA world, the largest user base by far is still X-10.
When we moved here 4 years ago, I chose to stay with X10, but wanted to do it right. So we updated from all the old X10 push-on / push-off switches to the Leviton "red line" (since replaced by the "green line"). We put all X10 devices on one phase (so the XTB-II isn't really necessary here). I installed a whole-house block, and wired Leviton 6287 filters in series with all CFL ceiling cans. Perhaps most important, I had the electrician run a single circuit throughout the house for known problem loads. That runs through one of those big XPF filters. No other plug-in filters were used. After that things worked nearly 100% without even a repeater. One CFL light in the living room missed its "off" once in a blue moon, but everything else worked day in and day out. With hundreds of X10 commands sent daily, that is pretty high reliability. A simple filter probably would have corrected the CFL problem, but it wasn't significant enough to even bother with.
From the feedback I've received, it seems that many other people are now achieving near 100% reliability.
FYI, there was a new post today regarding UPB Noise problems.
IMnsHO,( ;-) X10 is dieing but it just hasn't realized it yet (or maybe they have and are just milking it to death). They have no new or improved products in relation to their HA line of products. Instead they seem to be focusing on the wireless / entertainment aspect of their product line. I beleive that Z-Wave, Insteon and/or UPB will overtake X10. We're starting to see a lot of new products from all three. Also the price of these new products is comparable with X10, at least the Insteon seems to be. Give that these new products are more reliable I think we'll see more of them being sold. What is really needed is an application where these products are more fool proof. That way the average consumer can use them. I'm not too certain we'll see that but I was impressed with the Linux MCE (
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) video (
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) I saw. It made it seem like the setup was very easy to use.
I'm sticking with Insteon though I did pick up a ZWave USB stick (but it's not code compatible with the ACT ZWave controller, argh) and lamp module. I'd like to pick up a UPB controller and lamp module but it's not high on my priority list. Right now I neeed some software for Mr. House (I'm working on that).
But Ubuntu (and I presume Kubuntu) is still not really ready for the average user. At least one fool found it isn't foolproof.
About a year ago I downloaded the .iso for Ubuntu 6.06, burned a CD, installed it on a laptop without any problems and when it booted it happily connected to my neighbor's unsecured wireless access point (where I could see their tax returns) and connect to the internet. I was impressed (although not with their tax returns). When I tried to conect to my secured wireless access point - no dice. I found thousands of conflicting "How To" pages. When one "how to" even killed my wired connectivity, I removed Ubuntu.
A few weeks ago I decided to try again with Ubuntu 7.04. I downloaded 7-8 copies of the .iso before getting one to validate. The software they recommended for burning the CD destroyed three CD-RWs. I used the burner built-in to XP and successfully burned the CD which I could see but which would not boot. I ordered a DVD from Amazon. It booted but froze halfway through the install. I started over with the same results. I started over and chose the "Install using text" option which went OK except I didn't know which wireless access point (wifi0 or ath0) it found was mine and picked the wrong one (it said no DHCP). I started over, picked the other one (got DHCP) and it installed the right drivers for my D-Link DWL-G650 card but I could not connect until finding, manually installing and configuring Net Manager (which the docs claimed was installed automatically). I now can connect to my secure WAP and it only took about 4 weeks of near constant effort.
All this so that now that I've found a reliable, no minimum, source for the
64KB EEPROM needed, I can resume developing roZetta and offer a Linux version. But I'm not about to offer assistance for anyone wanting to install Ubuntu. :(
I've had 2 homes involved with HA over the years, in both I felt I needed to be concerned about the next owner and the inevitable home inspection process at selling time. In my first home I did remove the X10 stuff as it was not reliable enough, (mostly signal thrashing, relay chatter, etc), before home inspection. In this home I have about 55 Insteon devices that so far have been 100 percent reliable. These 55 are in the basement alone where there is an elaborate home theater with a large number of accent lighting circuits and scenes, and an adjoining dance floor disco with more effect lighting. It's a
2 story home and I'll eventually add more Insteon to the main and upper floors, and still need a few more in the basement for stage drape control, etc. After using X10 for years I feel confident now I would not be sticking the next owner with an unreliable system. Although there are a few things I still cant do with Insteon, like dawn/dusk detection, but that will come. BTW I am also running 2 UPS systems on my computers and a moderate number of CFL's, I have no signal bridge, just 2 RF wall repeaters on the main and 2nd floors, I dont use any 24/7 computer control, just a desktop application to program the Insteon network devices occasionally. I can honestly say that I have never experienced a real glitch yet.
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