X10 in a cornucopia

By Mark Gibbs
Network World, 11/19/01

About four weeks ago I covered X10 and threatened to expose you to some cool X10 control software that can also integrate with the Internet. And, true to our belated word, we will be bringing you not one, but two of these products in this and next week's Gearhead.

This week, we'll discuss HomeSeer from HomeSeer Technologies. This product is compatible with Windows 98, Millennium Edition, NT and 2000. HomeSeer controls all types of X10 devices, including appliance modules, lamp modules, motion sensors, switches and even virtual devices (which are used rather like variables to "hold" the status of a device or service in the system).

You set up a device that you want to control by defining its X10 code, what kind of device it is (can it be dimmed, can you interrogate it for its status), where it is (an arbitrary string for your reference only) and what the device is named ("Lab lights", "Rack 1 power", "Jacuzzi", "bar lights", "stereo" and so on).

You then associate events with that device in terms of conditionals, such as what is the current time or how long has the device been on or off, and actions (and there may be more than one) associated with the event (for example, switch the device on or off, or brighten or dim it with an optional delay time for the action).

As if all that isn't enough, you can launch applications, play sounds, send e-mail, run custom scripts, have text spoken (the Microsoft Text-to-Speech engine is included), trigger other events, and, if required, establish or terminate Internet connections. Oh, and you can get special status messages from passive infrared movement detectors that report on sunset and sunrise or have HomeSeer calculate these events based on your location or latitude and longitude.

Another interesting inclusion is speech recognition. The Microsoft Agent system is optional and can be spoken to through the PC microphone. Alternatively, you can use the HomeSeer Phone, a Telephony API support module and a voice-compatible modem. The HomeSeer Phone supports one or two telephone lines and includes multiple mailboxes and caller ID (which can be announced by using the text-to-speech services or .wav files).

Phone messages can be forwarded by e-mail, or a page can be sent. HomeSeer can detect phone events, including ringing, the line being answered, messages left, or caller ID.

HomeSeer is also - and this is so cool - Web-enabled: It has a built-in Web server (you can control which port it is on) with a customizable page layout and simple security (a single passworded account and optional password-free guest account). And it is even e-mail-enabled.

If you set up HomeSeer with a mail account it can receive messages and act on them either through simple event triggers (either whom the message is from or simply that a message has been received) or create custom responses using the scripting facilities.

We had HomeSeer controlling lights by voice, e-mail and on receipt of status changes from passive infrared movement detectors. We even had the detections e-mailed to a cell phone Short Message Service and spoken out loud.

The scripting is really neat, with support for setting FTP proxies; FTPing files; running other scripts; sending keystrokes to other applications; launching applications; opening, closing, reading and writing data to COM ports; sending and receiving (and parsing) e-mail, grabbing Web pages; and performing basic string operations. These last two are used in a demo script that grabs a Wireless Application Protocol Web page for the weather and reformats the contents so they can be spoken.

There's also support for infrared devices (such as the Applied Digital Ocelot) and X10 RF transceivers.

This is a pretty remarkable piece of engineering, combining X10 with Internet services, speech synthesis and recognition and full programmability - all for the trivial price of $80 (the phone interface is another $40). There's even a HomeSeer ActiveX control for you to build into your application (it is free for personal use and $30 if you plan to resell the applications). HomeSeer is way cool and scores nine gearteeth out of 10. Fantastic!

Check it out and tell us what you think at gearhead@gibbs.com.