X10 is a communications "language" that allows compatible products to talk to each other using the existing electrical wiring in the home. Most X10 compatible products are very affordable and the fact that they talk over existing wires in your home means that no costly rewiring is necessary. Installation is simple, a transmitter plugs (or wires) in at one location in the home and sends its control signal (on, off, dim, bright, etc.) to a receiver which plugs (or wires) into another location in the home.

Using simple dials or buttons you assign each product with one of up to 256 addresses. If you wish two products to go on and off together you can set them to the same address or use scene addresses on many advanced products. All X10 compatible products can be freely mixed and matched. X10 vendors include Smarthome, Leviton, Stanley, IBM, JDS, ACT, Homepro, to name a few.

It is estimated that X10 compatible products can be found in over 10 million American homes. This is because it has so many advantages over other types of remote control products and systems:
• inexpensive,
• no new wiring is required -- perfect for retrofit ,
• simple to install ,
• 100's of compatible products,
• control up to 256 lights and appliances,
• and it has been around for over 30 years .

Most of the time, X10 products work without any problems. However, because X10 products talk over your home's electrical wires they may have difficulties in two situations. The first is when there is an appliance running that generates "noise" onto the powerline. Appliances that may cause problems are motors (e.g. dryer, treadmill, vacuum cleaner, etc.) and advanced electronics (e.g. switching power supplies on some laptops, some big screen TV's, etc.). The good news is that all you need to do is plug the appliance into a noise filter (e.g. FilterLinc from SmartHome).

The second "issue" with X10 is when your X10 transmitter is on one "side" (phase) of your home's electrical wiring and the receiver is on the other "side". Many times the signal either bridges the two phases at the transformer at the street or via some 220V appliance in the home. When this doesn't happen, a simple plug-in phase coupler (e.g. SignaLinc from SmartHome) will solve this challenge.