Climbing School:

When I was 39 I earned a Black Belt in Karate. When I was 45 I completed the New York City Marathon. I'm now 55 (and living in WA State) so I thought what better challenge than to climb Mt. Rainier.

The ActiveHome Pro package of software and hardware is the next great step in automating your entire home. Now with a USB interface and new, easy-to-use software, ActiveHome Pro takes all the best features of X10’s best-selling ActiveHome, and makes them even better. ActiveHome Pro is easier to install and easier to use, making it simple to control lights and appliances right from a PC, by remote control, or by schedules that you create. Simply put, ActiveHome Pro is a polished program designed for everyone, not just the home automation enthusiast.

Talked to a guy who uses XCams in remote controlled cars. Also put together a system with XCams to catch pumpkin thieves!

Talked to a guy who used to talk to one of our sales guys re: a Residential Gateway. They were going to put X10 in it but the company went belly up when their financing fell through. They were set to fly in to see a VC and pick up a check - on 911. Suffice it to say that the deal fell through.

Said that Windows Vista will be the largest technology launch in a decade. Talked about:
ReadyDrive - makes PC faster.
ReadyBoost - can use a USB drive for more RAM.
Rally - makes networking easy.
SideShow - for auxiliary displays for displaying Widgets (Small applets).
I'll talk more about these in a later blog.

Microsoft people seem to have their own language. They used the word Echosystem all the time, and they're not talking about the Planet. They use the term drill into, or drill down to mean go into detail. I heard "Foil" instead of slide in a PowerPoint presentation. And what used to be called Vaporware is now called Slideware. :-)

He certainly likes to promote the idea that he's a Nerd (rather than the brilliant businessman that he in fact is). He showed up wearing a shirt that looked like he'd slept in it, and with his hair looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. :-)

He's a pretty good speaker but I didn't really hear anything about Vista (from him) that I didn't hear at last year's WinHEC. Although last year there seemed to be more "Wiz-bang." More emphasis on what Vista "looked like." This year there seemed to be more emphasis on "what's under the hood." E.G., Rally, ReadyDrive, ReadyBoost, SideShow, etc.

My second day at WinHEC started inauspiciously, as Seattle rain caused terrible traffic that in turn caused us to be late. I missed the first half of my first session (Using the Windows Driver Kit for Windows Logo Testing). That was a bit of a bummer, because the first half was where the real meat of the session was. I only got to see a mostly dull walkthrough of part of the WDK user interface, which consisted of lots of little menu trees. Even on a 20 foot square screen those are hard to read. One thing I can say, and this has been true of all the driver sessions, is that Microsoft seems to be making a real effort to use the tools that they are giving to developers and testers. In every case, developing the driver tools seems to have gone hand in hand with developing the hardware drivers and interfaces that will come with Windows Vista.

Not worse than all the "We're looking for rock stars" t-shirts I saw though. nVidia was giving these out (the back side says "nVidia is hiring") and people were taking them in droves. What I didn't get though was the people wearing them. And not just wearing them, putting them on over the shirts they were already wearing and walking around like that! What the hell? Just because the shirt says "rock star" on it doesn't mean you have to act like you're at a show. Tons of other people were giving out t-shirts, but I didn't see anyone wearing those. I guess programmers just really like nVidia.

In 2002, X10 released the NightWatch2—a hard-wired, low-light surveillance camera—to rave reviews. That item’s inventory quickly sold out, and remained backordered for months. But customers kept asking for a wireless version. So X10 listened and introduced the Wireless NightWatch camera, a wireless low-light surveillance solution. This wireless version gives you even greater flexibility and ease of use to protect and secure your home.

The Wireless NightWatch camera is compatible with X10’s other best-selling wireless surveillance systems, including the XCam2, allowing it to be easily added to existing wireless camera systems with no other upgrades or additional equipment necessary.

It's a nice piece, but unfortunately it's the kind of story that misses the reality of home automation. Instead of talking to companies and people using home automation now, they spend their time talking about a Microsoft prototype home and a model-home project at MIT. A whole house control system that talks to you and tells you what you need at the grocery store is cool, but what if you don't have to wait years for people to perfect that technology to automate your lights? They could have mentioned that there are a lot of ways to automate your home even if you don't work at MIT.

That's why X10 automation products are so popular: you can buy them now, and they work.

But with Butch Edwards, it’s more than just watching birds. Butch is a senior equipment engineer for Motorola, and for the past ten years has been on a mission to expose as many students in the Austin area as possible to the exciting world of high-tech gadgetry. "I can throw a show together with only a days notice with X10 devices included," Butch says, and X10 has become an enormous asset to his technological exhibitions.

This particular family of birds moved into Butch’s cul-de-sac a couple of years ago. "Since I have been doing high tech demonstrations I decided to adopt these kids as my test subjects for the presentations I do as a volunteer at the schools." Butch noticed the interest local kids had for the birds darting about the front yard while they were doing some batting practice, and as he watched the young people’s fascination with the birds, he suddenly had a light bulb go off in his head.

It is perhaps a little known fact that the X10 protocol has, since day one, included the capability of being expanded. The "basic" protocol includes 256 codes (16 housecodes x 16 units codes) and includes 16 functions (on, off, bright, dim, etc.). However one of these 16 function codes basically means "when you receive this code, there's more code coming." These are X10ded™ codes and are used to provide features such as preset dim in the LM14A.

X10 (the company) is market driven. X10 sells products not protocols, so until recently the company has not really done anything with the inherent capability that its protocol has.

X10 have never really seen much demand for 2-way modules. Sure, engineers ask for them, but in the past consumers have never really seen enough benefit to justify the increase in price. X10 have had 2-way capability built-in to the RR501 module since 1984 but no one ever took advantage of it. This is probably due in part to there not being any controllers available that could easily display the information received back from 2-way modules.

The CM15A two-way computer interface has the capability of initiating macros when an X10 code is received from any controller. X10 feels this is the real benefit of 2-way (rather than just knowing that a light has turned on). However, since the 2-way computer interface is a good way (via the PC display) of displaying information received from the power line, it makes more sense to have 2-way modules.

Therefore X10 introduced two 2-way modules: an appliance module, AM14A and a lamp module, LM14A. These modules report their status back to the CM15A when turned on or off. The lamp module even reports it brightness level. The LM14A also has "soft start" and so ramps up and down slowly when turned on and off. It also has "memory dim" and ramps slowly on to its previous brightness level.

The 2-way modules incorporate the latest in AGC technology (Automatic Gain Control) and therefore operate in harsh noisy environments that was previously not possible.

Although not yet implemented in ActiveHome Pro, the 2-way modules also incorporate auto-discovery to provide plug 'n play. When you plug in a 2-way module for the first time it reports it presence (to anything capable of listening) using X10ded codes. It reports its house code and unit code and could tell a user through the software GUI what code to assign in the GUI (this could also be auto-configured).

The 2-way modules, are capable of being reconfigured to either report their status automatically whenever the state changes, or to only report their status when polled. This re-configuration is done using X10ded codes, although is not yet implemented in ActiveHome Pro).

With plug 'n play, auto-discovery, automatic code assignment, X10ded codes, and AGC they are the first in a new generation of X10 products.