X10 in the Flynn Home
It all started years ago... I saw an offer to get some home automation thingamajig for free; just pay a $5 shipping charge. It came, I connected it to my computer and a lamp, it didn't do anything that I could see, and I put it back in the box and forgot about it.
Then I just happened upon an article on X10 and thought it sounded cool. I started searching for cheap stuff on e-bay, and when I saw a picture of the "starter kit" I realized that's what I had. I got it out, set it up (right this time) and found I could turn on/off a lamp connected to the transceiver module with either a remote or my computer. That Christmas I plugged my outside lights into the Transceiver module, and could turn my Christmas lights on/off by using the remote!
Then I found SourceForge.net and one day I stumbled across A.L.I.C.E. ALICE is a JAVA program that allowed me to actually use my CM17 "firecracker" module and software to schedule my X10 modules turning on/off. Kewl! After figuring out how to get everything setup on my computer for ALICE to work (that wasn't exactly easy, making sure I had all the right JAVA stuff and variables set correctly), I could schedule lights, radios, what have you to come on/off at scheduled times on scheduled days. I made a very complex schedule to turn stuff on/off on certain days at different times to make our house look "lived in" while we went away on a vacation. In making this schedule I was hoping ALICE would develop to make complex things like that easier.
But it didn't. Then one day I found MisterHouse. Now, Bruce has it going...way more than I have the $ or effort to try, but he's really come up with something that even I could do some pretty cool stuff with using mostly "commodity" X10 parts. And it also supported the CM17 "firecracker" module. I had to learn a bit of PERL, but it wasn't too hard. With all the variables built into Mr. House, I could do some things I had wanted to do for quite some time.
With ALICE, I had to modify my porch lights on/off times throughout the year. MisterHouse has built-in variables that figure dusk/dawn based on your latitude and logitude. Now I have my lights turn on at dusk and turn off at dawn, and the time of day when they turn on/off actually changes with the tilt of the earth's axis! I spruced the PERL code up a bit to add some variability (enhancing that "lived in" look again), and now have them turn on at a variable time within 30 minutes before dusk, and turn off at a variable time within 20 minutes after dawn.
My Christmas lights are set to turn on an hour before dusk, and turn off at midnight. Except on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; they're on 24-hours on those 2 days.
I have little children who, of course, like to turn the lights on and leave them on. I installed a bunch of X10 light switches in the house (which also turn your lights into dimmers, by the way), and have them set to turn off every 30 minutes from 2 hours after sunrise till 2 hours before sunset.
My biggest accomplishment was saving my archaic sprinkler system control box. It's an oldie: a dial to set the day of the week, screws to set which days to turn the sprinklers on, and a 3-hour repeating timer on it. So when set to Automatic, on the days it's supposed to turn on the sprinklers, it turns them on every 3 hours. I could never really "soak" my yard, cuz it didn't need to be soaked 8 times a day, just once in the morning, but I wasn't about to let each station run for 15 minutes every 3 hours! I finally decided to open the wallet and buy a new controller box, but then I had an idea to use an X10 module...
I set the controller box to Manual, so the sprinklers are always on, set each sprinkler zone to run for 15 minutes, plugged the controller box's power cord into the X10 module, and wrote a PERL script to turn the X10 module on for 3 hours, and then to turn it off. It worked like a champ! So then I modified the PERL script to turn on the sprinklers 3-days a week. Again Success! During the hot months, though, I noticed 3 days a week wasn't enough. I modified the PERL script to turn on the sprinklers 3-days a week during April, May, June, September, and October; and 4-days a week during July and August. I also set the computer to download the weather from the local airport (this functionality is built-into MisterHouse), and setup some parameters: the sprinklers would only come on if there was less than a 70% chance of rain, and if the wind was blowing at less than 15 mph. Finally, if the temperature got above 95-degrees for the day, the sprinklers would run an extra time during the evening.
I know, I know: YES, I'm a geek. But you think that's taking it far? Then goto the webpage and look at what some of the other users of MisterHouse have done! Bruce has his house opening/closing his curtains, and tracking his wife's car! Bruce is the MAN! (albeit with more $ and effort than I have)