[Techtalk] X10 Users?

[Andrea Landaker]

> Does anybody here use X10 gear for home automation?
>
> If so, what programs do you use to get it going under Linux?

Yeah, we were using it for all our Christmas lights, and I'm thinking of 
getting some more components to automate outdoor lights and things like 
that.  :-)

If you have the firecracker module (the one that plugs into your serial port), 
Bottlerocket (http://mlug.missouri.edu/~tymm/) is a command-line utility that 
will work just fine (especially with cron or something like that).  
Rocketlauncher (http://linuxprofessionalsolutions.com/RocketLauncher) is a 
Tcl/tk interface that looks like the little remote pad that you can buy.

If you have the CM11A or CM12A, Heyu (http://heyu.tanj.com/heyu/) is probably 
what you want to use (I haven't tried it though).  If you have this device, 
you can also use x10 input to control your computer using Xtend 
(http://www.jabberwocky.com/software/xtend/) - it's kind of the reverse of 
what you usually do with x10, but also useful.

I haven't tried MisterHouse (http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/) yet, but it 
looks like it does lots of this kind of stuff, though it may be overkill if 
you just want to turn on and off some lights.  :-)

BlueLava (http://www.sgtwilko.f9.co.uk/bluelava/) lets you control your x10 
devices from the web.

There's tons of other progams - just search freshmeat or sourceforge for x10 
if none of these do what you want.  :-)

Oh yes, and maybe you already know this, but you don't have to buy X10 gear 
from x10.com - x10 is just the protocol that the devices use, lots of other 
places sell these kinds of devices, too, sometimes more cheaply.  It's often 
worth looking around, especially if you're buying a bunch at a time.

Hope this helps!

-- 
Andrea Landaker
http://www.icecavern.net/~qirien/