My “Smarthome Story” goes like this: Back in 1987, I bought an X10 Starter Kit from Radio Shack™, composed of a 4-button controller, an in-wall light switch/dimmer, a lamp module, and an appliance module. I set them up around the house, and connected our outside spotlights to the dimmer so we could easily turn them “On” and “Off” by pressing the “1” button. Life was good now. The problem was, the outside lights would often turn themselves “On” or “Off” without us doing anything. This was not only puzzling but very upsetting. Worse still, it was impossible for me to troubleshoot the problem, since aside from that one glitch, our plug-and-play X10 system worked flawlessly! One day, while talking to the neighbors across the street, they recounted an odd story about their television being “possessed” — seems it was turning itself on every evening, sometimes even coming back on after they had gone to bed. I asked if they had ever heard of X10. They said yes, their son had recently installed such a device behind their living room television. I asked if it was set to House Code “A” (the default setting). They called the son out to inquire, and again, the answer was yes. Turns out HE was the mysterious force causing our exterior lights to toggle off and on! Our houses were simply on the same leg of the electrical transformer, thus allowing the X10 command signals to reach from one to the other. We all had a good laugh, but I swore never to leave an X10 device set to House Code “A” in the future. All these years later, my family still get a chuckle out of telling that story. Today, I have over 100 modules, transmitter, receivers and controllers in my collection. T.G.