Gadgets March 14, 2006 posted by Red

Open the door, HAL.

HALdeluxe Open the door, HAL.

The HAL Deluxe Voice Control Home Automation System. It must have sounded like a real gas at the time, to name a home automation package, HAL. But I’m not so sure. One of these things is going to go wrong one day, and there’ll be a flood of front page PR which could sink the company quicker’n you can say please don’t do that Dave. $279.99.

Tell HAL what to do, in your own voice, from any phone in the world, and it can turn on lights, appliances, or any other electrical devices, as easily as if you were switching them on yourself. You can even control devices while you’re home by speaking into a PC microphone, or from any phone inside the house. It does all this using wiring that’s already in your home, so no complicated installation is required. In fact, setting it up is easier than ever with HALdeluxe, one of the easiest-to-use and most affordable voice automation packages you can find!

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Red – who has written 10163 posts on The Red Ferret Journal.

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http://game-master.us/ GameMaster

It’s just another X10 module. X10 is way cool, but because it’s sending signals over the power lines, there are potential problems (and ways to get arround them). The problem lies in the fact that (in the US) typically there are two lines comming in, meaning that if the house is old enough, 1/2 the house wouldn’t see the signals. Old lines also are a lot noiser as they aren’t insulated quite as well. And, it’d be filitered out by anything on a UPS.
Red

So, on top of the fact that it’s likely to lock you out of the command module to die horribly in frozen space, it may simply not work because of tatty wiring? I’m dismayed. :-) I thought X10 was well thought of….