Confessions of a gadget junkie

Richard Cochran

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Feb 1, 2002, 3:06:54 PM2/1/02

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It all started innocently enough...

I bought a house last summer. The previous owner had put low-voltage
wiring around the front walkway, the deck, and the back yard. But the
lights could only be controlled by plugging or unplugging the
transformers at the outdoor outlets. I almost never used the lights,
because it's too much trouble to run outside and plug them in,
especially if it's already dark.

I decide X-10 was a nice way to control the lights. I got a "sticky
switch", an appliance module for each of the three transformers, and
an RF transceiver. Voila! I could switch the lights on and off from
the front door! I put waterproof outlet covers over all the outdoor
outlets, so the appliance modules could stay protected while
everything was plugged in.

About a day or two later, switching became unreliable, and finally
wouldn't work at all. Was it the sticky switch? The RF transceiver?
Oh well, I wanted a control for the back door anyway, so I got an
8-unit RF remote to put on the windowsill near the back door. It came
with its own tranceiver, so that meant I had redudancy. I also got a
simple hardwired mini-controller, since it's cheap and it lets me test
things without worrying about RF problems.

Taking the new gear home, I found that everything worked except the
sticky switch. Replaced its battery -- still bad. Lesson 1: some of
this stuff is junk. Sticky switch gone.

Now I'm getting sucked in, finding the RF remote is kind of nice. I
put it into a ziploc bag and take it to the hot tub. I can leave the
backyard and deck lights on, go soak in the tub, turn the lights off
for stargazing while I'm out there, and then turn them on when I get
out. I decide I need a lamp module to control the interior light just
inside the back door.

I decide to replace the ziploc bag with a nice waterproof cover for my
RF remote, as sold by smarthome.com. I also want to get another RF
remote for the front door, to replace the junk sticky switch. And
while I'm at it, it would be nice to have a couple of keychain remotes
so that I can switch on the front walkway lights from the car. So I
place a smarthome.com order for these items.

The package arrives, and the new gadgets are nice. But the keychain
remotes don't have very good range. Sure would be nice to be able to
use my garage door opener remote, which works from a half-block away.
Plus, that wouldn't clutter up the car, since I've already got the
garage remote in there anyway. But it only has one free button.

I went shopping at Fry's electronics last weekend, and saw a CM11A
package, including the CM11A, ActiveHome software, a 6-in-1 IR/RF
remote, a tranceiver, a lamp module, and yet another keychain remote,
all for $49.95. I don't really need all that, but that's a nice deal,
and the CM11A is a cool gadget, so I spring for it.

I take the CM11A home, and find that macros are great fun! I've set
up a macro that turns the front walkway lights on, and then turns them
off 10 minutes later, all with a single button press on the keychain
remote. I set up an "all units off" macro that's usable via my RF
remotes, which don't normally have a button dedicated to this. I set
up a corresponding "all lights on" macro that actually turns on all my
lights -- Since I'm using appliance modules for the low-voltage
transformers, they had been ignoring the standard "all lights on"
command. I set up a dusk-to-7:00pm timer for my front walkway lights.
I set up a timer to flash the deck lights as an alarm clock on weekday
mornings, since I sometimes get up early and go out to the hot tub,
but I need a reminder of when it's time to get ready for work.

Now that I've got the walkway lights going both on and off after a
timed interval with a single button press, I start thinking about that
garage door remote... I take apart one of my keychain remotes, and
solder a pair of wires to the PC board where one of its buttons was.
Now, shorting together those wires causes the lights to go on, and
turn off 10 minutes later. Tomorrow, I'm getting a garage door
receiver unit that's compatible with my the garage door remote. I'll
hook the wires from the keychain remote to the garage door receiver
terminals, and voila! No more keychain remote needed in the car.

Now that I've got a CM11A, I'm thinking a chime module sure would be
nice, so I can have an alarm clock that only wakes me up on weekdays.

I still don't have any X-10 switches controlling overhead lighting,
and I don't think I really need any, because my ordinary hardwired
light switches are pretty well located and convenient... I guess...

Does it ever end????

--Rich

Guy Lavoie

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Feb 1, 2002, 3:56:02 PM2/1/02

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Then you'll want IF-THEN... control, so you'll get something like an
Ocelot to do all that...and then regret that you didn't buy the Leopard
instead because you sould do sssoooo much more with that touch screen!
Next the overhead lights will get converted to X-10 because your "good
night" macro would be so much more complete. Then you'll want to preheat
the hot tub from work, so web access will need to be addressed, so a
package like Homeseer will be next, then the web cams, then the audio
distribution, video, etc. etc. Are there clinics that treat this yet ?
:-)

Chris

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Feb 1, 2002, 6:16:25 PM2/1/02

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I'm doing my HA for real this time and am thinking about doing computer
control and "other" stuff...why the Ocelot or the Leopar instead of just
using my Linux box? What exactly to they get you?

Guy Lavoie wrote:

--
"The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife."
-- David Ogilvy

Frank J. Perricone

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Feb 1, 2002, 6:30:43 PM2/1/02

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On Fri, 01 Feb 2002 15:56:02 -0500, Guy Lavoie <g...@lavoie.com> wrote:

> Are there clinics that treat this yet ?

They started designing one once, but they're still trying to figure out
what distribution panel to use in the wiring closet.

--
"It is more uplifting to find the beauty, wonder, spirituality, and
reverence in what we can see, than to imagine they only exist in what we
can't see." - hawt...@starband.net http://hawthorn.mystarband.net/
Nucleus Home Automation: http://guest:gu...@nucleus.webhop.net/

sp...@aol.com

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Feb 1, 2002, 9:12:09 PM2/1/02

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Richard Cochran wrote:

> snip <
>
> Does it ever end????

Yes, it's called marriage.

Guy Lavoie

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Feb 2, 2002, 10:56:08 AM2/2/02

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I used those as an example because I use them myself :-) To answer your
question though, These are good units if you don't want to have or rely upon a
PC running 24 hours a day to do your automation. With these units, you use a
PC to create the program and then download it to the controller. There are
also several types of I/O expansion modules available for them. I just happen
to really like these controllers, and so do several others here. Good luck
with your project!