X10 is mostly useless today. 1) X10 doesn't work with modern wiring. It started degrading 10+ years ago, when building wiring improved and circuits and outlets started becoming more isolated. I've seen homes built as much as 20 years ago where the X10 signal only propogates from the upper outlet to the lower one, not to any other outlet. Plus, it never worked on surge protectors.
2) The workarounds are worse Current X10 solutions get around this by having a wired-to-wireless bridge. This complication adds to
X10 is limited to on/off/up/down. For example, you can't fade-up the lights on a home theater room if they were turned off. They first must "pop" to full brightness then fade down. There are complicated ways around this, but they really isn't worth it.
Untrue. There are now 2-way X10 devices. I use the lamp modules in my living room to do exactly what you complain doesn't work - going from 0% on to 15% on, primarally brought about by the birth of my daughters, who didn't take well the having bright lights popped in their eyes at 2 AM when we got up to feed them.
I have a particularly nice version controlling the lighting on my bed. One of its scenes is set to fade up from 0% to 100% over 13 minutes (its maximum fade time).
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be
done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
-- E. Hubbard
X10 is obsolete (Score:3, Interesting)
1) X10 doesn't work with modern wiring.
It started degrading 10+ years ago, when building wiring improved and circuits and outlets started becoming more isolated. I've seen homes built as much as 20 years ago where the X10 signal only propogates from the upper outlet to the lower one, not to any other outlet. Plus, it never worked on surge protectors.
2) The workarounds are worse
Current X10 solutions get around this by having a wired-to-wireless bridge. This complication adds to
Re:X10 is obsolete (Score:2)
Re:X10 is obsolete (Score:2)