X10 poll - Stay HS2 or go to HS3???

[prnorton]

I have been playing with X10 devices since I first discovered them around 1980. Over these many years I've learned a lot about other devices creating noise on my wiring which kills the X10 signals. Adding the TI103 interface boosted the signal voltage which helped a lot. A few years ago I read about Jeff Volp's XTB-ANR device, which is supposed to act like noise cancelling headphones and filter out unwanted noise. I got two of those, plugged one into each phase of my house wiring, which helped a bunch more. Now I only have a few devices which kill my X10 signals. One was a 12 volt power supply which drives am LED strip on top of my kitchen cabinets. I replaced that power supply, and all is well. The next culprit is a strip of 4 LED floods in my gameroom. I was hoping to control those with an X10 wall switch, but never could get them working. I removed the X10 wall switch and replaced it with a Leviton dimmer. Those lights work just fine, but when they are on I get all kinds of X10 noise that even the XTB-ANR units won't filter out. The most recent culprit is a new Sleep Number bed. When I plug the Sleep Number box into an outlet I can no longer control X10 lights in the bedroom. So a simple X10 plug in noise filter fixed that one. These are just a few examples of what power line noise will do to kill your X10 signals. My X10 system is 99.9% rock solid with almost no HS3 problems.

[macromark]

I got a chuckle out of the title of this thread! Almost makes me want to post a competing poll...
"HS3 poll - Stay on X10 or go to ANYTHING THAT WASN'T DESIGNED IN 1974?"

[Pete]

It will not be fair if I write here. Best to test it yourself. Just use a power strip to test.

the proof is in the pudding

or

A 1682 version from Bileau's Le Lutrin reads, The proof of th' pudding's seen i' the eating.

[langenet]

Sit in front of the automated switches and watch or listen to the speed of each one as it is triggered by Homeseer 2 then try Homeseer 3. You will be surprised.

Ok... I'll ask. Which is faster HS2?

[Pete]

I discovered that there is lots of noise on the CM11-a comm itself - you may remember Pete as I believe you confirmed and opened a ticket on this..

Yup; the willy nilly serial com chit chat noise is documented here. Here too purchased and used a TI-103 when first sold by Homeseer and went back to using the CM11A way back in the early 2000's.

In the old home put Homeseer 2 in the attic and ran a serial cable (well used a long telephone cable) to the basement fuse panel area.

Do a speed test mixing a few things.

Put one Z-Wave appliance switch next to an X10 appliance switch next to whatever else you want.

Use a wireless palm pad connected to your Homeseer box via a W800 and turns on all of the automated appliance switches.

Write an event which is triggered by one button press of the palm pad.

Sit in front of the automated switches and watch or listen to the speed of each one as it is triggered by Homeseer 2 then try Homeseer 3. You will be surprised.

[TeleFragger]

I do have Jeff's XTB and while I was playing with it and HS2, I discovered that there is lots of noise on the CM11-a comm itself - you may remember Pete as I believe you confirmed and opened a ticket on this... As I didn't like the issue with the comm of the CM11, things also seemed slower so I went back to my T103 which works fine. All said, my X-10 in the house is fine. In fact I control my pool pump which is some 50 feet from the house panel through a pony panel in the shed without issue to an Elk relay.

Reliable X-10 in the sense that HS behaves is my top priority. If it is as reliable as HS2 then great, but as I read here, I'm beginning to wonder. I do plan on using my HS3Pro license soon after all..

so i was trying to remember what device others were using. Thanks for stating this.

I dont have that unit but thought maybe my xpcr went bad until i plugged a alarm clock in and it is working....

im not going away from x10 so I have to decide if i pony up and buy that too or try my other repeater...

X10 Smarthome Signalinc Repeater Model 4826A

which means i have to put a outlet in to plug this in.. then i have to find out if I have to have a dryer plugged into it... my house dryer is only a 3 prong not a 4

[langenet]

I do have Jeff's XTB and while I was playing with it and HS2, I discovered that there is lots of noise on the CM11-a comm itself - you may remember Pete as I believe you confirmed and opened a ticket on this... As I didn't like the issue with the comm of the CM11, things also seemed slower so I went back to my T103 which works fine. All said, my X-10 in the house is fine. In fact I control my pool pump which is some 50 feet from the house panel through a pony panel in the shed without issue to an Elk relay.

Reliable X-10 in the sense that HS behaves is my top priority. If it is as reliable as HS2 then great, but as I read here, I'm beginning to wonder. I do plan on using my HS3Pro license soon after all..

[Pete]

I have not participated in the poll relating to X10.

That said here have changed the way I do the doo of X10 over the years.

Initially it started with a CM11A and TW-523.

From this went to using a plugin amplifier called the Volp XTB and played a bit with using the Insteon PLM for X10 use.

I have added a new device over the years that being a dual phase TW-523 Volp emulator which also serves as a X10 amplifier.

My X10 on the OmniPro 2 and Homeseer 2 V.181 is fine.

I have tested the CM11A Homeseer 3 Linux plugin to work and have done some simple stuff with it and it works fine.

The X10 plugin for Wintel HS3 and for Linux HS3 are different.

The Wintel HS3 X10 plugin was ported from Homeseer 2. The Linux plugin is unique.

There were unseen issues with the last HS2 plugin (carried over from 2005).

[TeleFragger]

...

I certainly hope HST can still consider us X-10 users and continue to improve the X-10 plugin.


Rob

That my friend is my biggest hope... if they aren't going to fix it.. remove it from the features list...

i thought it was me and something in my house but im not the only one...

[langenet]

Gee, I didn't realize that X-10 was not reliable in HS3. I'm mostly X-10 on HS2.5.0.81 and the WAF is pretty high... I have a few z-wave devices and want to expand (eventually). However, in the meantime, if I go HS3, I'd like at least the lights, pool etc. to keep working. It's bad enough that I will need to replace my RCS TXB16 which also works just fine (10 years now) with HS2. I'm still confused about T-stat options.. Cloud based - not my preference on relying on these service which can disappear in a flash or Z-wave - like the Trane one.
In any case to migrate all my lighting and appliance modules would be prohibitively expensive given the currency conversions on top of the already premiere pricing of Z-wave devices.

I certainly hope HST can still consider us X-10 users and continue to improve the X-10 plugin.


Rob

[TeleFragger]

.... This gets crazy for X10 motion sensors especially if you are using the Dawn/dusk feature.

I put this in the other thread but it suites here too...

I have a ton with dusk/dawn too so I use 2 house codes...

DO NOT CLICK VIRTUAL as it will render the device useless.. I didnt want on and off buttons as they are triggered with motion and light/dark .. but if you trigger that you have to delete them to get them working again...

[TeleFragger]

.... send C5 off.

DRATS!!! STOP SENDING C5 OFF PLEASE!!!!

your filling my logs... hahahahahaa...

i have a C5 I cannot locate... i even found a box of 19 motion sensors not in use (ms12a, ms13a, ms14a, ms6a) and took all the batteries out.. not that...

ill find it...

[Uncle Michael]

My biggest complaint is that I cannot find a way to send X10 Preset Dim commands from HS3. Has anyone got a solution that works?

[SteveMSJ]

which workarounds? wondering if any will help me out...

Needing to create a virtual device if you want to respond to an incoming X10 command.
Needing to spend time configuring graphics pairs for each device when created as there aren't preconfigured device types.
Having to turn on debug mode so that X10 commands show up in log.
Those are all I can think of offhand but it's a while since I changed anything X10 and my memory isn't the best.
Steve

[Steve Q]

I too am quite frustrated with X10 on HS3. On HS2 ver 2.5.81 it ran extremely well for the past 3-4 years. Only the occasional power line noise issue that causes a light to come on or go off. But no significant issues.

I have been working with HS3 for about 2 years now and have z-wave, XAP, security cameras, TEMP08, USBUIRT, and the W800 all working in parallel with my HS2 system. As I got stuff working on HS3, I gradually disabled the HS2 events.

It has only been the last few weeks that I have started transitioning X10 to HS3. I am running into all kinds of issues! Things that were really simple in HS2 seem very complicated in HS3! I am spending a huge amount of time creating devices for every X10 device; when all I need to do is send C5 off. But nothing works unless there are HS3 x10 devices created to correspond to every x10 physical device. This gets crazy for X10 motion sensors especially if you are using the Dawn/dusk feature.

Now my situation is really a mess because the PCI rs232 serial interface card in my HS2 computer appears to have died! So my TI103 x10 interface on my HS2 computer is not working. I have lost almost all my lighting control. So I have to get everything working on HS3. Every device and every event has to be recreated on HS3. And each one has to be tested.

Also, I have moved my TI103 interface to HS3 so I have 2 -x10 interfaces and plugins trying to run; CM15a and the TI103. They are fighting each other for control! So now I have to redo everything I had done with the CM15a on HS3.

I'm really not happy spending all my time recreating my HS2 - X10 environment in HS3. I would much rather be working on something new in HS3. [emoji25]

Steve Q


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