Goal
I am going to try to make my pool pump go on at 8 PM and off at 4 AM everyday.

Theory
All the pieces are in place to automate my pool pump.  I have an appliance module positioned to control the pump and I have an interface between my PC and the X-10 devices (CM11A).  All I need to do now is have my PC automatically control the pool pump.  The tool on a linux PC to get this job done is ‘cron’.  The command on windows is ‘at’.  I am focused on linux for this project, so I am only covering cron in detail.

Here is the wikipedia entry for cron.  There is a file called crontab that contains a list of the commands and specifies when they should be run.

How to
It is not too hard to figure out the secret code that describes when tasks should be run, for example ’0 20 * * *’ means every day at 8 PM (obviously).  Even though this can be done directly, I chose to try a GUI cron-tab editor.  In Ubuntu a tool available is ‘gnome-schedule’.  This is readily installed via apt-get and provides a no-frills gui to edit the crontab files.  I was able to use a wizard that walked me through the process pretty quickly.  After typing all that in, here is what my crontab entries look like:

ray@Myth:~$ crontab -l
0 20 * * * heyu on a2 >/dev/null 2>&1 # JOB_ID_1
0 4 * * * heyu off a2 >/dev/null 2>&1 # JOB_ID_2
ray@Myth:~$ gnome-schedule

The first job turns the pool pump (on appliance module addressed at A2) on everyday at 8 PM (20:00 in military time).  the second job turns the same module off everday at 4.  We will see how things go over the next few days.

Goal
Distribute modules throughout my house and continue to control them with my linux PC via the heyu application.

Theory
This seems straightforward, but there are many pitfalls.  In my opinion the next series of problems is a significant barrier between X-10 and normal people.  Here is the symptom, I plugged the stuff in and it didn’t work, now what?  This can be very frustrating, and there can be several issues that keep this from working as expected.  First is the Phase Issue.  Where I live (Arizona) residential power is delivered as 220 volt 2-phase circuit.  Household electronics use 110 volt single phase power.  If you look at your circuit breakers, you will there are two columns of breakers.  Think of it as one phase of the 220 volt circuit feeds the left side, and the other phase feeds the right side.  The left and right sides are more or less isolated from each other, and there is the problem.  If you are sending signals through the right side of your panel, they do not make it to the left side of you panel.  There are several ways to rectify this problem, and we will talk about them in upcoming posts.

The next problem that can keep this from working is signal attenuation.  This is where your signal is not strong enough to be transmitted from your controller to your appliance module.  This can be because of the length of wire between the two devices and can be aggravated by household appliances that absorb the X-10 signals.

The last problem that can come up is one of too much signal.  Not too much signal from you, but in some circumstances a neighbor’s X-10 setup can work it’s way from his house to yours causing your devices to turn on and off.

How to
I picked a few devices I wanted to control.  I decided that if modules didn’t work in an outlet, I would just move on and hopefully find some outlets that do work.  The first outlet I tried worked.  I have a cheap above ground pool, and want to automate the pool pump so that it comes on for 8 hours at night.  I plugged the module into the outlet and the pool pump into the module.  I then used my trusty dell mini-9 netbook to log onto my linux server via my wireless Ethernet network and issued the heyu command to turn the pool pump on and off ‘heyu off a2′ and ‘heyu on a2′.  The pool pump turned on and off.

I then moved on to some other outlets and had mixed results.  Clearly I am going to need some way of crossing the two phases.  But in the mean time a simple cron job on my linux machine will turn my pool pump on and off.  If you are interested in a similarly simple setup but are unfamilure with linux, you can try one of the windows based apps, or install linux and see what you can make of it.  Things are really not as hard as they may seem.

Theory
In this test I want the Appliance Module to turn on and off when I send the appropriate commands through the Power Line.  The tricky part of this will be in getting my PC to talk to the CM11A.

How to
I do plan to always use a PC to control my X-10 setup, but not the with the X-10 software.  As such I installed the open source program Mister House.  The install went well, I used my browser and went to http://127.0.0.1:8800 to see the Mister House web interface.  The problem was I could not figure out how to tell it that I had a Cm11A and that I wanted it to turn off my fan.  I quickly abandoned this effort.  Not that there is a problem with Mister House, I just didn’t want to spend the time to learn the program for my quick test.

Next, I downloaded the Active Home software (not Active Home Pro) and installed it. I had to tell it what com port to use to talk to the CM11A.  There is a communication test you can do to ensure you are talking to the CM11A.  This feature was very helpful to ensure I had the right serial connector and the right com port.  I did not reboot as the install program recommended and got some wackiness as a result.  Once I rebooted it seemed to work well.  The device appliance module makes a noticeable click when coming on and off but seemed to work without issue.

After seeing this work as expected, I moved the Cm11A from my windows machine to my linux machine.  I have a PC on 24/7 to record TV using the MythTV application, mythbuntu is the specific distribution I am using, which is obviously derived from Ubuntu.  I plan on using this machine to also run my home automation system.  There are several linux tools that can talk to the CM11A, I chose the heyu application because there seemed to be a lot of reference to this app in my Google search results and it has a simple command line interface.  I had to enable the serial port in my BIOS, the BIOS said it would be COM1 (This is a Dell GX270).  I then used Google to figure out that COM1 in linux-speak is ttyS0.  The first command to try in heyu is ‘heyu info’.  If you CM11A is talking to your PC you will see a bunch of information.  If they aren’t talking you sill see nothing.

ray@Myth:~$ heyu info
Heyu version 2.6.0
Configuration at /etc/heyu/x10.conf
Powerline interface on /dev/ttyS0
Firmware revision Level = 1
Interface battery usage = 0:01  (hh:mm)
Raw interface clock: Mon, Day 151, 01:06:28
(--> Civil Time: Mon 01 Jun 2009   01:06:28 MST)
No schedule has been uploaded by Heyu.
Housecode = A
0 = off, 1 = on,               unit  16.......8...4..1
Last addressed device =       0x0200 (0000000000100000)
Status of monitored devices = 0xa682 (0000001110111000)
Status of dimmed devices =    0x3d19 (1111110010001000)
ray@Myth:~$

Then I can issue the command to turn my fan off then on:

ray@Myth:~$ heyu off A5
ray@Myth:~$ heyu on A5

Note that there is no confirmation this worked.  Most of the appliance modules are one way, they only receive.  I have seen appliance modules that will report status, but they are quite expensive.

Conclusion
This worked as advertised.  Some things I did to stack the deck in my favor were to ensure I am had both the Cm11A and appliance module on the same circuit (both outlets stop working when I blow one breaker).  This minimizes the chance of noise and attenuation, and rules out the dreaded problem of being on the wrong phase.

Of the apps I tried, heyu is by far my preffered method.  It is strait to the point.  I issue commands on the CLI and it sends them via X10.  This seems to have the fewest layers of abstraction between me and the X-10 devices.

Geez there is a lot of X-10 information floating around.  I began down this path about a week ago with a desire to have some appliances shut off during the Peak Hours of the Time Of Use (TOU) billing plan my power company has me on.  I am a customer of Salt River Project (SRP – srpnet.com).  From 1 to 8 PM I am billed vastly more for power I use, mostly because that is when I want to use it.  The thing is I want to use it to power my Air Conditioner durring this time, all else is of secondary concern.  So my goal is to put my money on my AC and minmize all other use.  Clearly I need some home automation equipment.

My Background

I have had a passing interest in home automation for many years, but never really got into it enough to even buy one product.  I like the concpets, but from my point of view it appears to be very flawed.  You have the X-10 option in all its flashy over the top bikini girl advertising, then you have the newer higher-tech and much high priced competitors.  Neither looked that good, but in hopes of saving more money than I spend on the equipment I decided to risk an investment and get some X10 gear.

Researching

I scoured the internet to see what was available, what was practically possible (turn a few things on and off…maybe), what was pie-in-the-sky possible (my house talks to me and does what I tell it).  The first thing I noticed was that there is an overwhelming amount of information floating around the inernet.  There are lots of people doing lots of things wiht all this stuff.  The problem is that it is hard to find a guide that balances explaining what can be done with the how it is going to get done.  Some sites will tell you in blinding detail the protocol the CM11A uses to talk to your X10 devices.  Some sites just lay out how you will operate your system when it is completed.  I find myself asking “Why do I need to know this?” or “How is this possible?” too much.

These are the Vendors?

After about 10 hours of internet research I decided I was ready to get my feet wet.  This lead to the next dilema, where to buy.  There are a lot of vendors, prices seem to vary by up to a factor of 5 from site to site.  There are some ebay stores that seem to have no other web presence.  There seem to be some reputable online stores, with high prices.  Fry’s Electronics lists X-10 products on their website, I never noticed this product line in the store, but never looked.  Then there are private salers on Ebay and Craigslist.

After all this, here is what I did

After all this and my desire for instant gratification I went with a Craigslist saler.  He had a box of equipment, some of which I wanted, for $150.  I priced a kit I would like to start with at about $85 without shipping (this vendor looked like they compensated for low prices with high shipping charges).  About half the box was full of video gear that I currently have no interest in.  But it did have most of the things I wanted, here is an inventory:

Controllers:
1- CM11A – Serial to X10 Bridge
1 – CM17A – Firecracker Serial RF controller
3 – TM751 – Transceiver
Power Modules:
1- WS467 – Wall Switch
7 – LM465 – Lamp Module
1 – Socket Rocket
3 – SC546A – Door Chime
Wireless Motion Sensors:
5 – MS14A – Indoor/Outdoor Motion Detector
6 – MS13A – Indoor Motion Detector
Remotes:
1 – SS15A – Wireless wall switch
1 – UR19A – Universal Remote – Black
1 – MR26A – Universal Remote – Silver
Plus a bunch of video stuff

Current Status

So after a whole weekend of focusing on this, here is where I am.  I have a box of old X-10 stuff.  In subsequent posts i will go over each item in more detail and explain what I have learned from my research.  I am ready to start experimenting and perhaps a small and simple implementation that my wife won’t kill me over.