All Articles Tagged X10

Julie Jacobson | 03/07 08:52 AM, 0 Comments

You know those pricey home automation systems with the slick GUIs that show you the room you’re controlling and let you watch the lights turn on, the fans whirl and motorized shades drop? JDS Technologies, one of the granddaddies of home automation, has the poor man’s version of such a system called Home Runner RBI (Remote Browser Interface) and it’s pretty slick for the price. JDS and its owner Jeff Stein have been around the home automation industry for more than two decades. Back then, there were just a handful… View this story

Julie Jacobson | 02/29 05:25 AM, 0 Comments

Gerald Rooks has left X10 USA, where for 17 years he served various roles including president. He is probably best known for launching X10 Pro in the late 1990s to serve the channel with X10 products and services. He has joined Greenwave Reality as VP Sales & Business Development - Americas. Greenwave is best known for its energy management platforms, but the company also offers an entire suite of lighting controls, remote home monitoring and other smart home solutions. It was founded by Martin Manniche, former CTO at Cisco Systems’… View this story

Julie Jacobson | 08/11 01:09 PM, 13 Comments

X10 is shutting down. It appears the company is headed into receivership and its factories will cease making products for controlling lights and other devices over the powerline. CE Pro has learned from several sources that X10 will no longer make products based on the home-control protocol it created in the 1970s. Interestingly, the closure coincides with a high-profile report from Black Hat that X10 could be hacked, but that report most likely had nothing to do with X10’s demise. More likely, the company simply faced competition from newer home-control… View this story

Jason Knott | 08/10 08:14 AM, 17 Comments

Two researchers at DefCon in Las Vegas showed how they can hack into automation systems that run through powerlines. According to Wired.com, the hackers showed how, using a sniffer device connected to the broadband network via an electrical outlet, they could manipulate 15 different neighbors' lights, HVAC and security systems that communicate via the powerline because those communication signals are not encrypted. The hackers also showed how they were able to track the movements of 15 neighbors with automation systems inside their homes via their motion sensors and cameras, as… View this story

Julie Jacobson | 04/05 12:30 PM, 52 Comments

I feel like such an idiot. I really don’t know a thing about X10, just like an X10 exec told me. He said, “I am always amused by your total lack of knowledge of X10. … Julie, how can you be so out of touch with an industry that you cover and are supposed to be an expert on?” Well, now I am fully educated. Indeed, X10 is way better than Control4. The education comes courtesy of X10.com and the X10 Home Automation Store, both of which have Web pages… View this story

Julie Jacobson | 02/17 07:39 AM, 76 Comments

35-year X10 veteran Dave Rye takes offense to my January 2010 CE Pro Industry Insider in which I suggest that we're still a long way from mass-market automation. Below is Rye's entire rant. Julie, I regularly read your column in CE Pro and Electronic House just so I can have a laugh to myself. I am always amused by your total lack of knowledge of X10, or is it just that you ignore us because we don't advertise with you any more? Anyway, you said in your January issue of… View this story