X10: 1980s Smart Home Automation & Voice Control! LGR Oddware

not that it matters some 50 years later, but oof that visible mastercard number. ;)

I actually bought one of the newer X10 for my dew heater for my astronomy all sky camera. :D

Hal’s voice and responses were cracking g me up so much!

I can understand how using this would end up in an interview for CNN

Maybe everyone else has forgotten X10 -- but I can't. I had that unit, and, at the time, I thought it was amazing. I even wrote the BSD Unix drivers for it. OK, it was maybe only 50% reliable, but it worked! (Sort of). In one of my lesser moments, I wired my home with it. My then girl friend was over one night and, for reasons unknown to me, all the lights went out when we were just sitting on the couch. She, of course, assumed I had plans. Sadly, I just had to tell her "Wait a moment -- I have to go reboot my house...." I knew she was going to be special -- the next day she showed up with a toolbox and said "Out! All of it! Take it out!" I, of course, did. It wasn't even her house, but, I know when I've lost.

Cleaning cheese 🧀 wouldn't change it from being cheese.

This was awesome and hilarious - thanks for doing this!!

I wonder if x10 would run in dosbox and if I'd be able to actually use it since I don't have any Google stuff to control my lights or anything

I remember seeing this sort of stuff on computer store shelves back when I was a kid. But I never knew anyone who actually bought or used it at the time.

Holy crap.

THIS is impressive.

“Let me show you something - Smart Home. From this prototype, I have access to every square foot of my house. This place is as safe as Fort Knox and as energy efficient as your average igloo. We were two years ahead of Microsoft and Cebus when Drake, in his infinite wisdom, killed the program.”

Got the movie hacker feels from these

Shoutout to the dude from the san fernando valley who bought that lmao

A little late to the party buy can anyone guess who has some new X10 things coming soon? This guy. I never knew these existed.

oh man that haywire moment was so hilarious.

but does it send all the data to the CIA? if not then its a deal breaker

Still one of my favorite LGR videos. I laugh uncontrollably at the voice control at the end!

Alecs clapper video brought me here

that was hysterical !!!

Glad they went with Hal 9000 for 2001. Hal 2000 would have made a different movie😂

I had this back in the day and it worked surprisingly well. Voice recognition wasn't the best, but I used it for the remote control stuff and it was great. I moved over to the Smarthome / Insteon stuff after that. I actually still have some of the X-10 modules and controllers in the closet...and I just tried them and they're still working.

I used it for the whole house, but also used it for the Christmas lights. Back in the 1980s, to be able to change your house's light colors by remote was quite unheard of. I'd have to run each color string individually, then just layer multiple colors. It was really amazing back then.

I'd kill to see the Commodore version

LEDs will flash if they aren’t a dimmable LED and you use them with a dimmer.

Way cool!

Some "dimmable" LED's are very flashy. But others do work

The TV Guide was left open, no!!!

That flashing probably happens because it's sending small amounts of electricity out to check if there's something connected. Back then it was impossible to see, but modern LEDs a capable of lighting up fast enough.

I had a bunch of X10 in the '90s, and struggled with power line noise and spurious operation. And then it turned out that the historic hotel three doors down was using the same house code. I thought I was being clever to set it to "N". N for Nope. We turned each other's lights on and off for about a week until I figured out what was happening when my wife and I went for dinner there one night and I saw X10 wall switches. A switch to "H" sorted it.

that was funny as f

Me thinks the led blinks is side effect of way these things communicate with the power lines.

Normal lightbulb can run tiny amount current and not heat up filament enough to light the bulb but to send the signal (my guess cos old balls, it pulses down a signal at set intervals).

Led bulbs have a controller on other hand that does all dimming etc that a normal bulb uses levels of resistance to achieve, so when it gets the signal pulse, unlike a normal bulb it is just enough to trip that controller to on for duration of the pulse.

for the dimming bit, you can get (and need) CFL and LED lights that are designed for dimming. They're a lot more expensive than the regular ones, because it takes significantly more complex electronics to avoid the flickering, but they do exist. For halogen replacement LED bulbs you often need to replace the transformer as well, as that type of LED bulbs does not contain the components to run off AC power, but rather require a DC transformer

Might get an X10 so I can control my house Alien Isolation style

The TV Guide is open.

I think this system single handedly explains every "ghost" story between 1979 and 1999. It was just someone having fun sending 120khz bursts through power lines

Unlike incandecent bults, LEDs hate being dimmed and freak out. Happens with any dimming switch. There are special dimmable LEDs you can buy that dont freak out when dimmed.

You're a good guy Mr. LGR....a good guy!

I just looked it up, Home Assistant has X10 support. so if you bought an X10 system in the 80's, then you'd still be living in the future, and being able to control your plugs from your smartphone.
talk about support! that's unheard of in today's IOT culture. incredible.

I wish there was more videos on old home automation stuff like this.

I thought that first one needed to be retrobrighted until you cleaned it... 😬

Can the HAL 2000 Software with X10 hardware support Windows XP?

Still have that C64 cable? I need one for mine.

But… you can instal HAL 2000 can you not?

Lol!!! Loved this video. lol!! Well done!

Computer, call a Hospital!
No Hoss-Petals found, deleting all contacts.

FEED ME DAVE

"The very first microprocessor...."

I'll take Fife inventing the microprocessor.

We just found a bunch of these modules tucked away in storage, complete with camera fixtures (no cameras though -_-)
They look basically the same, except ours has a USB Type B connector for the PC. Almost wondering if they'll still work with win10 and the correct drivers.

I know this video is old af but its bugging me how the audio isnt synced with his lips in some parts

Fluorescent bulbs flash due to current leakage but I didn’t know that LEDs do it too.