In line with the enormous knowledge available on this list I'd like to
ask some advice on a very minimal home automation setup.
When I go away on a trip I like to leave a number of lights operating on
a schedule that gives the appearance that the place is lived in. And,
even when not away from home, I leave my living room and office lights
on a timer that coincides with our normal sleep and waking times.
For many years now I've been using inexpensive, motor driven Intermatic
lamp timers (available under multiple brand names) that mostly do the
job but have some drawbacks. As electro-mechanical devices they don't
last more than a couple of years before the gear trains wear and they
get quite noisy and need to be replaced. I thought I could solve that
with electronic variants. I bought one from Harbor Freight tools,
another locally from Timex and a third whose source I can't recall. All
three seem to work fine but have a significant drawback. Whereas the
Intermatic timers can be reprogrammed by the simple expedient of
removing and replacing some plastic pins, two of the electronic timers
have such lousy interface designs that I've never been able to reset
them without referring to the user's manual (and usually making at least
one mistake in the process). The third doesn't require use of the
manual but is so tedious to set that I've thrown it away. It requires
that you push down on very tiny and hard to operate switches for every
15 minute period you want the device on rather than the Intermatic's
method of setting just the on/off times.
The two electronic timers I have kept do have the advantage of a
built-in battery. Unlike the Intermatics, they manage to maintain the
correct time and programming through power failures. But, of course,
they don't do anything to help with the changes needed for daylight
savings time or the more frequent changes needed to keep up with the
changing sunrise/sunset times.
What I'd like is a system that, for ease of use, can be programmed using
my computer as the interface device and where the resulting command set
could be downloaded via USB to a remote controller. The remote
controller would then communicate wirelessly to a small number of
wireless switches to control power at electrical outlets and perhaps
even light switches. That would allow controlling such things as a
porch light that I can't do today.
I at first thought this could be done with X-10 devices. But I'm given
to understand that X-10 devices with signaling over household wiring can
be unreliable. Someone else told me that X-10 also makes wireless
receivers and transmitters now but I haven't actually been able to
locate such things on their web site. There is a transceiver product
but it appears to be a hybrid power line/wireless product. In addition,
I can't locate anything that appears to be analogous to the USB loaded
remote controller I have described above. Perhaps these X-10 devices do
actually exist but finding out how they work from X-10 sources is
extremely difficult. Their site is designed to sell, sell, sell without
telling you in any detail how things work. Very frustrating.
But I know that at least 5 or 10 of you out there know the answers to
all of these questions. What do I need and where do I get it?
Thanks in advance,
Chuck Norcutt
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