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Author Topic: Will AHP do what I want?  (Read 2140 times)

mopar_mudder

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Will AHP do what I want?
« on: November 25, 2011, 12:38:43 PM »

I am trying to find an afordable way to automate my lighting in my theater. I'm not sure but I don't think X10 will do what I want, web site is very hard to find any good info.

What I have it 4 switches in one 4 gang box: 1) Dimmer running can lights 2) dimmer running can lights 3) dimmer running LED rope light 4) switch that turns on and off star ceiling.

I want to contol each seperate plus have selectable scenes with one button push. As I understand it if I run AHP I can send a command to my computer with my Harmony remote and it will turn all 4 to a pre programmed level.

1) Can you have multiple scene's?
2) We also use these switches manually when we walk in the room, so things I read say that AHP get confused when you do that?
3) I assume that I can send the signals to the computer with IR on my harmony? Or does it need to be a RF signal?
4) Most be something that you have to hook up to the PC to send out the IR signal to the switches?

On top of all that is seems to be in question how much longer X10 will be around or doing the home automation part anyways, make it hard to start buying their products.
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Noam

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Re: Will AHP do what I want?
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2011, 12:50:23 PM »

X10's dimmer switches *should* be able to control the lights you want, but you should check the wattage ratings. Locating more than one in the same box created more heat, so you'll want to stay further below the maximum rated wattage for each switch.

AHP cannot get status from X10's one-way switches, so it won't know if you turn the lights on or off manually with the switch. However, a macro to set the lights to a certain configuration would do so regardless of what levels the lights were at before (unless you use relative dimming, which makes no sense in this case).

As for control with your Harmony remote, that all depends on how the Harmony works.
If it can control the PC (specifically running scripts off the PC), then yes, you should be able to control the lights with the Harmony, via the PC (you'll need to install the AHP SDK, and write your own scripts to set the lights the way you want).

As for how long X10 will be around, nobody really knows. There are other technologies out there (Smarthome's Insteon being one that I know at least a little bit about), that would probably also be able to do what you want (albeit with a higher cost for the parts).

I hope that helps.
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