Posted on: March 28th, 2009 by Famous Phil

Over the past few days, I’ve ordered about 75 bucks worth of x10 modules and controllers to make my computer control my lights more efficiently (Yes, I know that the website looks like  a scam, but it is legitimate, I used ebay though just incase).  As a few of you might know, I’ve been using a clapper with a speaker script to simulate a clap and control my lights.  I decided that that script wasn’t efficient enough for me, and therefore I’ve gone with X10 for its price and expandability.

Anyways, I got a great deal on ebay with a usb controller/trasceiver, a light socket and 2 remotes, I also bought a 3 pack of light sockets separately and had them all shipped here.  I got them here and it worked perfectly with about 20 minutes of figuring out how to program each light socket.  Needless to say, I now have all the lights working and my 1 computer that remains on all the time working in harmony.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to replace my existing clapper system because I had a web interface where my pocket pc phone could operate my lights.  After a bunch of digging through documentation, I discovered a software development kit that allows me to program for my x10 system.  A few hours later, I now have a server working perfectly that will execute commands based on a php script.  To execute my php script on the server without a password, I use a local html file that has the password in it.  I can also view what the status is of my room lights from this html file.  This html file exists on my phone, which now solved my original problem of I wanted a better system for controlling my lights.

Overall, I highly recommend x10 to anyone who wants automated light control.  My next project will deal with voice activated lights.  I also plan on releasing my code with semi detailed instructions so that others can have a similar system, that will become available on dev.matthouse.us sometime within the next month.

Tags: automation, control, light, x10
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