Before the new technology of Z- wave and Zigbee which utilize a radio wave thru the air in early days of Home Automation a new technology known as X-10 was the wiz bang way to go to make lights turn on remotely etc. all with out having to rewire a home.
For the most part it worked but it had many bugs and quirks when you had a very large home .
It worked by sending a radio wave signal thru your home wiring . Similar to wireless intercom systems you may have seen . You either plugged in or wired in a receiving module set a code for it A-Z and 1-10 and then plugged in a transmitter to send the command like a X-10 clock radio or button box pretty slick for its time. They even had a module you tied to an alarm system to flash lights and warn you if there was an intrusion. Even some Honeywell/ Ademco panels had built in programs to operate modules such as the Lynx and vista 10-20SE thru use of a specail transformer.
But the system had its problems. Because it used the electrical wiring in the home and power is supplied by 3 wires 2 hot and 1 neutral if you plugged a module into phase A hot wire but then plugged a module into phase B hot the signal would not always travel thru if the home did not have any 220 volt appliances to allow the phases to talk to each other so you had to either move the circuit to phase A breaker box or you had to install a phase coupler so modules would talk to each other. There was also a problem if you had a garage separate from the house while the X-10 would often work out there it would not if the garage or building next door you wanted to control things in was not being served from the same power transformer. I even used X-10 between a father and sons home so they knew when each other came home turning on lights and I had modules and relays set up if you tried to cut phone lines to defeat alarm at fathers home it would send a signal out on sons phone line and vise verse . But in some cases you did not want signals traveling out of or into a property as well which could trigger false lights and appliance on and offs so then you had to install a blocking filter to stop it. All these modules and filters etc became a real problem some times with cost and installation time involved. while X-10 did work as more and more electronics came into the home it was the death blow to X-10 the amount of electrical noise in many cases could not be filtered out and the X-10 systems would go nuts all by the selves and in many cases would not work at all. It was fun while it lasted but I am glad to see a much better alternative now on the market. It is my understanding no more X-10 modules are going to be made and protocol has been put to bed.
For more information on X-10 follow this Wikipedia link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_%28industry_standard%29
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