[Lab] Home automation tips

[Kerwin Lewis]

I've had some pretty good success with the Insteon brand of x10(ish)
devices.   Since they are available on Ebay and the like they are not only
cheap but i found they were very simple to install and use.   They are
based on the x10 protocol but are much faster, less cheap looking.  They
appear to be well supported (not as well as zigbee products mind you) and
with a couple tools you can easily use them in conjunction with other
device protocols.   Smarthome has a great selection on top of that.

Anyway those are my 2 cents..

Good Luck.
Kerwin.

On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 9:00 PM, Matthew Bells <matt at mbells.ca> wrote:

> Hi everyone,****
>
> ** **
>
> I’ve come out to the modlab once, but haven’t had much time since I moved
> here a year ago. At any rate, onto my main question:****
>
> ** **
>
> I’m thinking of setting up some simple hoe automation. Basic lights etc at
> the moment… I was wondering if anyone had good tips. X-10 seems pretty old
> and limited. Zigbee is great, but there aren’t off-the-shelf products for
> it. I essentially want something that is easy to setup (like an hour from
> opening the box to having 4 nodes fully working on a simple timed
> schedule), but can later have control easily added from Arduino, Raspberry
> Pi, or other devices – I already have an Arduino setup with XBee, but don’t
> have the high voltage links needed. After a bunch of research online, it
> doesn’t really seem like there is any standard that is well supported and
> somewhat affordable. Does anyone have good tips of which technology to go
> with and where to source it? (Preferably Canada so I can get it within a
> week).****
>
> ** **
>
> Thanks,****
>
> -Matt****
>
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