EIB and X10

[tyson]

Hi everybody!!

Sorry for writing in english but I don't understand german and I need a little help from you...EIB experts.
Ok, I have a friend that is going to promote and build 9 villas in the cityoutside. He wanted to install a domotic system in each one he asked me if I can design an installed such a system. I have read a lot about domotic systems and I have decided that I will use EIB instead of X10.
I don't see very clear the advantages of EIB respect to X10. I mean, from the technical point of view EIB is much better but from the owner's (who has to pay) point of view, is more expensive and reports the same benefits, so I can't justify with the future owners my EIB decision.
For example, X10 can dimm a light for not more than 70 euro, but EIB needs for the same purpouse 200 euro, clear?

Please, can you open my eyes and give me other justifications that I am ignoring.

Thanks in advance,

José Núñez

[Gaston]

Well let me give some advantages of EIB over X10:

I give you these for as far as I know of X10:

1) Status

In X10 tranmitters are usually only transmitters, and wont be a receiver. This implies that there could be no status notification of a packet goinf to the receiver. In EIB each packer is acknowledged so that the sender knows if the packet went "somewhere", not sure it went to the correct device. A lot of devices allow however a full status sendback where the status can then be changed: T:"Please turn light on" -> R:"Achknowledge" -> R:"Light is On" (T=Transmitter, R=Receiver, X10 terminology).

2) Protocol

X10 is mostly powerline based. Components are linked to the powerline frequency. Since X10 comes from the US I would believe that most components are for the 60Hz powerlines. (Don't know where you are from).

Second, a simple On of a single light needs nearly 1 Second to complete the transmission on X-10 !! (0.883 seconds). Since you have to wait 3 cycles before sending the next packet this make roughly one operation per second !

X10 is based on commands, not data, which means that there is little place for future extensions and "gadgets". For example Heating steering while possible is tricky and you wont be able to use the measured temperature for example for another application since it cannot be sent.

Units are organized in 16 House Codes and 16 Units for a maximum of 256 independend receivers. One single sender can only address one house code which means 16 units which makes it impossible to address more then 16 devices with one switch. (For example switching all lights off)

I believe to remember that there is even no collision detection so that two persons acting on two switches together will result in no action to take place. Correct me if I am wrong.

3) Commands

X-10 is command base, and this on a very restricted set of commands which does not allow for future extension of the command set. Practically this command set has only be created for light steering. Well some commands like "DIM" might be used for heating.

But again the big drawback is the inability of sending data, for which the system is to slow anyway. Here the stength of EIB is that you can combine. If for example you want to close your roller-tye shutters on all your windows on the approach off a storm, the corresponding X-10 device (so far it exists) would have a preset value on which windspeed it will probably send a "OFF" comand in order to close the shutters.

But imagine now that you have automated window opener and closer (lucky one, but it is an example) and you want to close all windows automatically at some wind speed and only close the shutters when the wind is much faster. This would be a hard one in X-10. On EIB since you are able to send the data 8i.e. Wind speed or even direction) you could do this with a function module.

Many more such example exist. Basically X-10 has been invented to be cheap but at the cost of functionality. So in fact the choice is between price and functionality.

Nowadays I do not really see any interest in this old system dated sometime around 1980's where computers were very rare. Basically it is my strong believe that there is not much interest in having X-10, over having a conventional electric installation. The very big advantage of EIB is its possibility of interaction between all kinds of devices which is only very limited if at all in X-10. But if you do not have interaction between the components where is the interest of an automatted house. This would be like having a conventional electric installation for the lights, a custom heating regulation of some kind, and independent roller-type shutters with its own wind sensor. All solutions that exist in an independant way and probably even cheaper then X-10.

Gaston

[Gaston]

I have updated and completed my first message, if ever you did read it already.

Gaston