A little tutorial

XTension Logo

About Lights and Appliances and Timers

So now you have XTension loaded on your Macintosh, and the X-10 interface is connected and happy.

One of the first things you will want to do with your home automation system, is also one of the easiest to do with XTension.

You will enjoy having certain lamps brighten up gently in the morning, and of course you'll want the coffee ready. First we'll need a light that we can dim, and of course on/off control of the coffee pot.

So run to the corner store, and get at least one X-10 'appliance module', and one 'Lamp Module', and then set up the modules like this :

A Mac, and a cable
to the
interface,

plugged into a wall socket.

as are the

'appliance module'
connected to the coffee pot

and the
Lamp and its module

Now tell XTension about them :

From the "FILE" menu, select "New Unit". The window that appears is where we name units and assign X-10 addresses to them :

The unit we'll name "Bed Lamp"

and tell XTension to remember

that its address is "A5".

Selecting "Dimmable" here tells XTension that this unit is more than just an on/off appliance.

And here's where you may select an icon to represent the unit in graphic views.

Now do the same for the Coffee Pot :

The unit we'll name
"Coffee Pot"

and tell XTension to remember

that it's address is "A7".

Do not select "Dimmable" here because this unit can only be turned on and off.

( ignore the rest of this for now )

Now we tell XTension when to turn these on :

From the "Windows" menu, select "Scheduled Events". The window that appears is the list of all of the currently scheduled events. If we now push the "New" button, we'll see this window:

Although it's not necessary, we'll call this "Morning Light"

and specify a time like 7:15AM

and that it's to be repeated every day

But only workdays.

Now click the
Dim unit button,
and select our "BedLamp" from the popdown menu !

Finally, choose the dim level,
and click OK.

Now we do this again for the "Coffee Pot" :

Here we see also the Scheduled Events window where we see the new scheduled event for our coffee pot

Again, it's not necessary, but call this one "Coffee"

and specify a time like 7:00AM

and that it's to be repeated every day

But only workdays.

Now click the
Turn ON unit button,
and select the "Coffee Pot" from the popdown menu !

Finally, click OK.

The coffee will be ready now each weekday morning just as the lamp
next your bed brightens up to 50 percent. !

However, we still need to turn them off later, and there are more lights and appliances to deal with in the morning. We don't have to make a scheduled event for each one !

Here's how to make it easy :

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Last modified: July 1, 2007
Michael Ferguson, webmaster@shed.com