johnniet
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 12, 1999
- Messages
- 4,682
This is a pretty different approach from where the 9-page (and now pretty old) Home
Invasion thread has been going, so...
A little while ago I ordered an X10 starter
kit from www.x10.com. The idea was to make
a "dawn simulator" -- i.e. a kit to slowly
turn on a really strong lamp, so as to gradually wake me up in the morning. (Normally I am totally useless for a couple of hours at least.)
But in this context, it sounds like one of the abilities you'd want in this scenario is to be able to turn on lights in another room -- and in many cases, you might just want to lock your bedroom door, turn on all the lights in the house, and call the cops, period!
They're always running some deal or another, so it's hard to name the best price. If you got a pretty standard starter kit (PC interface, remote control, a couple of lamp and appliance modules) for $50 and an additional lamp module for each room covered ($13 apiece) you'd probably be set. There's some other options too, in case you want to hook it all up to a motion detector ($20 per detector) or put out a "nasty dog" sound when someone comes by (this is called the "Robo-Dog Special"--I kid you not--and I think it includes the motion detector, for $70).
Now frankly, I think the company is a little bit cheesy for other reasons (if you read too much of the web site you will see why), but if it all works, it isn't a bad deal for some purposes...
Invasion thread has been going, so...
A little while ago I ordered an X10 starter
kit from www.x10.com. The idea was to make
a "dawn simulator" -- i.e. a kit to slowly
turn on a really strong lamp, so as to gradually wake me up in the morning. (Normally I am totally useless for a couple of hours at least.)
But in this context, it sounds like one of the abilities you'd want in this scenario is to be able to turn on lights in another room -- and in many cases, you might just want to lock your bedroom door, turn on all the lights in the house, and call the cops, period!
They're always running some deal or another, so it's hard to name the best price. If you got a pretty standard starter kit (PC interface, remote control, a couple of lamp and appliance modules) for $50 and an additional lamp module for each room covered ($13 apiece) you'd probably be set. There's some other options too, in case you want to hook it all up to a motion detector ($20 per detector) or put out a "nasty dog" sound when someone comes by (this is called the "Robo-Dog Special"--I kid you not--and I think it includes the motion detector, for $70).
Now frankly, I think the company is a little bit cheesy for other reasons (if you read too much of the web site you will see why), but if it all works, it isn't a bad deal for some purposes...
