X10 is a long-established protocol for communication among electronic devices used for home automation; it has been on the market in one form or another since the 1970s. The technology primarily uses existing home electrical wiring for signalling and control, where the signals speak to each other by way of brief bursts of radio frequencies that represent digital information.
A wireless radio based protocol transport has also been defined for X10. In its early years, before modern switching power supplies, X10 worked quite well. Today’s more complex power lines however are too “noisy” for X10 to be completely reliable, and as a result, it is not recommended for new home control and automation applications. It is also missing the security features found in more modern protocols.
The INSTEON platform is a newer standard that is backwards compatible with X10 and more advanced.
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