[Noisebridge-discuss] X-10 hardware hacking

[Jonathan Foote]

Have you busted open a unit to see what the wireless transceiver is?

Chances are high it's a cheap commodity chipset like Nordic or Zigbee.
If so, you can sniff the serial commands to the transceiver with a
scope and roll your own with a microcontroller.

I'd be interested in looking inside the box but reverse-engineering
the protocol will likely be more labor-intensive.

-J

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 1:26 PM,
<travis+ml-noisebridge at subspacefield.org> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> You may have seen X-10 home automation equipment.  It's kind of
> hackish, but it's cheap.  There's also an alarm system, which is quite
> cheap.
>
> I did a talk on it a LONG time ago:
> http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/x10_talk.html
>
> Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had an ideas on how to design a
> computer interface for the wireless security system.  You see, they
> sell a RS-232 computer interface for the regular X-10 security
> protocol, but the wireless SECURITY modules use a completely different
> protocol, and the console will do these (and only these) in response:
>
> (a) dial a number on a hard line
> (b) sound an alarm
> (c) send regular X-10 commands to flash lights on and off
>
> At the moment, it will only call a number (up to 11 digits I think),
> repeat a message, and if you hit "0" you can listen in over the
> microphone.
>
> I was thinking that if you could tap into the circuitry somehow, you
> could interface that with a computer and make the alarm response
> rather flexible, for example:
>
> (a) silent alarm - just log to the computer
> (b) send an email
> (c) start recording video (see GNU motion)
> (d) SMS you
> (e) allow you to see and/or have a two-way dialogue with the intruder
>
> The general idea of a flexible, powerful home alarm system is
> something I've actually been thinking about for over a decade, so if
> anyone else is interested in this please let me know.  I knew a guy at
> a previous job who had an AWESOME system he wrote himself in Java, but
> having worked on it for over a decade himself, I didn't feel like
> asking him to share the code.
> --
> A Weapon of Mass Construction
> My emails do not have attachments; it's a digital signature that your mail
> program doesn't understand. | http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/
> If you are a spammer, please email john at subspacefield.org to get blacklisted.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>