History
In 1970, a group of engineers started a company in Glenrothes, Scotland called Pico Electronics. The company revolutionized the calculator industry by developing the first single chip calculator. When the calculator IC prices started to fall, Pico refocused on commercial products rather than plain ICs.
In 1974, the Pico engineers jointly developed a vinyl LP changer with BSR, at the time the largest manufacturer of record changers in the world. It could be operated by a remote control using ultrasound signals, which sparked the idea of remote control for lights and appliances. By 1975, the X10 project was conceived, named so because it was the tenth project. In 1978, X10 products started to appear in Radio Shack and Sears stores. Together with BSR a partnership was formed, with the name X10 Ltd. At that time the system consisted of a 16 channel command console, a lamp module, and an appliance module. Soon after came the wall switch module and the first X10 timer.
In the 1980s, the CP-290 computer interface was released. Software for the interface runs on the Apple II, Macintosh, MS-DOS, and MS-Windows.
In 1985, BSR went out of business, and X10 (USA) Inc. was formed. In the early 1990s, the consumer market was divided into two main categories, the ultra-high-end with a budget at US$100,000 and the mass market with budgets at US$2,000 to US$35,000. CEBus (1984) and LonWorks (1991) were attempts to improve reliability and replace X10, but have yet to succeed with market ubiquity.
Read more about this topic: X10 (industry Standard)
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