Whither Home Automation?

by Bob Seidel

I have written about the automated home in prior articles, but I came face-to-face with the subject again recently.

Home automation ("the home of the future!") has been trumpeted for years as the way to make life more comfortable by automating tasks around the home. Initially the technology wasn't available in the mass market, but in 1974 a company called Pico in Scotland developed the X10 technology. X10 consisted of relatively inexpensive transmitter and receiver modules that communicated via normal household 110 wiring. You could assign individual addresses to each receiver module and control them from transmitters scattered about the house, or eventually from a PC. So, if you wanted to automate a lamp, you would plug the lamp into an appropriate X10 receiver module, set the address, and then just press a button on a transmitter located anywhere to turn the light on, off, or to dim it. Wireless transmitters were developed that were particularly convenient, as you could use one of these handheld units anywhere.

Radio Shack, Sears, and General Electric soon began to be major distributor of the modules. A steady stream of new devices was announced, from automated draperies to driveway vehicle detectors. One of the most popular items was the CP290 PC interface, which allowed you to literally program all the X10 devices in your house to run automatically. A special feature of the CP290 was that you could load a "program" of events into it, and it would run without the PC being on - perfect for home security when you were away.

I started my X10 use about 1989. I used it at first for light control, later to automatically turn on my coffee pot in the morning, automatically close and open my garage door opener, and eventually using it to control my hot water heater. Back up in Raleigh, you could save a significant amount of money if you used power only off-peak; I used the X10 controls to shut off the electric water heater during peak periods. Very slick.

But technology matures in strange ways. I worked for a company in Raleigh that was developing a technology for TV distribution around the home that was also really slick. But we couldn't sell it - nobody was interested. The company eventually went out of business. It was, as we say in the business, a solution looking for a problem.

In a similar manner, X10 just never caught on, beyond a core group of enthusiasts. Although I included home automation in Bob Seidel Consulting's line of services, I never really had much call for it. So, I just continued to use it as I had for years, and lost track of the latest developments.

This all came to a head for me the other day. My faithful, daily used CP290 was showing signs of impending failure. I decided that it was time to check out the latest and greatest.

Well, to my complete surprise, there wasn't much. I knew that the CP290 had been phased out in the late 1990's, but its replacement from X10 (the CM11A) was not as good and had a severe overheating problem (which I personally witnessed). The CM11A was still the current offering from the X10 company.

But I knew that other companies had gotten into the act, and I had a webpage bookmark list of a number of distributors. I found to my dismay that most of those webpages were no longer valid, and even the companies that were still in the business were not showing anything more recent.

I did more research and, to my salvation, I found that the Home Automation business is still alive and kicking, but still limited to the core enthusiast group, or to very high-end home installations. I did find that there is a new PC attached controller called the "Ocelot", which looks like it will more than fit my requirements. And, more importantly, a new techie toy to play with!

(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).