Past News

Wow, Patrick (one of our participants here) sure got noticed since the first Salon article! If you want to see what he's got, he will be on TechTV's Screen Savers show on Thursday (7/26) at 4pm pacific time. I don't get TechTV on my cable system so I'm out of luck! There's a corresponding article too.

Yet more from Salon, they did an audio interview with Patrick, check it out here...

I've put up a review of Remote Administrator, a program to rival PC-Anywhere in speed and cost, check it out in Reviews. Is your MR26a range a bit short? Well here's an ugly way to get a quick fix possibly, in Projects.

Go check out a new article at salon.com, giving a good look at real home automation! One of our members, Patrick Deutsch showed off his home, and lots of other familiar names and sites are in there. I'm glad he got the point that home automation isn't all that new and we've been playing with it for some time! Articles like this will get others realizing they can do a lot for a little. Thanks to Damien Cave for a well done article.

Finally a new camera from x10! No wait, is it?? The new InstantOn camera's only new feature is that when it is powered on, it doesn't fade up slowly from darkness. According to the information, they did this by keeping the camera powered all the time, and simply switch the transmitter on/off.

I don't have any of the power supplies myself (some on order) but unless it runs both switched and unswitched power (i.e. more than two wires), I don't see how they can keep only the camera powered when the supply shuts off! Unless what they really did was speed up the gain control like it should have been. Good marketing, sell a fix as a new product! I don't know if it costs more or not, it's only package priced right now at $119, with an extra cam, remote etc..

How could I miss this... but on May 1, HomeSeer 1.5 was released! This program only gets better and better, and Rich still seems to spend so much time talking to users, I can't believe he has time to code! And the old company name Keware is no more, it's now HomeSeer Technologies. If you decide to get it, buying via our link helps support the site.

A quick note on the links area. Link owners can now link directly to rate their site in the link database, as seen on the right here. Just check this page for details on how.	Rate This Site! --- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Rich over at Keware has release news about new future features for HomeSeer, including media player support, a TAPI interface (which means phone voice control, voice mail etc.) and an upcoming hardware telephone switch box for controlling homeseer via your in house handsets. Read the thread for yourself...

Also now available is a DLL that will allow HomeSeer to download programming info to X10's cm11a, like ActiveHome does. This is a $14.95 add on from HAWizard.

Just stumbled upon this one (X10 doesn't tell me anything ahead!). X10 has a contractors page where you can find contractors doing X10 by zip code. If you talk to or use one and post a 30 word or better review, they will give you a $15 voucher. There are lists of contractors and reviews/ratings (just like ours here, odd timing!) Funny, I had thought X10pro was for this type of thing and X10.com for the web, but it seems not the case.

People here wanted some user defined links, so here it is! Below is our new link area. Categorized links, with user ratings and comments for them too. Notice that it's pretty empty! This list is made to be built by you, and rated by you. I'll put my own in, but most submissions can come from you.

A few notes. Categories are few to start. I'll add subcategories as links are added and get cluttered. Link submissions don't show up right away, nor do your ratings and comments. I'll try to process those daily to keep the list going since it's new. The reason for this is to ensure the info is correct and we don't get nasty spammers putting links to XXX10.com. As usual, comments to shape this further are welcome!

Wow, no updates for a while, huh? Well still not much to say. Spring has got us all doing non-computer things to an extent. I've been working on some things for the site, and it's been tediously slow. Lots of things to look forward to down the pipe, just waiting and waiting. Rich at Keware continues his work on the phone software, Nathan is working on his IR controller, the "CLIC" and his website is rising into existence. Again, any reviews are welcome, and general rants too, we do have an articles area. If you want to start your own column, that would be great!

Richard Phillips has a review on the new Scan Cam from X10, check it out in the Reviews area! We sure need more user reviews. Why not make a request in the forums for a review, maybe someone will jump in and we'll get a few more up. I'd like to hear about any of those high end rocker switches myself.

Download changes! Because of changes in HomeSeer 1.4, the weather and callerid scripts have changed, they won't work with the older versions. Jeff "CFGuy" Farmer has his dual_motion HomeSeer script that controls one light with two motion detectors. Finally, Boyd W. Penn has a slide show for download, that shows his setup that uses a pos system!

Hey, it's close to April 1! A reminder to pick up homeseer before the first to avoid the price increase. Using the button on the left side of this page helps support the site.

X10 is cam-crazy! Another cam, the ScanCam. This one is the XCam2 with a power supply that's switchable like an appliance module, but solid state, no click. There is a new palm pad that goes with the unit that appears to replace the dimming buttons with two buttons to scan through either the top or bottom four units. This is only my guess. The cam now has a way to focus it and a longer swing arm.

They're selling the whole kit for $99 - 40 voucher. They have just the new supply for $19, and just the palm pad with a receiver for $19. I sure wish they would come up with something better, like a CCD cam, or maybe a wide angle lens.

Quick note, I finished the XRay software review in the reviews area. It's not going to make you run out and get the XCam, but it may be useful to some of you.

Past news 3/1/2000 - 3/13/2000 >>