Home Hacking Projects for Geeks

The Intelligent Dispatcher

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Chapter 11, Keyless Entry Welcome Home

So here’s the lighting situation in my house. I have two lights in my entry-

way, one inside and one outside. Both are controlled by a single switch. I

have three lights in my kitchen, one over each door, that are also on a single

switch. In the downstairs hallway that connects the kitchen to the stairs

leading to the bedrooms, I have two lights controlled by a single switch.

Finally, the upstairs hallway has two lights, just outside the bedrooms, that

are also controlled by a single switch. Since I intend to have these groupings

play roles in other lighting scenes, not only those created for the entry sys-

tem, it’s best not to lump them all together. Table 11-1 shows the addresses

I assigned to each lighting zone.

Table 11-1. Each device must be uniquely addressed

Address Controlled devices

B4 Entryway

B5 Kitchen

B6 Downstairs hallway

B7 Upstairs hallway

Or, if you’re happy just having one light or group of lights go on when you

unlock the door and go off when you lock it, simply set the whole group to

address A1 and forget about the intelligent dispatcher.

See Chapter 1 for detailed information about installing X10 switches.

The Intelligent Dispatcher

The final step of the project is to add intelligence to the system. This enables

greater flexibility for device control. For that we need something that can ...