new technologies, new ideas, a new kind of home
A couple of weeks ago, Beaver, our jet black indoor-only house cat, made a break for it while the front door was open for unloading groceries. It was dark and we didn’t notice until the next day when she didn’t show up for food. I checked cloud storage on our Ring floodlight cameras and saw the shifty little beast sneaking around the front yard, but, around 2:30 am, she crept past my truck and out of view of any cameras.
When you get started on your home automation journey, it is REALLY easy to go down a rabbit-hole. If you’re not careful and disciplined, you can end up making a lot of extra work for yourself that could be avoided with good planning. That’s in addition to the extra work you can cause by changing technologies in the middle of your project!
I need to make a brief detour on our project to integrate X10 sensors into a larger home automation system. Normally, I try to avoid any side trips that may end up taking me down a rabbit hole, but I need to cover the communication method that I plan to use to connect the disparate components of the system together – MQTT.
In this second installment on X10, I want to show you how easy it is to send signals on the CM15a. In PART I, I showed you how to use the SDK to log messages (build a viewer, basically), so the logical next step is to have the ability to send instructions to switches, plugs, and outlets, right?
Continue reading “Integrating X10 into your Home Automation System II”
X10 is the OG of the Smart Home universe. The protocol was developed in 1975 in Scotland and modules started showing up in Sears, Radio Shack, and mail order magazines a couple of years later. Its amazing the range of X10 devices you can still find in use in both residential and industrial environments.
Continue reading “Integrating X10 into your Home Automation System”