In our previous house we had a home security system (HSS) that was connected to a monitoring station. It was a COTS system that worked well but it did cost ca. $40/month for the first two years and then $20/month after that (basically the monitoring). There were some things that really bothered me about it:
- I couldn’t easily extend it: I needed to call the installer for any additional sensors
- I couldn’t make it do stuff like call my mobile phone or send email
- I couldn’t connect it to a video camera
- I couldn’t log events
Wouldn’t it be nice if I could install some battery and/or solar powered sensors that connect wirelessly to a central control box that is connected to my PC… from which I could program all sorts of things: if motion is detected, turn on the appropriate webcam, take a snapshot and email it, then start recording for N minutes… then call my cell phone and transfer the audio over speaker so I can speak in the house. 
And turn some lights on or some panel that indicates “we know you are there” (in case the intruder is just a hooligan looking at stealing stuff in the backyard or vandalizing).
Until now I’ve never considered X10 to be worth my time and money: why would I want to control my lights centrally, it’s way easier with the wall switch; have the lights turn on when I enter? dont’ need X10 for that, nowadays a $30 motion-based light-switch will do; “program” the lighting? not interested.
But I could see it being really useful for a home security system, since X10 was designed to allow the connection of sensors to your computer and you use your favorite programming language (assuming an X10 SDK is available for it) to create the system response and behavior.
I was looking at ActiveHomePro’s SDK and control unit CM15A but a friend of mine from ProjectWorkshop suggested that INSTEON is more reliable and supports X10. Both over wireless and wire, the latter using the AC powerlines in your home as the carrier so rarely need new wiring.
So basically I’m looking for good off-the-shelf wireless X10 or INSTEON components, an associated SDK (preferably for Windows, don’t care what language), and something that will allow the system to use phone (voip? modem?). Re the phone, if there is a device that can connect to a 3G network so the system can use wireless mobile phone network (for a monthly price), that would be awesome, so that the HSS is not dependent on your land phone line.
X10:
- Recommended X10 kit: ActiveHome Professional: SDK, Software Development Kit, with CM15A controller.
- Recommended eBay seller: x10-warehouse; how about (in Canada) x10-express?
- Many posts on web indicate that X10 is seen as flaky and unreliable. Newer technologies such as INSTEON and Z-Wave are favored.
- However ok for home automation in many cases.
INSTEON:
- Recommended INSTEON source: SmartHome comes highly recommended by a buddy who has been using X10 and INSTEON for two decades. However, INSTEON SDK by SmartHome is $200!
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/shnutilitysuite/files/ is an opensource project by SimpleHomeNet that provides some code that can be used instead of the SDK, for free. However I believe it is not complete. And the utility suite “only works with a PLC via Smarthome’s SDM or the EZBridge / EZSrve, not the PLM”.
- efundies.com is a hacker site for INSTEON.
Z-Wave:
- Seems to come with a free SDK based on .NET
- Charles Stacy Harris III uses Microsoft Robotics SDK to control a z-wave system
Software:
- Powerhome seems to be a software tools that is compatible with all four protocols except for zwave (in the works) and allows socket-based and plugin-based extensions to the tool, a very interesting option.
- HomeSeer is similar to Powerhome but not clear if allows plugins or sockets.
Comparisons:
- Good discussion on zwave, x10, insteon and UPB
- One poster who seems quite knowledgeable about the technologies points to cocoontech as the place to go for figuring out what is best for your needs
