Your original message got caught in my Spam folder, likely because of the link to X10 (which is known for its spammy emails).
I used the old X10 cm11a (the serial version of the cm15a), for many years with several in-wall and plug-in light modules, as well as a tm751 receiver and two keychain remotes. The benefit of the cm11a and the cm15a over the firecracker is that they speak the on-the-wire protocol directly instead of using wireless. That makes them much more dependable, at least in theory. While the 15a costs a lot more than the firecracker from the X10 store, you can probably find one on eBay pretty easily. As David said, the protocol is from an era in which they didn't really care about how secure it was. That said, it's pretty likely that the worst thing you'll have to worry about is that one of your neighbors is using the same "house code" as you and you'll have to change it. I highly doubt that anyone is wardriving for X10 devices. If you are looking for a small computer to use for control, have a look at CHIP (http://nextthing.co/pages/chip). I haven't gotten mine yet, but it's inspired by the IoT trend and has a much lower startup accessory cost than the RPi might have - it has built-in Wifi and flash. I have no idea whether they work anymore, but I did look back through my old bookmarks, and I found some resources for X10 on Linux: http://www.geekthing.com/~robf/x10/ http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~doug/x10.html As far as the reliability of X10 itself on the wires, I found that sometimes which outlet you plug the controller into makes a difference. In my parents' house, if the controller and/or the remote receiver were plugged into certain outlets, they couldn't control certain lights, but in other outlets everything worked perfectly. I confirmed this with a neighbor of your parents who has X10, as well as with a cousin in New York, just by moving modules around to different outlets and seeing what results I got. Moshe -- Moshe Katz mmk...@umd.edu (301) 867-3732 On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 9:43 AM, Judah Milgram <milg...@cgpp.com> wrote: > Anybody out there? > > Happy MLK day all. > > Just to get a conversation started: I'm thinking of getting the 4-piece > firecracker home-automation starter kit (ck-18, comes w/computer interface, > transceiver, light module, and control pad) just to fool around with and > learn. Running off of Linux, of course. > > Anyone have any better ideas for home automation? > > Are x10 devices available other than those from x10.com? > > How secure is the RF link between computer adapter and transceiver module? > > > -- > Judah Milgram > milg...@cgpp.com > 301-257-7069 >
