X10 Staff Favorites
Entries For December 1998
December/January Theme: Best application for ActiveHome with
Hawkeye IIEntry 6: I have used ActiveHome as a motion detector within my home. I no
longer wait up for my daughters when they come home from a date on the town with their boy
friends. I simply set my ActiveHome system to register motion on the living room area and
when motion is detected my stereo and living room lights come on. You should have seen the
look on my Eldest daughters face the first time that she tried to sneak in and got the
shock of her life.-- Guy Brown
Entry 10:I
couldn't believe it! Periodically over the past few months unfamiliar
sounds would awaken me or my wife in the middle of the night. We would get up to check it
out but could never find anything ...until we purchased our ActiveHome kit with motion
detector. Imagine our surprise when the lights came on and we located the strange intruder
flying about our room! We had a friendly bat that would come to visit from time to time.
--Rick Baldwin
Entry 18 :As I work out of a
home office I am constantly working. Or so my wife would think. I have
set up my Activehome and Hawkeye to alert me when my wife is coming down to the office to
check up on me. I have a light flash to give me plenty of time to switch from
"Quake"(game) to real work. So far so good. I am sure many more useful ideas
will come to me as time goes on. --Tom Cheek
Entry 95 : When
are you going to put in a new light switch my wife yelled as she
stumbled into the dark kitchen with an armload of groceries. She'd been bugging me adding
a light switch in the kitchen that could be turned on when she came in from the garage for
months. "Next week" I answered as I stared at the computer screen on a web
surfing mission to find the lowest price on another toy I didn't need.As I hit a new site
the top of the page contained an ad for X10. Now
we'd had X10 devices installed for some time and enjoyed the
comfort of remote control lighting and an cool security system to boot. Somehow
I remembered my wife's words "When are you going to put in a
new light switch" and I decided to see if X10 had any answers for me.I clicked on the
X10 ad and wound up on their home page. I browsed around a while and then
there it was the Hawkeye Motion Sensor! A light
surely must have lit over my head. I placed my order.A few days later I
received and easily installed the Hawkeye while my wife was making her
weekly trip to the grocery store. I went back to the basement parked
myself in front of the computer and waited. Soon I
heard the garage door open and her car pull in. The kitchen door opened with it's usual
creak and I heard my wife yell "When are you going to...". She
stopped. Then there was silence.I've been enjoying that silence for some time now. Its not
easy to come by. Now no more interruptions to my surfing. Thanks X10.--
Greg Sohl
Entry 202:ActiveHome saved my life last
night.I came home late and I noticed my bedroom light on. I thought I had turned it off
before I left. As I walked into the kitchen a burglar surprised me and
told me to put my hands up. Of course I did. He told me to back up into
the living room. My heart skipped a beat on my third step backward. As I took my fourth
step I said to him "I'm surprised you weren't attacked by my Great
Dane Hawkeye." All of a sudden there was a
vicious dog barking behind the burglar the lights flashed
and a siren sounded. The burglar dropped the jewelry he had taken from
my bedroom and ran out the kitchen door as fast as a jack rabbit being chased by a
wolf.What happened was your Hawkeye sensor started my "I'm away" program in my
computer as I backed into the living room. Thanks to the comprehensive features of and
additions to your ActiveHome kit I was safe and the burglar got away with nothing.-- Bruce
Weiner |