XTB - the Future of X10 has arrived!

Great news!

I'll bet that an XTB will help you maintain your Stargate installation running smoothly despite the issues created by having so many Insteon devices.

-- Bobby G.

Please point to more info on this..... Thanks

More information is available at:

Several of the documents are being revised and converted to HTML at this time, but the earlier versions are still available.

Let me know if anything is unclear

Jeff

Robert,

I'm not clear as to the differencebetween the Smart home booster and this XTB unit. They both sound like they boost the signal, but as you pointed out the booster is not limited to only what is plugged into it.

Dennis

They work in different ways. The Booster Link can be plugged in anywhere, and monitors the line for X10 traffic. I understand it echoes any recognized X10 command during the repeat time slot.

The XTB amplifies a signal from a X10 transmitter on a cycle by cycle basis. So the output is just a high energy version of the input.

There is a report from a beta tester who compared the XTB with a Booster Link installation:

Best results with the XTB are obtained by locating it near the electrical distribution panel where the load is heaviest. The heaver the load, the harder it drives. But, it should help wherever it is plugged in.

As can be seen in his results, just moving the TW523 near the breaker panel worked almost as well as adding 2 Booster Links to a non-optimal TW523 installation.

Jeff

BoosterLinc amplifies the signal in realtime and, in cases where the signal is only for single/split phase, creates it for the other phases. Aside from the latter feature, the difference is that your device has a higher output.

I'm counting on it!

The XTB's going to allow me to keep using X-10 until "the next big thing" emerges in HA and maybe even beyond that. Whether it's Z-Wave, Zigbee, Insteon, UPB or something else apparently remains to be seen. I've been less than happy with X-10 for a while now, primarily because of signal strength issues.

The XTB has allowed me to restore a number of items that had been consigned to the dustbin because they could not reach every part of the house even with a repeater. (My experience with repeaters was both costly and fruitless.) Fortunately most of the loads I want to control are on one phase, but I'd like to be able to reach everywhere without any problems so I've ordered a simple capacitor and more complex tuned circuit SignalLinc passive coupler to test with the XTB. My feeling is that the .11 volt signal that I get on the phase opposite the XTB (via street pole transformer coupling) will jump. How much, I can't say.

The best part of all this is that the new technologies are forcing the prices of X-10 equipment on Ebay to outrageously low levels so that I can easily afford to be 1 level deep in spares on every item and 3 or 4 levels deep on critical items.

In addition, I have an inside line on some new X-10 devices that I believe will be nearly as revolutionary as the XTB, at least for some of us.

Please don't take this as an insult, Bruce, but what I want to avoid is a system like yours that's straddling multiple technologies. I also need something simple enough that if it fails when I am away, I can walk my wife through some basic troubleshooting. I also stand a chance of her swapping a bad module or having her shut down the quirky parts of the system and go to manual control until I return. I wonder about some of the other systems I read about. What happens when the original designer is out-of-service for any reason? The Leviton repeater had her going into the box and flipping breakers one too many times which is why we're repeaterless. :-)

-- Bobby G.

No offense taken! Had I known about the XTB a few months ago I would have waited before jumping onto the Insteon bandwagon. I'm still using X10 in my other home and I will still use X10 for some signalling with the Insteon using the XTB. The reports so far have been glowing and I can't wait to get my hands on them. The big question in my mind is, "why didn't X10 develop this

20 years ago and eliminate all the repeaters and other "fixes" and problems that have plagued it?" It seems to me that just turning up the volume on the signal is so elegant in its simplicity that it would have been done before now. In any case, hats off to Jeff for doing it!

I have two theories. One is size and cost - it costs a little more to add the circuitry and I assume it would make all the X-10 modules larger. I don't know how Insteon achieves higher voltage in a small package but from some of the reports it seems they may not be doing it quite well enough to avoid lamp flickering during a transmission. Since the XTB is a discrete module, there's very little chance of any kind of interaction with the transmitting device's circuitry.

The second theory is that X-10 still envisioned a world where everyone was using X-10 and the 5 volt limit was a way to prevent interference between adjoining houses on the same power transformer. I've been tempted to take my Monterey next door to see how strong the signal is, but I fear that after that test, any light that blew or device that failed next door would some how be attributable to my X-10 devices.

I am sure that my neighbors on the left don't use X-10 and the ones on the right that just moved in and had a houseparty bonfire that nearly burned

*my* house down - well, I'm just praying they use X-10 and never hear about the XTB.

-- Bobby G.

That's interesting because I have a CM11A with a date code of "4A7" (which I believe means 1984 but could be 1994) whose output appears to be greater than much more recent TM751's. At least that's what I thnk I am seeing based on attenuation extrapolation since both my meters peg out at under 5 volts. The CM11A's got a revision code of PG0281M in case that's any help in figuring out whether it's 84 or 94. I seem to recall buying it at Egghead just before I changed jobs, which would have made it around 1985.

When testing the XTB I plugged in various transmitters to a power strip in my PC room. Then, for each one in turn, I read the output at the far end of the house. To my surprise, while the TM751 was outputting from .42 to 48 millivolts the CM11A clocked in at .58 to .62 millivolts. Now I realize that there could be a number of factors that attenuate each transceiver's output differently but it really surprised me to see since I recall having measured it before and seeing an output that was half that of the RR501's that I been using. I am certain I've seen lots of tables that indicate the CM11A's relatively anemic output yet that's not what I am seeing in the real world.

I also realize it could be just a fluke of the Monterey's measuring circuitry as well. The numbers are too small to make sense of with the ESM1. When the new XTB's arrive, I'm going to try to do as formal a comparison as I can without an o'scope and may finally come 'round to buying the USB o'scope you had suggested a while back. I've regained interest in a lot of X-10 gear that I had to abandon because the signals just wouldn't reach everywhere no matter how much filtering I did.

Do you think the CE limits are safety based or are they just in place to limit interference to nearby buildings? I'm assuming interference is more important in Europe than the US because European population density is so much higher.

-- Bobby G.

[snip]

It could even mean 2004. I believe the CM11A was introduced in 1997 although it may have been in beta testing a year earlier. Where did you park your tardis in 1985?

Since you really can't measure the maximum output, you can't draw conclusions. Different transmitters may also react differently to loading. I have measured several CM11As (or HD11As) as well as several other transmitters using both a scope and one of the pre-ELK ESM1 meters which was calibrated for 10Vpp fullscale. The CM11A, CM15A, 30001 (Stanley Homelink tramsceiver), and HCPRF (Leviton All Housecode Transceiver) output 5-6Vpp while every other transmitter I've tested is in the 10Vpp neighborhood.

It's easy to recalibrate the ESM1. Open it up and you'll see a potentiometer. Using an RR501 or TM751 in the same powerstrip, adjust it for fullscale. You should then see about halfscale with a CM11A.

I haven't tried to keep up with this but I think this was the best reasonably priced USB scope a year or so back.

I spent nearly 20 years in the machine tool industry, importing capital equipment from Europe (and elsewhere). In those pre-CEdays many of the "safety" regulations in various European countries were intended to protect local manufacturers from foreign competitors. I suspect there's still an element of that in most CE rules with frequencies and limits set to maximize inconvenience for US and Asian companies.

European power limits for wireless transmitters (e.g. Palmpad) are many, many times greater than FCC limits so I doubt population density is a controlling factor.

Remember, also, that Europe uses 230V instead of 120V.

My bad! I used my X-10 database instead of going back up the stairs to the attic to look at the actual CM11A. The real date code is 7C11. One day I decided to enter all my X-10 gear into a database and had a tendency to overuse "set carry on" to deal with repeating data. As near as I can tell, it got swapped with an RR501's date code and revision number. The CM11A has no revision number or if it did, it's fallen off. I bought the 4 button belt-clip transmitter kits that came packaged with the RR501 precursor from Egghead in 1985.

I'm beginning to think that might be part of what I am seeing - different performance based on the power line characteristics.

The good news is that apparently the XTB is a "great equalizer" when it comes to variable input voltages. When I plugged each unit (the CM11A, the HCPRF and the TM751), in turn, to the power strip plugged into the XTB the output at the other end was the same for each transmitter, which IIRC, was .25 volts.

I may try that but the reality is that I'm more interested in real world performance in my house. To that end I was surprised that the CM11A signal would end up being stronger at the end of a long run. I would have expected attentuation to occur uniformly over the same circuit pathway.

Yeah - that's the one. Whether I'll be able to learn to use it to analyze X-10 signals is another matter entirely. Right now, though, I've got an overly full plate.

Good point about the RF range. Peculiar they'd limit the output but it's probably at the point where there's little chance of the signal propagating to another house.

-- Bobby G.

They haven't anyone on staff with Jeff Volp's skills. :^)

That's like saying that you've discovered the future of the steam boiler powered cariage.

X10 is primitive technology from the days of the 110 baud modem. Maybe you can tell us about the future of the 110 baud modem while you're at it.

While higher bandwidth is always welcome for broadband connections, the X10 technology's problem has never really been one of speed but of reliability and resistance to interference from other PLC signal generators or signal "suckers." So solving that one item can make X10 technology useful for many more years even though the days of the 110 baud modem have thankfully passed.

It's funny you should draw that parallel. Here's a recent article about a new kind of steam carriage that shows that *old* technology, properly enhanced, can really be the way of the future:

INSPIRATION ENGINE SPEC Two stage turbine on single spool Output: 300bhp at 12,000rpm (turbine speed) (225kw) Output shaft gear ratio: 4:1 or 4.45:1 to twin output shafts Differential: Epicyclic type with viscous couplings

"Steam-powered vehicles are not usually deemed as being parked at the cutting edge of transport technology. Nor do they seem to be the type to race across desert landscapes in a bid to smash land speed records in the

21st Century. But British design engineer Glynne Bowsher and his team have almost finished building a super-fast vehicle reminiscent of the Batmobile. And this car puts a new technological breath of life into what is regarded as a traditional means of power." [article continues at URL above]

It goes on to talk about pollution and how steam engines could greatly reduce it. Aside from carriages, steam has shown remarkable progress on the nano-technology front. Search on "micro steam engines" in Google to find any number of remarkable miniature steam engine stories.

So it's pretty clear that only someone with a very accurate crystal ball can tell when a technology is *really* obsolete. Jeff's device corrects the one fatal flaw in X-10 - its weak signal - and elegantly fixes it. The world of X-10 using a controller outputting 20+ volts is a very different one from the traditional world of the 5 volt transmitters, repeaters, boosters, couplers and the myriad software techniques used to try to improve signal reliability.

The XTB world has no borderline signals. For me, it didn't require going into the circuit breaker panel. My unit gives me a .11 volt signal on the

*opposite* phase without coupling. Active couplers, repeaters and boosters, by their very nature, both give and take when used in an X-10 system. You gain signal strength, but it is often at the expense of losing functionality, or worse, still, reliability.

I have no doubt that when the first batch of production XTB's hit the field, the reports will make even *you* wonder if there ain't some life left in that ol' X-10 dog, still.

Does living in your world mean we have to abandon everything that's "primitive" technology? That would mean giving up the underlying 110VAC electrical system - that sucker's over 100 years old.

Darn if you can't take a lamp from 1940 and plug it in to a wall and it will work. You can also plug your brand new laptop into the very same outlet and it will work, too. You can plug either device into a outlet almost anywhere in the country and it will work.

You can take a basic 1980 set of X-10 modules and do a pretty good job of automating that 66 year old lamp - or a 6 year old one. The age of X-10's "network topology" doesn't really have a lot to do with its effectiveness.

Standards are good things for the end user. X-10's issues have mostly been with continually devolving state of the home wiring "grid" - namely the advent of CFL's and signal sucking switching power supplies. So it seems somewhat unjust to abandon a technology simply because of what existed (110 bps modems) when it evolved. Would we have to give up plumbing because the concept dates back before the Roman era?

Certainly X-10 is not the fastest protocol, but what does it really matter in a home? If you can't stand the fractions of seconds that it takes for complex macros to execute, by all means go hardwire. Most X-10 users can live with the current speed limit, especially at 1/10 the cost of competing, albeit more reliable, systems. Besides, what do you need to transmit across the powerline that needs gigabit speeds?

What I needed from X-10 and wasn't getting was reliability. Commands would fail to execute because of a number of problems, all basically attributable to signal strength. The XTB solved that problem and made X-10 a whole new ball game. Try it before you knock it.

BTW, what protocol are you favoring in the four or five way race to replace X-10? There are going to be more losers than winners 10 years from now. The test will be when you go to sell your house with the InsteWaveUPBXXX automation system that's gone the junkyard and they demand you rip it out before the sale!

My guess is that 10 years from now, X-10 will still be hanging in there, just like the national power grid. I know the XTB has greatly increased X-10's odds of dancing on its wannabe successor's grave.

-- Bobby G.