wskellenger's Journal: Home Automation with X10

My parents have an outdoor woodstove that heats their house. Water is circulated through the woodstove and heats the detached workshop (approx 1,500 sq. ft) and the house (a huge 3,000+ sq ft.).

The water is first passed through the gas-fired boiler inside the house. If the temperature of the water coming from the woodstove is too low, the boiler will fire up automatically.

My dad has to continually check the temperature of the woodstove water by running down the driveway to the stove, which is not very convenient. I was wondering about a wireless solution for him to check the woodstove water temperature from inside the house.

I remember seeing X10 modules in Heathkit catalogs as a kid in grade school. After all these years, X10 is still around and one of the most popular choices for those about to get into home automation.

Here is where (I thought) X10 would come in. The X10 protocol includes provisions for data transmission, so I thought if there were a thermocouple module available, this data would be easy to transmit.

I thought I'd purchase some of the stuff myself and play around with it BEFORE I get anything for my parents.

I bought the following devices for around $70:

CM11A computer interface

Universal IR/RF remote control

Credit card RF remote control

Two (2) wallswitch modules

Lamp module

Universal low voltage module

After just an evening, I've got the wallswitch modules installed and functional. Dimming lights for watching movies or automatically turning my outside light off will be entirely automatic from now on. It will be very easy to go overboard and purchase about 10 more lightswitch modules for the house!!

I'm going to try out MisterHouse as a way of controlling everything under Linux.