Homeowner Forum / Home Automation / March 2004

I recently came across a project where all of the door/window/motion wires
run to an alarm panel, but none of them are labeled.
As there are 150+ wires in the system, is there any way to find out where
they go besides just toning them out?   I am trying to avoid injecting a

I'm a regular on this form(in reading at least) and I've seen a lot of
posts lately  about X10 alternatives. I'm about to invest a large
amount of money in retrofitting my home for home automation, and I'm
starting to wonder if X10 is being attacked from all sides and

If one were building a very small one person home and wanted to use
electric baseboard heat..... is there anyway to automate the on/off
times of the units?  Maybe run them all back to a special "timer"
panel at the electrical service?

I put an X10 motion detector in my garage pointing at the garage door
but it does not notice when the garage door opens or closes, only if I
walk in front of it.
When it detects motion, it turns on a light and sounds the chime

One of the reasons we use X10 devices is to save on power. So, when I
got my order from SmartHome.com, I hooked up all those that could
plug in (I also had some hard wired devices) and measured their power
consumption with a Brand power meter I own. It doesn't claim to be

I have used a CP290 control box powered by an old Commodore 128 system
(sitting in a dusty corner of my basement) for the past 15 years or and it
works great!
I recently bought the CM11a unit and am unimpressed with the amount of

Ok,
so I browsed all could find on this topic, which was apparently
discussed here about 2 years ago.
I did find the pan RF protocol (quoted below for those who care), but

   I am looking for a little advice.  Am building a new home and have
appropriated on of the downstairs closets for the medai center.  Will have
an amp, a computer server, cable box, DVD, etc in there and expected it to
get warm so I adjusted plans by having a second door put on ...

I have an hybrid  home automation system, that is based on an industrial
HMI. it does speak DDE or OPC.
I am looking for a software that would accept DDE or OPC calls from that
HMI, and pass them to a CM11A (or any other hardware).

I am just starting up a home automation project. As my own backgrouns is
ICT and software development, I kinda left the electonics side a bit
untouched. My current set-up is a central server (basement) with UTP
connections to basically every room in the house. This works great ...

I just moved into a mid-sized two floor split level house with a full
basement  I'm about to wire and rewire it for video, data, and maybe
voice. Yesterday i realized the house had a small unfinished attic
which is accessible from a hole in the top of my closet. I plan on

I just moved in to a new house and while i'm rewireing parts of it
i've seen that i need some new phone jacks. After looking i've seen i
need more then a few new phone jacks so i thouhght i'd redo the whole
house and i have a few questions.

Hi i posted in the alt security alarm newsgroup about what would be the best
alarm system to integrate in a homeautomation project,and got no real answer
and lot of flame so i ask here...
i want to do the following..(not limited to..)

With the exception of Radio Shack, are there any other "brick and mortar" stores that
sell X-10 (or other brand equivalent) equipment?
I've tried both Wal-Mart and Home Depot, with no luck. Perhaps another national
chain of department stores, hardware, or home improvement store ...

I know you guys are tired of hearing about 3-way x-10 switch problems, but
here we go again.  I have 3-ways that work perfectly with the push buttons.
The problem is controlling them from a transmitter.  I can turn them on, but
not off.  This is with a wired and remote transmitter.. ...