zippofan
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I did my whole house with X-10, and once I found sources of noise on my power lines and eliminated it with filters and a circuit bridge it has been really reliable. I have been an electronics technician, now computer systems manager, plus my dad was an electrician and I learned how to wire a house when I was a kid. When we built our house I installed the X-10 equipment, including security sensors, alarm system and wireless cameras. The whole system is run from an older Mac (XTension software), macros, timed events etc. True, it doesn't have 3rd party monitoring, but it does call my in-laws who live across the street. If you knew my in-laws...they are better than the local PD as far as knowing what goes on at my house (for better and for worse ;-) ) I have been running it for 7 years now without a major glitch. I have had to replace 2 switches and one RF receiver but the components are pretty cheap. I like the Smarthome X10 compatible smart switches but they are much more expensive, that would cut into my watch money!
I think a lot of consumer frustration with X-10 is because of power line noise. I have a noise meter and helped out a couple guys with their systems. At first they were ready to trash their systems, after eliminating noise they were really happy.
I work with an electrician on side jobs, he specs the Lutron system which runs on a proprietary box, essentially Windows software. It's nice but big bucks. That's where I get some of my watch money :D
I used to teach a home automation course for our Continuing Education department, but there hasn't been as much interest lately.
Cheers,
Griff
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