I have not been keeping up too much with home automation the past few years, but there are other options to X-10 than Z-wave. There is INSTEAON (currently has major Q&A problems from what I have read) and UPB and possibly others. Most of these are made by companies that used to make X-10 products.
Some use the power lines to carry signals and some use radio waves and at least one uses a combination of the two.
X-10 which I control my house with has always had a lot of reliability problems, but if you keep your project small it may be satisfactory.
If your X-10 transmitter and receiver are on opposite legs of the power lines you will probably have to install a device to bridge the two legs. If they are far apart on the electrical system you may need a repeater and also filters on electrical noisy devices. These are all things that X-10 does not tell you
Sometimes a small installation works okay easily and sometimes it results in a lot of work, frustration, and the need for the devices that I mention above.
To eliminate confusion I should mention that X-10 is used to mean two things. One is the products that are made by X-10.com and the other meaning is products made by other manufacturers and use the X-10 power line technology.
I don't use any X-10 brand products in my installation as the wall switches are not of very high quality.
I am sorry that I don't know enough about the other new(ish) technologies to make a recommendation. Perhaps if you tell us what you plan to automate someone else can help. Also there are forums on the net that deal exclusively with this topic.
