Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Anyone use Insteon or X12 home automation?

Likes/dislikes? Was it worth the hassle?

I'm rewiring my roof so I'm also open to suggestions on what to wire for future use. I prefer the DIY capability of these options versus the pro route. Then I can add as I can afford it.

Thanks!

I haven't looked at the stuff in a couple of years but I used to have a lot of my old house running on X-10 stuff. Most of my light switches were X10, lamps had lamp modules, powerbar for my TV stuff was all hooked to an X10 module, coffee maker and I also had a motion detector set for night only so when I walked downstairs in the dark it turned on the living room light and the bathroom light.

The best use was a wireless light switch right by my bed that could turn off all house lights without me getting up or with the press of another button I could turn on the bedroom light in the morning, the downstairs lights and start the coffee maker in one go.

X10 is fun, cheap, easy to use and you don't need to pre-wire anything. On the other hand, it is not high quality gear AT ALL. Expect modules to stop working after a year or two and they don't provide feedback signals so you couldn't "accurately" tell what state a switch was in from your PC or web access.

All that being said, if you are doing it for the fun of it, X10 is the cheapest answer to many fun solutions of convenience. I didn't get into it again in my new house. I will probably look at better gear if I decide to do it again.

I've looked at X10 and passed on it before. The Insteon seems more durable, a friend uses it. It's wall mountable as well, versus plug in only.

The biggest plus is that I can control it from my iPhone or Touch. My plan would be to get it to run on Mac Mini/iMac and then use the iPhone/Touch as the portable controller. Then when I'm out of the house or on travel, I could VNC into my Mac for remote control. I already have a webcam that I can see from any browser and it's cool to check on the house when I'm not there.

I have been using X10 for several years and am very pleased with the setup. I even got the remote commands on my MX-900 and MX-700 remotes.

One thing you should consider with whatever you choose. An electrical panel has 2 sides (and essentially 2 circuits) and sometimes the commands for the X10s don't make the trip from one side to the other consistently. I had a phase coupler/repeater installed on the panel and all those problems went away - commands work every time.

Yup, I have Xfmr problems running Powerline Ethernet. Fortunately, almost all of the light panels I'd be touching will probably be all new wiring.