Purchasing components, are these "linux MCE friendly"?

[tschak909]

The commands are discrete, so sending Off, to an already off light, won't do anything except change the floor plan...

however... you will find that lack of bi-directional support will become irritating as hell when you start controlling the house with orbiter panels AND light switches...

you already know my stance on x-10...but, in the end, it's your call.

-Thom

[skeptic]

Very valid points.  I'll still go with Insteon when the time comes and probably buy a few X10 devices to test, 'cause they are so cheap.  You're probably right about them sucking, but there are some things, closet and bathroom lights for example, that I'd never spend $50 to control.  If I find them annoying I can move forward with Insteon stuff.  If I were to go ZWave, the cheap option for unimportant things wouldn't exist.  25+ lights adds up quick. Having more options is never a bad thing.

[trumpetx]

At this point, I don't see any reason to use Zwave... Insteon seems to have a more reliable protocol and the pricepoint is the same as Zwave.  At least, for the basic things.  I'm not sure how much the more complex things are.

I talked to the wife.  She's not interested in spending the cash on this house (cheap, $125K "starter home" in the midwest).  I'd love to play around with it, but I understand where she's coming from.  I think I'll end up getting some X10 switches as toys.

[totallymaxed]

At this point, I don't see any reason to use Zwave... Insteon seems to have a more reliable protocol and the pricepoint is the same as Zwave.  At least, for the basic things.  I'm not sure how much the more complex things are.

I talked to the wife.  She's not interested in spending the cash on this house (cheap, $125K "starter home" in the midwest).  I'd love to play around with it, but I understand where she's coming from.  I think I'll end up getting some X10 switches as toys.

Hmmm... well if your just getting some 'toys' I would still go for Insteon or ZWave as they have a significant future as standards and also in our LinuxMCE community. ZWave setup can be put together for  probably just over $100 USD  or so... and they plug-n-play so when you move house you can take them with you ;-)

Also if you use the new bidirectional ZWave driver under heavy development by Hari then you can and do get full confirmation that the devices has acted/responded. See the various threads here for more info and look here on the Wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Z-Wave

All the best

Andrew