I use X10 electronic equipment to control lighting and power.

X10 uses a ‘mains’ signalling protocol and thus there is no additional control wiring required for operation of the control units.

X10 controls come in two different varieties - plug-in modules and hard wired units

I have used a combination of the two dependant upon application and whether the location lends itself to a hardwired solution.

I currently can control lighting in the house as well as external garden lights by means of X10 units fitted within an enclosure in the garden shed.

The main X10 control units are ‘Appliance Modules’ and ‘Dimming Modules’. Appliance modules can either be ‘on’ or ‘off’ and the dimming modules can be used to dim lights. However, the dimming modules can only be used with tungsten filament lamps (not fluorescent or the energy saving compact fluorescent lamps (cfl’s). With the fluorescent lamps one can only have ‘on’ ‘off’ control and use an appliance module. I use X10 electronic equipment to control lighting and power.

X10 uses a ‘mains’ signalling protocol and thus there is no additional control wiring required for operation of the control units.

X10 controls come in two different varieties - plug-in modules and hard wired units

I have used a combination of the two dependant upon application and whether the location lends itself to a hardwired solution.

I currently can control lighting in the house as well as external garden lights by means of X10 units fitted within an enclosure in the garden shed.

The main X10 control units are ‘Appliance Modules’ and ‘Dimming Modules’. Appliance modules can either be ‘on’ or ‘off’ and the dimming modules can be used to dim lights. However, the dimming modules can only be used with tungsten filament lamps (not fluorescent or the energy saving compact fluorescent lamps (cfl’s). With the fluorescent lamps one can only use an appliance module and hence have ‘on’ ‘off’ Control.

I have also installed a couple of plug-in transceiver units. These units can receive short range wireless signals and convert these commands to X10 protocol and transmit them down the mains wiring.
With these units fitted I can control the X10 appliance/dimming units by means of wireless key fobs or hand control units (similar to audio/visual remote hand control units).
Lights within the house can also be controlled by hard wired retractive switches which in the case of dimming units can control the brightness, as well as turn ‘on’ and ‘off’ individual light fittings.

It is possible to control X10 units by means of a computer (or stand alone devices such as presence detectors).

There are also X10 control units which look like digital satellite decoder boxes, which are designed to be on 24/7 and once programmed do not need a computer to be constantly powered up.
This is something I am considering for the future once the house has been completed as regards configuration for X10 operation.