High Tech Household

When I was growing up, it was common to use these devices to control the lights and appliances in your home when away on vacation, or just year-round, to give the appearance of activity within the home and to discourage would-be burglars.  The devices were fairly simple.  You set the on time and off time, plug a lamp into the device, and then plug the device into the wall.  The lamp will go on and off like clockwork every day based on the time you set.  X10 modules work on a similar  principle, but in a much more advanced way.  X10 not only provides the basic security measures of the old analog light timers, but also has the capabilities necessary to create a full-fledged home security system and home automation system.

X10 is a system for transmitting small radio signal bursts over common electrical wires.  The signals are small enough not to cause any interference with household electricity, and large enough to allow disparate devices to communicate with each other.  X10 is an international standard for this signalling, as well as a U.S. based company that sells modules to implement the technology for security and home automation.  X10 modules can be centrally controlled by wireless transmitters (using a receiver module plugged into the main electrical system of a house) and, for advanced automation, a computer software controller program called ActiveHome.

ActiveHome allows the user to turn on lights and other appliances plugged into X10 modules via desktop software.  In addition, automatic macros can be set up that are downloaded into a control module which controls the other devices in a home.  For the example, a macro can be created to turn various lights on and off while on vacation.  For this type of Macro, ActiveHome gives you the following options:

• Set different times and schedules for different days of the week
• Set a standard variance of when the lights go on and off based around a certain time
• Tie the on/off time to sunrise/sunset
• Stagger light on/off time throughout the house to give a realistic feel (e.g. lights in living room go off, followed by lights in bedroom going on a few minutes later).

These options allow you to set up the auto-light security measure in a much more natural-feeling way.  Lights are set up to go on and off at varying times, so they never appear to be on the same schedule two nights in a row.  These simple devices have many other uses as well (for example, we use them to tie in our window Christmas lights, so that we can turn all our window lights on throughout the house with a touch of a button).  The devices themselves are relatively simple, but if you tie them in with the software and control module, the remote control module, and other components, they can be a powerful convenience in automating your home.