Home automation pioneer will no longer make powerline-based X10 products.
August 25, 2011

For those of us who cut our teeth installing X10 products in our homes in the '80s and '90s its been nice to know you could always fall back to this pioneering technology when your current favorite wireless technology did not offer a solution. But now the early provider of this technology, X10 USA, will cease to offer X10 products.

As reported by CEPro earlier this month, X10 is shutting down. It appears the company is headed into receivership and its factories will cease making products for controlling lights and other devices using the home powerline. This means X10 will no longer make products based on the home-control protocol it created in the 1970s.

Interestingly, the closure coincides with a high-profile report from Black Hat that X10 could be hacked, but that report most likely had nothing to do with X10’s demise. More likely, the company simply faced competition from newer home-control technologies such as Z-Wave and ZigBee (RF) and Universal Powerline Bus (powerline).

Being the low-cost provider, X10 undoubtedly suffered from higher wages in China, where its products are manufactured.

X10 may seem archaic to some now, but the powerline-based home-control protocol surely launched the home automation industry starting in the 1980s. It took more than two decades for other retrofit home automation technologies (Z-Wave, UPB, ZigBee, Insteon) to gain traction.

Since its pioneering work in home control, X10 USA has devolved into a somewhat trashy Website peddling cheap wireless cameras and other gadgets. That business may continue, according to CEPro sources.

But X10 products are still being manufactured in Asia and will continue to be available from SmartHome.com and other popular online outlets until consumer demand dwindles to an unprofitable level.

For more details about X10 technology click here.