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> It sucks, but we're the minority here. I'm not interested in any home automation. The ability to turn on my lights with a wristwatch doesn't have reasonable

> It sucks, but we're the minority here. I'm not interested in any home automation. The ability to turn on my lights with a wristwatch doesn't have reasonable benefits compared to the risks. It's hard for me to believe that people actually put these Internet-connected, voice-activated devices in their homes. The smartphones are bad enough. That kind of automation doesn't encourage living deliberately, and the privacy and behavior manipulation (tracking, ads, etc.) issues around it are horrendous. (DIY can avoid most of those problems though.)

kazen44 8y ago
90% of the functionality one reasonably wants from their home automation systems comes down to basically some descrete logic and some sensory input. 1) automatic lighting depending on occupancy. (this has existed since the 80's) 2) time based events which respond to either heating or lighting, maybe alarm systems aswell. 3) acces control/security Those are basically all major systems most people would want to automate in their homes, and none of them should require voice control or a smartphone app. (heck, most could be done with discrete PLC's, although that would be a horrible UX).
- Karunamon 8y ago
  I'd add a #4 voice control to that. You don't think you need it until you've used it, then you use it and wonder how the hell you ever survived without it. An Echo with a couple of smart switches feels like the future. This is one of the sane use cases for the cloud, IMO. Local speech recognition kinda sucks, and expecting consumers to manually update their firmware (since we've taken auto updates off the table) for new improvements is not realistic.
acidburnNSA 8y ago
I've been monitoring my energy consumption, extending my existing doorbell to an upstairs stereo, automatically turning lights on in different modes as I walk around at different times of day, playing a beautiful loon call as the sun sets, securing my home while I'm away (it auto-arms when my phone disconnects from the router and disarms when it returns), turning on a/c when I begin my commute home, reminding me it's garbage day, etc. All locally running on an open source platform with remote access over OpenVPN. This is the wonder of Home Assistant. It's mostly just for fun but you can easily see it becoming very practical. My security system is legit; it emails snapshots from cameras to a special account that triggers a urgent notification on my phone while turning on a loud siren in the home and all the lights. I did a funhouse mode that played static on the tv and monster/police/machine gun noises on the stereo while chaotically blinking all the lights... it actually scared even me a little.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
There's no reason a smartphone app has to talk to the Internet via someone else's cloud. An app could just as easily talk to a local server over wifi to deliver the same convenience and remote control without any of the data grabs.
reaperducer 8y ago
It's hard for me to believe that people actually put these Internet-connected, voice-activated devices in their homes. Some of the new apartment buildings in Chicago come with Alexa built in to a wall panel. If you live there, you cannot escape it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

kazen44 8y ago

90% of the functionality one reasonably wants from their home automation systems comes down to basically some descrete logic and some sensory input. 1) automatic lighting depending on occupancy. (this has existed since the 80's) 2) time based events which respond to either heating or lighting, maybe alarm systems aswell. 3) acces control/security Those are basically all major systems most people would want to automate in their homes, and none of them should require voice control or a smartphone app. (heck, most could be done with discrete PLC's, although that would be a horrible UX).

Karunamon 8y ago
I'd add a #4 voice control to that. You don't think you need it until you've used it, then you use it and wonder how the hell you ever survived without it. An Echo with a couple of smart switches feels like the future. This is one of the sane use cases for the cloud, IMO. Local speech recognition kinda sucks, and expecting consumers to manually update their firmware (since we've taken auto updates off the table) for new improvements is not realistic.

acidburnNSA 8y ago

I've been monitoring my energy consumption, extending my existing doorbell to an upstairs stereo, automatically turning lights on in different modes as I walk around at different times of day, playing a beautiful loon call as the sun sets, securing my home while I'm away (it auto-arms when my phone disconnects from the router and disarms when it returns), turning on a/c when I begin my commute home, reminding me it's garbage day, etc. All locally running on an open source platform with remote access over OpenVPN. This is the wonder of Home Assistant. It's mostly just for fun but you can easily see it becoming very practical. My security system is legit; it emails snapshots from cameras to a special account that triggers a urgent notification on my phone while turning on a loud siren in the home and all the lights. I did a funhouse mode that played static on the tv and monster/police/machine gun noises on the stereo while chaotically blinking all the lights... it actually scared even me a little.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

There's no reason a smartphone app has to talk to the Internet via someone else's cloud. An app could just as easily talk to a local server over wifi to deliver the same convenience and remote control without any of the data grabs.

reaperducer 8y ago

It's hard for me to believe that people actually put these Internet-connected, voice-activated devices in their homes. Some of the new apartment buildings in Chicago come with Alexa built in to a wall panel. If you live there, you cannot escape it.

deleted 8y ago
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