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Home Automation at the
RiggsFamily Residence
Welcome to my small corner of the www to talk
about my home automation.
This all started years ago, approximately in 2000 when I first heard about home
automation.
Since I bought a house and realized that plugging in all the holiday decorations was a task, I figured there had to be an easier way. Yes I could have used timers on all the devices and started looking into that as an option. I came across a website: www.x10.com and read on. Since timers are on and off every day at the set time, I wanted this ability with the computer. My first kit was from x10.com and it included the following:
- CM11A - PC Controller
- LM465 - Lamp Modules x2
- AM466 - Appliance Modules x2
- LM15A - Socket Rocket x1
- MS14A - Eagle Eye Motion Sensor x2
- RR501 - X10 Transceiver
All of this cost me $45 but if I ordered $50 worth then free shipping is applied. So I kept looking on their page and found a single controlled outlet. Top portion is controlled The current deal was buy 2 and get 1 free so I added them to the cart. With sales tax my final cost was $60!!!!
Once all this stuff came in I started setting things up and got started. The nice part about the home automation is you can start off slow and low cost and add on.
I am currently using the following hardware technologies:
- X10
- xap 1wire
- Insteon - have devices but need to install
In addition I am using the following software technologies:
- Homeseer - for PC Based software control
- Homeseer Plugins - to add additional functionality into Homeseer
- Blade Plugins - to add additional functionality into Homeseer
- xap 1 wire software
There are other hardware and software technologies out there. Which you will use is up to you. For hardware there is also... UPB, Z-Wave and new technologies being developed.
Please check out all that I have done by navigating the upper controls and remember.. THIS IS VERY ADDICTIVE!!!!!