Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!alw
From: alw@eddie.MIT.EDU (Alan Wu)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: More X10 questions
Summary: cheap and compatible sets the standard
Keywords: X10, home automation
Message-ID: <9318@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: 25 May 88 15:49:42 GMT
References: <8805250054.AA15025@jade.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: alw@eddie.MIT.EDU (Alan Wu)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32

The company that sold X10 compatible modules with status feedback was
First Alert (Pittway); I still have the sales literature filed away at
home.  Naturally, you could only get feedback with their modules and
central controller, but it was backwards-compatible with X10 modules.
The controller had some relatively advanced features for the time,
such as programmable control including day-of-week, and a rudimentary
security alarm feature.  It was not marketed very well; I never
actually saw one in the flesh, in spite of looking for it in Boston
and New York.

There was another outfit called Anova a few years later, which had a
modular telephone/answering machine/home control/alarm system with
some kind of line carrier remote modules.  I actually saw one of these
systems, but they were quite expensive and compatibility with X10 was
never mentioned.  Anova also dropped the product, and may even be out
of business.

I guess the marketing lesson is that making something cheap, compatible,
and available through multiple distribution channels is more important
in establishing a foothold than is a fancy high-end system.  Once X10
was established as a de facto standard, nobody else could displace it.
If X10 USA is really clever, they could extend their standard in an
upwards-compatible way and add in closed-loop feedback of some sort
without breaking the existing standard.

By the way, does anybody have archives of past messages concerning 
X10?  I got swamped with work and had to stop reading netnews just
around the time things got interesting about 6 months back.
-- 
--Alan Wu
Usenet: alw@mit-eddie / Internet: alw@eddie.mit.edu
Telephone: (617) 253-5624