The X-10 Revolution

from the still-growing dept

A few years ago I had a housemate who picked up some cheap X-10 home automation equipment during one of X10.com's famous (and annoying) promotional campaigns. He used it so that he could get into bed and then turn out the lights in his bedroom (in that order, rather than the reverse). Of course, the problem was that then his lights ran only off of the X-10 remote - which seemed to get lost quite often. Still, that was my introduction to X-10 and I knew that if I started playing around with the stuff, I'd never stop, so I've kept away. Others, however, are less able to resist temptation and seem to have become quite addicted to the whole X-10 concept. Salon details some of what's going on in the home automation space with X-10, and it's downright scary what some people are doing. It's now possible to turn your house/apartment/office into something out of a science fiction novel for very little money. The article also details some of the problems people have with X-10 (the slowness and those ridiculous pop-up ads).