Like brobin, my forays into X10 started long ago. I joined this board in 2010, but had already been an X10 user for about 30 years by then. The lure of Home Automation was a bug that bit me in my first home, back in the late 70's - when the X10 ads were mostly hype and the cameras they hawked showed pictures of bikini clad girls next door (creepy in retropect).
I encountered the usual line noise problems (still the biggest X10 drawback) and managed to solve them, mostly.
In the 1990's I built a 2nd home near Donner Summit CA (30 foot annual snowfall). I hired a contractor to shell it and finished it myself - lots of time to tinker with adding HA. I sort of became an X-10 junky, and enjoyed the effort and time to conquer things using X-10... a common thread amongst us all here I suspect. My house had mainly baseboard heat and I discovered the X-10 on/off modules and managed to control all my heaters. I lived 100 miles away and it was nice to be able to turn on heat to arrive to a warm house, and in spite of the poor cameras, also see if the driveway had been plowed, etc. Back then I used the LogMeIn app to enable that..
At this time there was not a lot of competition, and I stayed pretty much purely X-10 (with the boxes of interesting HA junk to prove it).
About year 2000 I had a new abode post divorce, and again with a little time on my hands, engaged in more HA adventures. This time using some Insteon, and exploring voice control in it's infancy (thank you Bill Johns). Added irrigation via a beautiful little X-10 irrigation controller, and explored Insteon keypad setups, and geofencing.
The system matured to a point where I was able to move on to other things and let it just run itself.
In 2017 I relocated to NW Montana where I inherited a 3000 sq ft home that had been very badly damaged by a number of broken water pipes that ran for an extended time undetected. While it gave me a task I had not anticipated, it also allowed major remodelling, and a change to wire large portions of the house in ethernet.
When it came time to add HA... I encountered a ton of line noise issues - finally causing me to get an XTB-RII... it was a game changer. Along with a previously purchased WGL572 receiver with an 523XTB feeding the power line, and a few filters, my X-10 reliability was ultimately what is today - 100%!!
Meanwhile I had discovered that there were not really any new X-10 devices reaching the marketplace, but quite a few ZWave devices, and I decided to change to a Universal Devices ISY. Along came the idea of a nodeserver and I built an early Raspberry Pi Nodeserver - I was able to integrate (as an example) my wireless tags into programs (with X10 even).
My remodel projects finally overtook my HA play, and the ISY ran preTty much flawlessly for the years from 2018 to the present.
In the interim the HA scene changed considerably, and more and more integration was presenting itself. UD for its part came out with a nodeserver called Policy, and then replaced the ISY with a newer model called EISY, which (with the X10 module with I had with the ISY and for which I thank Brian H for developing and getting into the UD stable) I am very used to the ISY/EISY programming and use and so it was logical for me to make this small jump.The Policy was essentially built into the new Eisy, so integration became more or less native.
I will admit that as I entered the Zwave world, I found some dogs in terms of devices, but I also note they are definitely getting better. I still use quite a number of X-10 devices, but also find that where X-10 still excels (especially with the now discontinued WGL572 rf receiver, which I am lucky to own) is in remote control. I have not found anything easier, better or cheaper anywhere.
The one thing I wish I had was a better interface - there was a mobile interface someone devised called Agave and it was sweet - but only usable on Mobile devices (Android/iPhone). However the developer moved on to other things and it has fallen behind, to the point I abandoned it.
So, I thought maybe there might be other who share my situation/interests and other users who could discuss their situations and what they like in terms of User Interfaces that might work with UD Eisy. I admit the Home Assistant interface looks nice... but I really do not want to try and run side by side controllers. [I still have AHP on my computer, but mainly to print labels for my palmpad keypads
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I think that as HA moves on, there is room for X-10, but unless there are better line noise solutions than presently exist and newer devices reach the market, we, the old guard, may be a dying breed.
Chris
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Topic: Surprised not to see a child board for the ISY/EISY (Read 3901 times)