Homeowner Forum / Home Automation / February 2004

My electrician told me that he only runs 18g speaker wire to rooms for
whole house audio.  I asked about 16g (as I have seen this recommended
in this group), and he said he would prefer not to because it is
harder to pull/bend (or something like that).

Has anyone been able to successfully run 'heyu' on a Mac under OS X ??
(Heyu is Unix/Linux X10 software for the CM11A:  'http://heyu.tanj.com')
As far as I can tell, the hangup appears to be in a usb<->serial converter
as the Mac doesn't have a "regular" RS232 serial port.  At ...

I Installed wiring into a new house for a in wall stereo system.  the wires
all meet at a central location which is located under the stairs but I
realized one problem.  there is not going to be any access to the wiring
once I put the system in...  I found a solution by using these ...

I am interested in replacing the current thermostat on my home
furnace.  I would like an X-10 thermostat with programmable settings.
I have heard (but not found) that there are thermostats that can be
controlled from long distance over my home's telephone line.

I have a 6 zone whole house audio system controlled by keypads and
remote. I am using the Rio Receiver to play mp3s for a couple years
and it works pretty well. I am thinking of upgrading due to a few
limitations, but am not sure if anything better is out there. Due to

I've been reading through previous atricles about suspected noise on
the line caused by computer power supplies and haven't really found an
answer.  One thread went on about line levels and signal degridation
and switches that would only work some of the time.  In this case I

i just inhreted a new desk and on the side it has a cabinet which i
saw was
19.5 high, 27 deep, 12 across. I was thinking, can i put a
rackmount(it seems like up to 6u in theory) sever if i fliped the

Dose anyone make switches that look real (aka fit behind a regular
wall plate), but aren't hooked to the light they control (aka the
switch somehow sends a on signal to the real switch which is x10)

Does anyone know yet if the newly announced Black and Decker
"Freewire" home automation system, just a re-branded X10 system?
If not made by X10, is it compatible with X10 (powerline or RF)  at all?

Hello,
I was warned off this sort of system in the past, but I feel that this
may be a good opertunity for me to get a nice development platform
with an LCD without doing too much hardware design. I can then focus

Hey guys,
Here is a new Voice Recognition Software. Its called the Intelligent
Voice Operating System - IVOS - http://www.ivos.biz/.
It has

I'm planning to hang some touchscreen computer monitors on my walls to
control my multi-room audio system.  The computers will be located in
a closet and I'm running the neccessary VGA and serial cables through
the walls to the wiring closet.

Hello to all,
Anyone know how to re-configure wall switches to come on dim and step up
brightness, rather than on at full brightness and step down?
Thanks in advance

I've got some projects in mind which will require interfacing my Linux box
to a phone line.
1) I'd like to be able to send faxes from computers on the network. I've
looked into Hylafax and it seems that it will do the job. I'm not sure

My wife brought several 220 V kitchen appliances when she moved from Europe
to Canada. In our kitchen, there is an outlet which goes directly into the
electric panel with its own breaker. I wonder whether I could change this
outlet to become 220 V and if so, is it just a question of ...