IT experts argue that the market for "smart" homes in Russia will never become widespread and in the next decade is unlikely to go beyond luxury housing in the Moscow region. In the future, a possible consumer of the market will be a scanty part of the population with high incomes in the regions, but for the masses the “smart home” will remain a colorful picture on the pages of tabloids and Internet resources. Is it so? Already, the infrastructure of the dwelling of an ordinary layman is a rather complex combination of various engineering systems. Combining them into one network without global costs will help the X10 standard.
Smart Home Features
The most common and easiest feature is lighting control. Intelligent system allows you to remotely control each lighting fixture. Without getting up, you can turn on or off the lighting in any room or in the whole house at once, adjust the brightness of the night illumination of the corridor, landscape lamps. The “smart home”, including turning on the lights in different places according to a certain algorithm, will scare away intruders, imitating the presence of the owners in case of their departure.
Automated control will maintain the set temperature parameters in the room by controlling heating devices or air conditioning and ventilation systems. The smart home can control the fire-fighting equipment and, in case of emergency, send a notification to the phone of the owner or the corresponding structures by voice or SMS message.
How it all began
X10 is one of the first open industry standards developed for household automation systems by Pico Electronics (Scotland, Glenrothes) in 1975. Initially, the company was engaged in the design and manufacture of microcircuits and microcalculators. The first experience of expanding the production sphere was very successful commercially. The X10 platform quickly gained popularity among developers of the smart home concept and gave a tangible impetus to the development of this industry. Attempts to create such an interface were made by other companies, but did not receive much success.
For its time, X10 is a protocol with good noise immunity. The popularity was facilitated by the comparative cheapness of equipment, the orientation of developers to household automation, maintenance and technical support. On the North American continent, the standard is still in demand and widespread. Following the development company, giant IBM and Philips corporations began to produce a wide range of X10-compatible devices.
Today, Pico Electronics has been transformed into X10 INC (USA) under the trademark PowerHouse.
Equipment classification
The hardware of the X10 network is a collection of devices interconnected via a standard power grid or radio channel. The basic system must include:
- Transmitters - controllers that form and send commands, control modules (with a computer interface or stand-alone), programmable timers with different time ranges, remote controls (infrared or radio channel).
- Receivers - executive devices that execute the received commands: lamp modules and cartridge dimmers, dimmer and socket blocks, all kinds of drives.
In the case of building a larger network or expanding an existing one, auxiliary equipment is often used:
- Transceivers that receive command signals from remote controls with further conversion to the X10 communication protocol before being sent to the mains.
- Repeaters and signal amplifiers.
- Filters that reduce the effects of electromagnetic interference.
- Interfacial bridges, for 380 V electric networks (passive or active, for buildings with an area of over 300 m 2) .
- Measuring devices that simplify installation and commissioning, sensors (movement, light, etc.).
Equipment manufactured by various companies often have a similar appearance, functionality and even marking. The devices have different designs depending on the requirements for placement; for mounting in a line, on a DIN rail in standard electrical cabinets, micromodules for distribution boxes of hidden wiring.
Household automation can be started with several basic modules, and then gradually increase the scale and expand the functionality by adding new hardware units.
Element Base Examples
The basis for a typical X10 module is a programmable microcontroller. According to a certain algorithm, it controls the functioning of the electronic circuit of the device, which feeds generated signals received from an external power supply to its input and converts the output pulses for reverse transmission to the network. Serial production controllers (e.g. PIC or AVR from Microchip and Atmel, respectively) can be used as microcomputers.
The X10 lamp relay modules are widely used to control lighting in the smart home concept. There are two modifications: inserted into a standard outlet for connecting floor lamps, table lamps (LM12) or made in the form of an adapter between a lighting cartridge and a standard bulb with an E27 base, with a power of up to 100 W (LM15S).
The management of household electrical equipment is carried out using instrument outlet modules. For example, the AM12 module looks like a tube, but does not support commands specific to lighting (more on this below).
Software
Implementing the X10 protocol on a computer will help top-level software products.
ActiveHome Software - free software for personal computers based on WINDOWS operating systems from the developer of the X10 platform. The package includes a huge number of utilities and device drivers, as well as a mobile version of the program.
ActiveHomePro - software for the computer interface SM-15 (radio transceiver, 433 MHz) with connection via USB port. Allows you to control lighting and household appliances with the task of the necessary algorithms, schedules and timers from a personal computer or autonomously from a wireless remote control.
X10 Commander (Melloware Inc) - freeware software for any OS that allows you to create a multifunctional management service on the basis of a PC and integrate the X10 protocol on your phone and any mobile device (iOS / Android).
The Russian LLC Home Technology Laboratory offers consumers a convenient device on the X10 platform - the XTS-36 full-color VGA touch panel. Standalone device has a convenient graphical interface. The control of the X10 protocol and the control of the intelligent lighting system remain comfortable, with excellent visualization, but the need for constant computer operation in the background is eliminated. The kit comes with drivers and software for prescribing the addressing of X10 devices and the basic parameters of the initial configuration, for compiling various scenarios.
X10. Protocol details
The physical medium of information exchange in power electric wires is the transmission / reception of fragments of high frequency sinusoidal oscillations (120 KHz) with an amplitude of 5 V and a duration of 1 ms / 630 μs in each half-period of the mains voltage, in windows formed immediately after crossing the zero mark. In three-phase circuits, similar windows are formed in each phase, i.e. with a shift of 60 degrees with the further use of interphase bridges.
If the device in the receive window receives a package in which there are at least 48 oscillations, then it is considered as a logical "unit", in the opposite case - as a logical "zero". The transmission of an information bit takes two half-periods of the mains voltage. Moreover, the inverse value is translated in the second, which not only improves noise immunity, but also serves to identify the synchronization code during packet transmission.
X10 is a protocol in which a standard single packet (frame, frame) is transmitted over 11 periods. He contains:
- synchronization code - 2 bits,
- module code - 4 bits,
- building code is 5 bits.
Each packet, without any interval, is transmitted twice in a row. Before broadcasting the next packet double, a pause of 3 periods of mains voltage is maintained (with the exception of brightness dimming commands transmitted by a continuous stream).
IR control panels in X10 networks operate using the X10-IR protocol at a carrier frequency of 40 kHz. The radio channel (X10-RF protocol), depending on the region, has a range from 310 to 434 MHz.
Addressing and command system
The maximum number of modules in the X10 network is 256. On each module there are two selector switches with 16 fixed positions.
The first switch - the home code (Home code) is used to select a category or group of devices. It has a letter designation of positions from A to P. In the second, fixed positions are indicated by numbers from 1 to 16 and indicate a specific module in the network (Unit code). Thus, each device is assigned a unique number consisting of letters and numbers. For instance; A5, M14, etc. System controllers, unlike executive modules, as a rule, do not require addressing settings.
An idea of the existing platform commands and their corresponding actions can be obtained from the table.
X10 Protocol Commands| Team | Team (Russian) | A type | Act |
| All units off | Turn off all consumers | Group | All devices with the specified house code that support the command are disconnected. |
| All ligths on / off | Turn on / off all lights | Group | Transfer to the on / off state of all lighting modules with a given house code. |
| On / off | Switch on switch off | Address | Putting on / off a specific module. |
| Dim / brigth | Increase / decrease brightness | Address | Dimmer management. The number of packages for the ranges of brightness control on different devices is different. |
| Pre-Set Dim 1/2 | Set a specific brightness level. | Address | Allows you to choose any of the 32 steps of brightness control. |
| Status request | Status Request | Address | Request the status of the switching module. |
| Status on / off | Request response | - | The answer about the status of the module. |
| Hail Request / Acknowlege | Request / send response | Group | A technology team to determine address space saturation with systems in other buildings. |
Main advantages...
X10 is a low-budget household automation protocol that uses existing power grids to transmit information and command messages. There is no need to lay new communications, which is especially true in homes with a fine finish or completed repair work. You can either use network wiring or use a radio channel - the range of equipment offered by manufacturers allows you to implement both options or a combination of both. The cost of devices, compared with more modern platforms, is also pleasantly pleasing.
The next advantage is the flexibility of application and ease of installation, which does not require special skills. The system is characterized by excellent extensibility and scalability. The modules are connected according to the principles of Plug & Power (plug and play). The whole setup is to give the new component a unique address. Further automation will do everything herself.
The division of lighting infrastructure into zones is greatly simplified. It is enough to assign the same letter to the devices of the same group (building code), and when a corresponding broadcast command is issued, the light in this zone will turn on or off.
An open protocol is another plus of the platform, which implies easy integration with any control system, the ability to use third-party wiring products when designing a network.
... and flaws
The main advantage of the X10 interface - the transmission of an information signal through power wiring - is also the main source of its problems.
Low speed. The transfer of the command takes about a second, that is, the delay in the execution of the command is really noticeable even when controlling a single device. And in the process of working out the embedded scenario, the delay can become annoyingly unacceptable. Since the information transfer rate is tied to the frequency of the supply voltage, it is not possible to increase it.
Low noise immunity. The abundance of household appliances in a modern home dramatically increases the level of interference in the power network, negatively affects the signal-to-noise ratio, which, in turn, affects the quality of information exchange between X10 modules. Hence the consequences - failure to execute commands or false switching. When building large networks, the limitation of the address field can become a problem, since only 256 devices can connect to the X10 protocol.
Out of sync of the transmitting equipment can lead to packet overlap and collisions, as a result of which, none of the commands will be executed. It is impossible to radically correct the situation.
There are no procedures for restricting access, there is no protection against unauthorized actions of third parties. And finally, it is impossible to create complex control schemes for household appliances and lighting with the implementation of the self-diagnosis function of the system and its devices.
Modifications X10
These shortcomings are mostly corrected in the next generations of home automation systems of the so-called bus architecture (signals are transmitted via a dedicated / laid bus with a low-voltage supply voltage).
In turn, developers and manufacturers of X10 equipment have taken steps to improve and modify the existing platform. The result is the X10Extended format with an extended command system. An undoubted advantage of the modified platform was the regulation of the access procedure of transmitters to the trunk, eliminating the occurrence of collisions and expanding the functions of the Exteded Code 1 command with changing the package format.
Further modification of X10Extended led to the creation of the A10 format, which significantly expanded the address field (up to 4096 modules) and added several service functions (available only on devices manufactured by the developer). The A10 and X10 protocols are absolutely compatible, which makes it possible to operate both types of modules in one system.
Summing up the brief results, it is difficult to disagree that the first interface of home automation over the past, almost fifty years, has become obsolete. Modernization attempts, reminiscent of patching the roof in the rainy season, are not able to radically correct the situation. But the budget characteristics of the platform still hold it in the market of intelligent systems, and X10 equipment is actively produced and sold.
Domestic firms are predicting a new wave of popularity for the interface. Consumers are offered a wide range of both individual devices and turnkey solutions for the "smart" home on the X10 platform.