6 ms·

I still struggle to understand why this is worth the trouble even if it did work. Maybe if you were a head in a jar living a life of quiet dignity like in Futur

by rvense 11y ago

I still struggle to understand why this is worth the trouble even if it did work. Maybe if you were a head in a jar living a life of quiet dignity like in Futurama. But you're not. You want to turn the lights on you go flick the switch. What's the problem?

edent 11y ago
I'm really pleased you don't have any mobility problems. But for those of us who sometimes struggle to get from one side of the room to the other, it makes a world of difference to be able control things locally. Or set up timers. Or make the lights flash when there's a phone call.
Klathmon 11y ago
Well we've had remotes for TVs since the 50s Is it really that big of a leap to have other things be remote controlled? I feel like every day I want the light turned on while i'm at my desk. Or i remember that i forgot to turn out the living room light when i'm in bed. Or when a friend texts me and i'd like to turn on the outside light for them. Yeah, it's not a cure for cancer, but it's not useless either.
xlayn 11y ago
>Maybe if you were a head in a jar living a life of quiet dignity like in Futurama People like comfort, a friend of mine says that we come to earth to fight against pain (or discomfort). There are practical scenarios that you would like to consider, -e.g. you are on your way to the kitchen and lights turn on on your way -(not sure if we have a product with this feature but) turn the temperature of lightning as it becomes night a la f.lux -Wake you up with lights On the other hand even then with the exception of light temperature I would not consider it price/feature ratio worthy.
- raldi 11y ago
  Or you just have a room with two entrances, and you want to be able to toggle the lights without having to walk across the room in the dark.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    For once it might be my turn to tell something interesting that not everyone here knew before: There is a simple solution to that, using only standard switches and the standard power wire, -in fact I think this is a standard thing for fresh electricians-to-be to learn first year in school here. Edit: I have this setup at home in my staircase so I don't have to walk up (or down) to turn on/off he lights.
    - raldi 11y ago
      Sure, but if it wasn't there already, how expensive would it be to rewire, vs how much does a wireless switch cost? And what if you're a renter and don't have the option of rewiring?
- AJ007 11y ago
  The Philips Hue bulbs are great. I used them for years without problems. You don't need to do anything with your switches since each bulb can connect to wifi. Would be expensive for a large house. I think the important thing is bulb brightness along with temperature at night. The long term health costs may actually outweigh the cost of bulbs - maybe in another 5 or 10 years there with be some scientific data on that.
  - ValentineC 11y ago
    > You don't need to do anything with your switches since each bulb can connect to wifi. They don't connect to your wifi router per se, but create a mesh network among themselves. It's a very cool concept. > The long term health costs may actually outweigh the cost of bulbs Care to elaborate?
    - cbhl 11y ago
      Blue light / lost sleep / use f.lux type research, I imagine.
pjc50 11y ago
I'd quite like to retrofit remote-control lightswitches in a couple of places because the existing lightswitches are badly placed (either behind, or a long way from, the entrance door) without redecorating.
ibmthrowaway218 11y ago
https://twitter.com/c8ters/status/699701086656077825 https://twitter.com/c8ters/status/699701086656077825
zippergz 11y ago
I have a house with nearly 40 light switches. Being able to turn groups of them on and off in coordination is very nice. Hitting one button and having all of the lights desired for dinner guests is cool. Turning off the lights in the TV room, and having them automatically come back on when I pause the movie or turn off the TV is convenient. Switching off all the lights in the house when I go to bed (rather than trudging back downstairs because I forgot to turn off a single light in the kitchen) is really handy. None of this stuff is life-changing, but it's a very nice convenience and I find it well worth the (really minor) trouble. Though I'm using a zwave-based system, not wifi switches. Edit: Also, crucially, our system works "as expected" if you don't know anything about it. I've never had a guest surprised or baffled by it, and it works fine if the network and/or controller is down. In some cases a single switch may turn on more than one light, but not in a weird or surprising way -- generally closer to "why didn't they just wire it that way in the first place?"
- teacup50 11y ago
  Thing is, almost none of that requires software, wifi, an app, an internet connection, etc. It's an insane amount of implementation complexity for what is a very simple problem.
amelius 11y ago
> What's the problem? A company looking for a billion dollar valuation (see Nest).
prof_hobart 11y ago
I don't know about his particular setup, but remote control lights do have their uses. I've got a couple of wifi-controlled Philips Hue lights. There isn't a simple "on" or "off" for these - they can be set to just about any colour and brightness. One, for instance, is set to wake my daughter up with an artificial sunrise over the space of about 15 mins in the morning, is off automatically during most of the day when there's no one in the house, and goes a very dim red at night. As my wife has a habit of forgetting that they switch themselves off, she still fairly frequently physically switches it off at the wall. If it's still of at the point that the "dim for the evening" program is due to run, then it doesn't get triggered and I have to dig out my phone app to kick it off. So I've just built a little switch using a Pi and a very cheap (in both senses of the word) touch screen running a web page with buttons on it that triggers various actions on the light such as setting the dimmer colour. I'm waiting for the day when there's a cheap and good off the shelf switch that does this kind of thing properly for home automation.
- Dan_in_Brighton 11y ago
  @prof_hobart, your 'smart' switch (Pi/http/touch-screen) sounds nifty. Are you willing to share any tips, methods, or even code for that hack?
  - prof_hobart 11y ago
    Sure. I can post some more details (such as scripts and photo) when I get home if you're interested. But at a high level, it's pretty straightforward, and there's also almost certainly far better ways of doing it. The key components are - a Philips Hue light - The Openhab[1] open source home automation server (currently running on an old Windows box that's always on for various other reasons). This controls the lights. - Apache, also running on the same box. This provides a very simple web UI for the Pi. - A Raspberry Pi - it's one of the original Pi model Bs. - Firefox (Iceweasel version) on the Pi - the built-in one didn't seem to run the jquery that I needed. - A cheapo touchscreen [2] attached to the Pi. The OpenHab server has a plugin for Hue lights, and you can write scripts to make it do various things, such as switch on/off at a particular time, or on getting a command from somewhere else. It also has a REST API interface. It's this API interface that the web app is calling. That's made up at the moment of 3 buttons (on, off and dim), and when one is pressed it sends a jquery REST call to the OpenHab server to trigger one of the commands. Technically, what it's doing is setting one of 3 OpenHab "buttons" to ON. This triggers the OpenHab rule to change the light. The touchscreen attaches straight onto the Pi's GPIO pins. I pointed Firefox at the Apache on my server and set it to full screen mode. The screen's not great - it feels as cheap as you'd expect for £16 - but it works, and most importantly my daughter loves it. Like I say, there's almost certainly better/simpler ways to achieve some of this - I suspect I could run the entire thing on the Pi for example, or replace the Pi with an old iPhone that I've got lying around. The OpenHab software also allows you to build a custom UI itself. But I like playing, and there's a bunch of tech things that I wanted to try out, and this seemed like a fun and useful project to test them out on. My next plan is to get an Arduino and connect some dials to it to allow direct control of brightness and RGB. [1] http://www.openhab.org/ http://www.openhab.org/ [2] http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00YE0UPES http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00YE0UPES
lovelearning 11y ago
They're useful for disabled or injured people.
knz 11y ago
I posted something similar in an IoT thread here recently, but the main reasons I have them are for security (able to turn on/flash lights in parts of the house if my alarm goes off during the night. Also able to turn lights on/off using a schedule when I am on vacation) and convenience (when my kids were infants I was able to trigger lights on/off as I walked around at 3am. I've also used this when guests are staying in the house). Mine are all z-wave so still function as normal light switches that can be manually toggled on and off.
wvenable 11y ago
I created a light alarm with limitlessled/milights. It's actually quite nice to wake up / go to bed with soft orange light. It's also nice to control the bedroom lights from the bed. Overall it's been a success. But I admit part of fun was actually part of the trouble: writing code to control the lights.
Sanddancer 11y ago
You're getting home with the groceries, you have both hands full, a cat that's trying to escape, and you need to get the lights on. What's easier? Fumbling for the light switch, or saying "Illuminate" when you walk in, and "Deluminate" when you get to the other side of the room and get into the kitchen. Or you're chilling, watching a movie, and you want to pause and get a drink. Your eyes have adapted to the darkness, so turning the lights directly to on is going to blind you for a second. So, you have the lights slowly turn on, and you can see without getting that flash of blindness. There are all kinds of interesting things that having finer grained control of lighting lets you do.

by rvense 11y ago

edent 11y ago

I'm really pleased you don't have any mobility problems. But for those of us who sometimes struggle to get from one side of the room to the other, it makes a world of difference to be able control things locally. Or set up timers. Or make the lights flash when there's a phone call.

Klathmon 11y ago

Well we've had remotes for TVs since the 50s Is it really that big of a leap to have other things be remote controlled? I feel like every day I want the light turned on while i'm at my desk. Or i remember that i forgot to turn out the living room light when i'm in bed. Or when a friend texts me and i'd like to turn on the outside light for them. Yeah, it's not a cure for cancer, but it's not useless either.

xlayn 11y ago

>Maybe if you were a head in a jar living a life of quiet dignity like in Futurama People like comfort, a friend of mine says that we come to earth to fight against pain (or discomfort). There are practical scenarios that you would like to consider, -e.g. you are on your way to the kitchen and lights turn on on your way -(not sure if we have a product with this feature but) turn the temperature of lightning as it becomes night a la f.lux -Wake you up with lights On the other hand even then with the exception of light temperature I would not consider it price/feature ratio worthy.

raldi 11y ago
Or you just have a room with two entrances, and you want to be able to toggle the lights without having to walk across the room in the dark.
- reitanqild 11y ago
  For once it might be my turn to tell something interesting that not everyone here knew before: There is a simple solution to that, using only standard switches and the standard power wire, -in fact I think this is a standard thing for fresh electricians-to-be to learn first year in school here. Edit: I have this setup at home in my staircase so I don't have to walk up (or down) to turn on/off he lights.
  - raldi 11y ago
    Sure, but if it wasn't there already, how expensive would it be to rewire, vs how much does a wireless switch cost? And what if you're a renter and don't have the option of rewiring?
AJ007 11y ago
The Philips Hue bulbs are great. I used them for years without problems. You don't need to do anything with your switches since each bulb can connect to wifi. Would be expensive for a large house. I think the important thing is bulb brightness along with temperature at night. The long term health costs may actually outweigh the cost of bulbs - maybe in another 5 or 10 years there with be some scientific data on that.
- ValentineC 11y ago
  > You don't need to do anything with your switches since each bulb can connect to wifi. They don't connect to your wifi router per se, but create a mesh network among themselves. It's a very cool concept. > The long term health costs may actually outweigh the cost of bulbs Care to elaborate?
  - cbhl 11y ago
    Blue light / lost sleep / use f.lux type research, I imagine.

pjc50 11y ago

I'd quite like to retrofit remote-control lightswitches in a couple of places because the existing lightswitches are badly placed (either behind, or a long way from, the entrance door) without redecorating.

ibmthrowaway218 11y ago

https://twitter.com/c8ters/status/699701086656077825 https://twitter.com/c8ters/status/699701086656077825

zippergz 11y ago

I have a house with nearly 40 light switches. Being able to turn groups of them on and off in coordination is very nice. Hitting one button and having all of the lights desired for dinner guests is cool. Turning off the lights in the TV room, and having them automatically come back on when I pause the movie or turn off the TV is convenient. Switching off all the lights in the house when I go to bed (rather than trudging back downstairs because I forgot to turn off a single light in the kitchen) is really handy. None of this stuff is life-changing, but it's a very nice convenience and I find it well worth the (really minor) trouble. Though I'm using a zwave-based system, not wifi switches. Edit: Also, crucially, our system works "as expected" if you don't know anything about it. I've never had a guest surprised or baffled by it, and it works fine if the network and/or controller is down. In some cases a single switch may turn on more than one light, but not in a weird or surprising way -- generally closer to "why didn't they just wire it that way in the first place?"

teacup50 11y ago
Thing is, almost none of that requires software, wifi, an app, an internet connection, etc. It's an insane amount of implementation complexity for what is a very simple problem.

amelius 11y ago

> What's the problem? A company looking for a billion dollar valuation (see Nest).

prof_hobart 11y ago

I don't know about his particular setup, but remote control lights do have their uses. I've got a couple of wifi-controlled Philips Hue lights. There isn't a simple "on" or "off" for these - they can be set to just about any colour and brightness. One, for instance, is set to wake my daughter up with an artificial sunrise over the space of about 15 mins in the morning, is off automatically during most of the day when there's no one in the house, and goes a very dim red at night. As my wife has a habit of forgetting that they switch themselves off, she still fairly frequently physically switches it off at the wall. If it's still of at the point that the "dim for the evening" program is due to run, then it doesn't get triggered and I have to dig out my phone app to kick it off. So I've just built a little switch using a Pi and a very cheap (in both senses of the word) touch screen running a web page with buttons on it that triggers various actions on the light such as setting the dimmer colour. I'm waiting for the day when there's a cheap and good off the shelf switch that does this kind of thing properly for home automation.

Dan_in_Brighton 11y ago
@prof_hobart, your 'smart' switch (Pi/http/touch-screen) sounds nifty. Are you willing to share any tips, methods, or even code for that hack?
- prof_hobart 11y ago
  Sure. I can post some more details (such as scripts and photo) when I get home if you're interested. But at a high level, it's pretty straightforward, and there's also almost certainly far better ways of doing it. The key components are - a Philips Hue light - The Openhab[1] open source home automation server (currently running on an old Windows box that's always on for various other reasons). This controls the lights. - Apache, also running on the same box. This provides a very simple web UI for the Pi. - A Raspberry Pi - it's one of the original Pi model Bs. - Firefox (Iceweasel version) on the Pi - the built-in one didn't seem to run the jquery that I needed. - A cheapo touchscreen [2] attached to the Pi. The OpenHab server has a plugin for Hue lights, and you can write scripts to make it do various things, such as switch on/off at a particular time, or on getting a command from somewhere else. It also has a REST API interface. It's this API interface that the web app is calling. That's made up at the moment of 3 buttons (on, off and dim), and when one is pressed it sends a jquery REST call to the OpenHab server to trigger one of the commands. Technically, what it's doing is setting one of 3 OpenHab "buttons" to ON. This triggers the OpenHab rule to change the light. The touchscreen attaches straight onto the Pi's GPIO pins. I pointed Firefox at the Apache on my server and set it to full screen mode. The screen's not great - it feels as cheap as you'd expect for £16 - but it works, and most importantly my daughter loves it. Like I say, there's almost certainly better/simpler ways to achieve some of this - I suspect I could run the entire thing on the Pi for example, or replace the Pi with an old iPhone that I've got lying around. The OpenHab software also allows you to build a custom UI itself. But I like playing, and there's a bunch of tech things that I wanted to try out, and this seemed like a fun and useful project to test them out on. My next plan is to get an Arduino and connect some dials to it to allow direct control of brightness and RGB. [1] http://www.openhab.org/ http://www.openhab.org/ [2] http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00YE0UPES http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00YE0UPES

lovelearning 11y ago

They're useful for disabled or injured people.

knz 11y ago

I posted something similar in an IoT thread here recently, but the main reasons I have them are for security (able to turn on/flash lights in parts of the house if my alarm goes off during the night. Also able to turn lights on/off using a schedule when I am on vacation) and convenience (when my kids were infants I was able to trigger lights on/off as I walked around at 3am. I've also used this when guests are staying in the house). Mine are all z-wave so still function as normal light switches that can be manually toggled on and off.

wvenable 11y ago

I created a light alarm with limitlessled/milights. It's actually quite nice to wake up / go to bed with soft orange light. It's also nice to control the bedroom lights from the bed. Overall it's been a success. But I admit part of fun was actually part of the trouble: writing code to control the lights.

Sanddancer 11y ago

You're getting home with the groceries, you have both hands full, a cat that's trying to escape, and you need to get the lights on. What's easier? Fumbling for the light switch, or saying "Illuminate" when you walk in, and "Deluminate" when you get to the other side of the room and get into the kitchen. Or you're chilling, watching a movie, and you want to pause and get a drink. Your eyes have adapted to the darkness, so turning the lights directly to on is going to blind you for a second. So, you have the lights slowly turn on, and you can see without getting that flash of blindness. There are all kinds of interesting things that having finer grained control of lighting lets you do.