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1) I'm sure if a company really wanted to make a USB interface they could...all they would have to do was cram whatevers inside your Usb to Serial converter into the interface. Companies are probably just lazy.

2) I believe the RF things you saw were just remote controls. I actually have two RF recievers and several different types of remotes...theres a 6-in-1 universal remote that has IR for your home entertainment system as well as RF for X10 (it came with my IBM home director kit), then I have several SlimFire keychain remotes ( www.x10.com ), and a "palm pad" or something like that which came with my Xcams. I don't think there is an RF computer interface, but that would be really cool if a company made an RF interface on a small USB dongle so laptop users could roam around their house controling everything.

3) You're thinking of Xtension!
http://www.shed.com/screens1.html
This was one of the better X10 apps in Mac OS 9. that and MouseHouse. I would be really happy if either of those was ported to Mac OS X

4) The ones that click are for appliances, although they will work with lamps. You're much better off sticking with lamp modules for lamps and appliance modules for appliances. Its an especially bad idea to use the dimming lamp modules with appliances and even non incandescent lamps (although I'm guilty of using one on my halogen desk lamp..it seems to work fine). I really like the dimming feature anyway.

Hmm I don't know about the modules that don't have dials, all of my X10 stuff does have dials (except my motion detectos and keychain remotes which have buttons and one of my RF receivers which has a switch). Try asking on a Mac specific X10/HA forum like this one: http://www.shed.com/maillist.html

Also, I take back my answer to number 2! Here is a wireless RF to serial converter: http://www.shed.com/tutor/mr26.html ...it would be so much cooler if it were USB and smaller though...imagine having that hooked up to a laptop with Airport. You could wireless roam around your house, connect to the internet, command your lights, home entertainment system, etc. Of course if you had Airport than you could just have all the X10 and home automation stuff on a dedicated server hooked up to an X10 interface.

Yeah, I have to admit, although it is really frickin cool, I am disappoionted thus far.  I want TRUE applescriptability...  Not this lauch scripts thing...  I thought I would be able to write and apple script that said, turn on bedroom light, play Itunes Playlist :Funky Music, say :Welcome home Eric name it, "Ime Home" and then be able to use speakable  items to launch it saying "Computer, I'm Home" and have all that happen...  so far, all I get it to do is use it's own voice commands, which work well, but you need  killer mic and they are formatted awkwardly (ie, turn on THE bedroom lights works, but turn on bedroom light doesn't...)...

anyway... I am not giving up, we'll figure it out...

I couldn't actually figure out a way to script the program itself...

all I can figure out is how to lauch Apple scripts after a device is turned on or off...

Oh you can definitely write scripts for Thinking Home. It might not tell you the syntax in the documentation, but if you open up Script Editor and select File: Open Dictionary...: Thihking Home it gives you a long list of various commands and the syntax to be used for each one. You can either hand code your scripts or use the Record feature where you select "Record" then do a bunch of actions and press "Stop" and all of your (AppleScriptable) actions will be recorded into a new script. You can then edit to your liking and add if/then statements and various other features (including speech and iTunes commands). Then just save the script and you're done.

I'm sorry if you knew all that and you actually had a different problem.


FYI, here are a few of the basic X10 commands from the Thinking Home AppleScript library:

turn on: Turns on the specified device.
   Example: turn on the ?Sidewalk Lights?

    turn on  string  -- device to turn on; e.g. ?L5?

turn off: Turns off the specified device.
   Example: turn off ?M15?

    turn off  string  -- device to turn off; e.g. ?M15?

dim: Dims the device.
   Example: dim the ?Theater Lights? by 50

    dim  string  -- device to dim; e.g. ?Theater Lights?
        [by  small integer]  -- change in the level of lamp brightness (in percent)
        [to  small integer]  -- level of lamp brightness (in percent)

brighten: Brightens the device.
   Example: brighten the ?Alcove? by 50

    brighten  string  -- device to brighten; e.g. ?L5?
        [by  small integer]  -- change in the level of lamp brightness (in percent)
        [to  small integer]  -- level of lamp brightness (in percent)

Glad to hear you figured it out. Thanks for getting me interested in X10 again...it's fun stuff!

btw, if you find a good, cheap omni-directional mic let me know!