Pete,

You've got your terms mixed up.

A LAMP module dims and is only for incandescent loads.

An APPLIANCE module does not dim and can switch any type of load.

SmartHome's prices are fair considering the ammount of support you get. Their Website and catalog require a lot of work and effort to maintain. Something most of their competitors lack.

As for pricematching, you should call their techsupport who can take your order and pricematch. They know the products off hand and can do the pricematch themselves.

Smarthome also offers a much larger inventory and to make ordering and supporting that inventory uses their own "Part numbers" What many stores would call Stock Numbers.

Bottom line is yes their prices are higher but if you can take the time to shop around for a better price for a product that you found at smarthomes site, takeing the time to say thanks for the site and support by purchasing through them with a pricematch shouldnt be too hard.

Pete,

Look at the Pam01 at:

[Link: homeautomationnet.com]

I use this to control two fluorescent lights that I use to backlight my TV. It's under $13 (not including shipping).

Bob

The big reason why X-10 stuff is so expensive is volume. X-10 (and home automation in general) is a very small niche market. With small volumes of products the R&D expense, and other costs must be recovered over a small number of units, pushing up the price. The cost of the components to manufacture the products is a lot higher if you are buying in low volume. Just get a quote on a micro used in for example the Ocelot from the vendor. If you ask for a quote for tens of thousands a year the price will probably be about triple what you would pay if you were to buy a million a year. There is also the cost of UL and FCC approvals to that has to be passed on. As far as UL approval figure about 10-20k per product to get approval. Some companies by pass this approval on their repeaters to save costs but I for one wouldn't buy from a company that does this.
If there was a high volume on X10 products the cost structure would be such that the end user of the product would pay approximately 3 times the cost of the BOM (bill of materials). For some of the more common products this would work out to be a BOM cost of about $3-$4 ($9 -$12 cost to you) for a switch that is comparable to the PCS switch and about $30-$40 cost to you for a product like the Ocelot.

To add to Westie's comments, AFAIK, there aren't any automation manufactures who are making a killing at this. They all seem to be in a constant state of cash-flow crisis. This industry desperately needs higher volumes.

Thanks for all the responses - I think I have all the X-10 switch info I need know. The only thing I'm mildly disappointed at is the use of an applicance module to control my fluroescent lamp - I have some of these already and they make a loud click when they switch on/off, which I'd prefer not to have. Or maybe it's just the brand of appliance module I have, which is Readio SHack.

In reply to those who talked about the low volume of sales as a reason for the higher costs, that doesn't explain what I perceived to be a $30-$40 difference in two switches with the same functionality but with a different plastic switch on the front. I now know that most of that price difference was because I was comparing prices from a low-price vendor with those from a high-price vendor, and thanks to the info on this thread, I know where to buy things if price is my main motivation.

Thanks,
Pete

This message was edited by phaworth on 06/10/02 18:55.11.

Pete, check [Link: geocities.com] for some possible module modifications. Bill at HomeAutomationNet was kind enough to relay it to me.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com