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Personally, I think a "smart" home is one that provides maximum comfort for minimum effort. Having to (eg) update the firmware on my lightbulbs sounds about as

Personally, I think a "smart" home is one that provides maximum comfort for minimum effort. Having to (eg) update the firmware on my lightbulbs sounds about as smart as having to hand-wash my clothes. Hours of effort to save myself 2 seconds a day toggling lights? Not too smart, IMO.

annabellish 9y ago
Hours of effort? Updating the firmware on my Hue bulbs is a two minute thing automatically managed by the app, that happens once in a blue moon. Besides, smart bulbs aren't really an effort-reduction tool. You get a lot more control over lighting if you can adjust brightness and colour on the fly, and do a lot to change the mood of a room.
- nathan_long 9y ago
  Yes, sorry for the hyperbole. But in general, for a "smart home" you're going to have apps, logins, setup processes, updates, compatibility grids, security concerns, etc. I don't know what the total hours of effort are. But I'm pretty sure they're more than I have when I just screw in a lightbulb, plug in a dumb tea kettle, etc. And so far I haven't heard any compelling use cases. For me, the "smart lighting" I'd enjoy would be getting a few manual dimmer switches installed. Changing color would be neat if it could be done via a similar dumb switch, but it's not something I'd take up a "smart home hobby" for.
  - annabellish 9y ago
    Smart lighting is where most of my experience lies. Adding a bulb is a case of screwing it in, going to the app, hitting "register new bulb", and assigning it to the room its in. At that point it just joins in the same behavior as the rest. Because they're LED bulbs, they have a very long lifetime and are unlikely to die. I don't think I'd call that level of investment anything near a hobby. You can go a lot deeper with configuration options and other integrations and _make_ it a hobby, but the core behaviour is barely less trivial than a traditional lightbulb.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Go out into the world, and poll a few hundred people of all ages and backgrounds. Take note of how many either lose interest or start laughing when your explanation of how to install a lightbulb continues past “screw it in.”
      - annabellish 9y ago
        Most of the people I've discussed it with have been quite interested, actually. It's an easy technology to demo. The price usually turns them off, however.
    - hashkb 9y ago
      My experience has been different. My Sylvania Zigbee bulbs, if they don't pair perfectly out of the box, require a reset-and-re-pair process that I usually have to go through three or four times per bulb. Also, try pairing 4 bulbs on the same switch at once... you'll be lucky to get two to join. Or, try running an automation that sends more than 4 individual state updates to the Zigbee network at once... one or two lights will change. Most of the smart home apps (whether you're using the Hue app or SmartThings or whatever) need a cloud connection for some ridiculous reason to control the lights; and suffer from a chronic case of not knowing the current state of the lights. All in all, it comes across as very immature technology. It's as unreliable compared to WiFi as WiFi is compared to Ethernet.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Just because you don't have value in something doesn't mean nobody else does.

annabellish 9y ago

Hours of effort? Updating the firmware on my Hue bulbs is a two minute thing automatically managed by the app, that happens once in a blue moon. Besides, smart bulbs aren't really an effort-reduction tool. You get a lot more control over lighting if you can adjust brightness and colour on the fly, and do a lot to change the mood of a room.

nathan_long 9y ago
Yes, sorry for the hyperbole. But in general, for a "smart home" you're going to have apps, logins, setup processes, updates, compatibility grids, security concerns, etc. I don't know what the total hours of effort are. But I'm pretty sure they're more than I have when I just screw in a lightbulb, plug in a dumb tea kettle, etc. And so far I haven't heard any compelling use cases. For me, the "smart lighting" I'd enjoy would be getting a few manual dimmer switches installed. Changing color would be neat if it could be done via a similar dumb switch, but it's not something I'd take up a "smart home hobby" for.
- annabellish 9y ago
  Smart lighting is where most of my experience lies. Adding a bulb is a case of screwing it in, going to the app, hitting "register new bulb", and assigning it to the room its in. At that point it just joins in the same behavior as the rest. Because they're LED bulbs, they have a very long lifetime and are unlikely to die. I don't think I'd call that level of investment anything near a hobby. You can go a lot deeper with configuration options and other integrations and _make_ it a hobby, but the core behaviour is barely less trivial than a traditional lightbulb.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    Go out into the world, and poll a few hundred people of all ages and backgrounds. Take note of how many either lose interest or start laughing when your explanation of how to install a lightbulb continues past “screw it in.”
    - annabellish 9y ago
      Most of the people I've discussed it with have been quite interested, actually. It's an easy technology to demo. The price usually turns them off, however.
  - hashkb 9y ago
    My experience has been different. My Sylvania Zigbee bulbs, if they don't pair perfectly out of the box, require a reset-and-re-pair process that I usually have to go through three or four times per bulb. Also, try pairing 4 bulbs on the same switch at once... you'll be lucky to get two to join. Or, try running an automation that sends more than 4 individual state updates to the Zigbee network at once... one or two lights will change. Most of the smart home apps (whether you're using the Hue app or SmartThings or whatever) need a cloud connection for some ridiculous reason to control the lights; and suffer from a chronic case of not knowing the current state of the lights. All in all, it comes across as very immature technology. It's as unreliable compared to WiFi as WiFi is compared to Ethernet.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  Just because you don't have value in something doesn't mean nobody else does.