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Smart people don't buy smart home devices. My relatively poor grandparents and my slightly less poor parents had a hard working life, but none of them had to s

Smart people don't buy smart home devices. My relatively poor grandparents and my slightly less poor parents had a hard working life, but none of them had to sleep in a dark cold room because the switch to turn the lights on or the heating stopped working. Ever. This problem has been solved by other people many many years ago. Last month I watched a documentary where a billionaire was showing of his multi million mansion and when he wanted to show the camera team his 100k home cinema room they couldn't see anything because his smart lighting system was stuck in an update loop and nobody had a clue how to fix it. In the interview he said it's not a big deal because he doesn't like to have the lights on when watching a movie anyway. L.O.L. If I had a 100k cinema room then it would be certainly be a big deal to me if I can't even see where the heck I'm walking. In my entire life I never thought "damn, how nice would it be if I could turn on the lights in my bedroom from downstairs on my phone". It's just not a problem which I think people have, but somehow the consumer industry has convinced so many fools to buy cheaply fabricated, badly secured, even worse programmed and often not long supported smart home devices which add absolutely no benefit to anyone's everyday life and cause lots of problems. By the time I find my phone lying around in my lounge, unlock it through Face ID or finger touch, open up the home app, find the home device which I want to control, then make whatever change I wanted to do I am much faster to just get my arse up from the couch, walk over and turn it on/off with a normal hand movement. On the way I can also grab a beer from the fridge and then continue watching the telly and laugh about some fools who spent 100k on a home cinema without lights.

gameswithgo 7y ago
I agree with this mostly, but I do vaguely pay attention to the space in case there is some smart home application that does end up proving truly useful. I haven't seen anything yet that is compelling to me but it could happen!
- asark 7y ago
  Useful home automation mostly involves robots of one kind or another. Stuff you might pay a person to do because it's so time consuming and tedious. Cleaning, washing & putting away clothes, lawn care, maybe cooking. Basically anything rich people tend not to do themselves, brought within the reach of the working class by robots. The problem is all the solutions so far kinda suck, and most are still expensive. If they weren't, absent regulation killing the spyvertising industry (oh please oh please oh please), guaranteed to be spyware wholly dependent on sending everything you or they do to "the cloud", I'd say Asimo-style general purpose home robots can't get here soon enough. Light switches, coffee makers, thermostats? Anyone who cared could already get 95% of the way to as-good-as-IoT with motion sensors and timers on existing, cheaper, out of the box solutions, without all the spying and "I'm sorry I can't reach my server so even though we're on the same local network and I'm more powerful than a late 90s desktop PC I still can't talk to your smartphone because I am a piece of absolute garbage."
hunter2_ 7y ago
Lighting hardwired to a stuck system and touching physical controllers (phone or otherwise) as you describe is one possible setup. On the contrary, I just have some table/floor lamps with smart outlets between their plugs and the outlets that can be quickly removed in case of failure, and touching my phone is only in case of voice (Google Home Mini) failure. Neither of which fail often, like much less than once a year. The convenience when half asleep is great.
- Phenomenit 7y ago
  Yeah, that's my approach as well, smart but with dumb fallback in case. Increases the WAF significantly.
thebiglebrewski 7y ago
Por que no los dos? Why not have perfectly functional on their own devices that can also be software addressed? Got that in my house and I'm a happy camper, when I have renters they don't even notice/have to use the smart features!
spaginal 7y ago
I use Zwave smart switches in my shop, tied to smart power strips for various lighting, fans, and tools at different stations in the shop. Instead of having to rewire switches physically everytime I move something, I can program different routines depending on my needs, and nothing is tied down in my shop, I can always reconfigure the layout to make it more efficient if need be. It’s been a life saver and it’s saved my energy bill also. I’m in there 10 hours a day sometimes, and I love the home automation stuff, I just use it not in the home.
AlexandrB 7y ago
> It's just not a problem which I think people have, but somehow the consumer industry has convinced so many fools to buy cheaply fabricated, badly secured, even worse programmed and often not long supported smart home devices which add absolutely no benefit to anyone's everyday life and cause lots of problems. This. Every time I hear a friend or someone on a podcast talking about their smart home they talk about how now they just need to find a new smart hub/lightswitch/integration service and everything will come together and nirvana will be achieved. Life's too short to spend that kind of time and energy on turning lights on and off.
- dgzl 7y ago
  I had a very high maintenance roommate and friend who is really into the easy smart-home devices. My understanding is he just likes the world to bend to his will as he maneuvers around in life. The doors unlock automatically, Nest changes our home temperatures as we walk in, "hey Siri, change lights to dance party", "play top radio". "What's the news today". Even though he earned a degree in computer science, he wasn't very interested in the hacker/tinker/development side of things.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > My understanding is he just likes the world to bend to his will as he maneuvers around in life. That would be cool, I'd like that too. Problem is, this only exists in a) marketing material, b) sci-fi movies, and c) if you do everything yourself. In the IoT industry, competition itself is ruining most of the "smart" devices' utility. They won't be useful until apps, hubs and devices are completely independent and commoditized, and you could argue they might not be useful to regulars even then (cue the long discussion on why stable society is incompatible with interesting life).
adjkant 7y ago
Smart homes are indeed mostly build out of supporting laziness, but there are ways to avoid some of these problems. If you've already sold your soul and have a home device with speech control, it's actually pretty easy to go and get a smart outlet device to control some lights. A single phrase without any screen or authentication and you're controlling your lights. If it breaks or gets outdated, you can always take it out in 10 seconds. Basically, if you do go for a smart home, keep it dumb and overridable.
matwood 7y ago
I mostly agree. Why do I need WIFI on my lights, coffee maker, or dishwasher? A thermostat is my personal exception though. Being able to program it on my phone is a huge UI improvement over prior thermostats. Also, being able to change it without getting out of bed in the middle of the night is a bonus.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  I also like smart thermostats. Similar to a remote autostart for my truck in the winter snows, which warms up the engine and the cabin, being able to turn on the AC before I get home from work (or heater) from my phone is a perk.
- fibonachos 7y ago
  I only recently, as in two weeks ago, purchased my first home automation product in the form of a few Philips hue bulbs. Not so much for the automation aspect, but the ability to control the color temp and brightness. The automation will be nice when I take my next vacation and want to give the appearance of someone being home during that time. As for what happens when the WiFi goes down or the bridge fails, simply power cycling the lights returns them to a default color/brightness state like a normal bulb.
  - chappi42 7y ago
    Is Philips hue also connected to Google? If not this is a big positive point as there is a hard separation to other data (e.g. retrived via Android).
- chappi42 7y ago
  I just don't understand why programming a thermostat needs to bring Google into the loop? It's not needed. My data should stay with me if I so desire (without needing extensive mistake-prone config).
  - asdff 7y ago
    They've had programmable thermostats for years. Having your house cool down at night/when you are at work is not a new concept that IoT suddenly made possible.
deleted 7y ago
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sjohnsonweb 7y ago
"Smart people don't buy home devices" Yikes. I mean sure, your points on why you don't see their value are valid. But calling people not smart because they enjoy being able to automate their homes is a leap and a half.
ben7799 7y ago
I totally agree, and it's hilarious how many engineers fall for this Smart home BS. We are all supposed to be keeping K.I.S.S. in mind because we're engineers. Smart home crap is the complete opposite of K.I.S.S. Smart home setups are the guy on your group who wants to write a java program dependent on spring to solve a problem that a shell one liner can solve. Smart Homes are prepping the space shuttle to go down the block to the drug store.
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
If I had a 100k cinema room ... I would ask myself some hard questions about my priorities in life.
- ben_w 7y ago
  If you were a billionaire, and 100k was 0.01% of your net worth? If someone owned a €300k home with neither mortgage nor investments, that’s the equivalent of €30. I’m may not be impressed with their blasé attitude to money, but I bet I looked more wasteful than that to a Nairobi friend of my partner when I visited on a plane ticket that cost half their annual rent, £350.
- gambiting 7y ago
  It's a sort of thing that you build when money is meaningless. And at that point you can still have very valid priorities - helping other people out, setting up charities, etc etc. Your house just happens to have a cinema room - it's no different "luxury" than having underfloor heating in your bathroom. It's comparably unnecessary, just on a different financial scale.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > it's no different "luxury" than having underfloor heating in your bathroom. It's comparably unnecessary, just on a different financial scale. Underfloor heating is not unnecessary, in fact it is about 10% more efficient in operating cost[1] as it can operate at lower inlet temperatures (30-35 °C, compared to 60+ °C for conventional radiators). In addition conventional radiators are often placed on the outside-facing wall below a window, which means that much of the generated heat gets lost. As for the installation costs, for new construction conventional radiators and underfloor heating are approximately at the same price level. [1]: https://www.t-online.de/heim-garten/energie/id_73373816/fussbodenheizung-das-sind-die-vor-und-nachteile.html https://www.t-online.de/heim-garten/energie/id_73373816/fuss...
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      And $100k home cinema is more efficient than having to go to actual cinema. Still, a luxury.
chomp 7y ago
I halfway agree with your comment. I think smart home technology is still in the realm of tinkerers right now, and investing in an ecosystem requires a lot of forethought. I replaced all of my dumb light switches with zwave light switches, but the nice thing is that they still act as light switches. I bought dumb IP cameras that can stream RTSP instead of going to someone's "cloud". I feed all of this into a homeassistant server that, when it goes down, I shrug because this is a fun hobby of mine, not anything I expect to actually work. When people ask "wow how can I make my TV do that trick" or "that is cool, what do I need to get started with home automation", I cringe a little because of how embarrassingly techy the industry still is. Even Control4, which is probably the premiere home automation ecosystem, requires a ton of upkeep to keep it running (though at least you can throw money down a hole to have someone fix it). Also with regards to your comment about turning on the lights to your phone, there's something magical about walking into the living room and saying "Hey Siri, good morning" and having your TV kick on, automatically start streaming the morning news, kitchen and living room lights turn on, and blinds open. There's nothing that really saves a ton of time in it, but it's just nice.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  So the answer for your friends would be "ask that company and buy their premium support package". And "that company" will ensure that tech industry bends to ordinary people needs. I don't know about you, but that's the way things work around me. Ordinary people don't know how to work on computer. They learned few buttons and sequence to push those buttons, but if they pushed caps lock, they instantly lost. So they call support and that guy comes to them and pushes caps lock, so they can continue to work. It could work with smart home exactly similar. Some company installing devices and maintains them. If you have a problem, you just call them and they'll help you.
- richk449 7y ago
  > there's something magical about walking into the living room and saying "Hey Siri, good morning" and having your TV kick on, automatically start streaming the morning news Magical in the sense that hell is magical?
  - 7y ago
optymizer 7y ago
I, for one, am enjoying my 'smart home' setup, where I can say "Alexa, turn off the TV", "Alexa, turn on Chromecast" and "Alexa, set the bedroom temperature to 72", regardless of which floor of the house I'm on. I'd rather fiddle with updates and setup once in a while (I have never had to reconfigure the devices in 2 years), than look for that goddamn remote between couch cushions, press the power button and possibly switch audio and video inputs, especially if I'm on the second floor and someone forgot the TV on on the first floor. I would hate to make that trip downstairs, annoyed and grumpy.
- dustinmoris 7y ago
  > I would hate to make that trip downstairs, annoyed and grumpy. My grandma always said "What you don't have in your head you must have in your legs". My calculation is simple: Where do I expect to waste more time in my life? Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected, or once in a while walk the stairs an extra time because I left the TV on. So far I don't forget to switch off my TV often enough to justify the human effort of smart home devices. Maybe one day when I become older and more forgetful and not turning of TVs and lamps becomes a habit then I might re-evaluate my decision.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    > Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected Software development in a nutshell. It's how I have spent most of my life.
  - stickfigure 7y ago
    I have spent a non-negligible amount of my life looking for remotes. But the really big waste is the amount of time fiddling with 5 remotes trying to figure out how to get the f-ing AV system working. I have a magnificent non-smart home theatre on my property, set up by one of the other co-owners. He's pretty much the only person that knows how to use it; the last time I tried, I had to call him. This stuff is a disaster. Over in my house it's "Hey Google, play some music". I replaced my 60s-era manual mercury switch thermostat with a Nest. It's way better! More accurate, accepts voice commands, tells me the temperature, can be turned on before I get home, and can be turned off remotely when I left for vacation and forgot (yes, I've done this). Call me a very satisfied customer. I'll take the smart home, thank you. If that makes me dumb, fine. I don't want to have to be a genius just to watch a movie.
kyllo 7y ago
It's sad because the concept of IoT in the home has such great potential, but the execution so far has just been atrocious. https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://twitter.com/internetofshit
- marssaxman 7y ago
  I just can't see the potential. Increase the complexity of the system and you increase the risk of failure, and when things are failing at home, that means you've got more housework to do. Who wants that? I spent a bunch of money replacing every light bulb in my house with an LED so that I'd never have to deal with burnt-out light bulbs again. That was a use of improved technology that simplified my life. If you hook your household devices up to the internet and make them dependent on external services they will always be prone to breaking. If I get some fancy internet-connected light bulb and have to spend even so much as ten minutes, ever, in its lifetime, figuring out why it stopped working, then it has already become a worse value proposition than the passive, non-internet thing it hoped to replace.
  - kyllo 7y ago
    Yeah, the first mistake was _and make them dependent on external services_. An internet-connected light bulb's failure mode should be "temporarily become a regular light bulb". "I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs." --Mitch Hedberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n1ryH3igKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n1ryH3igKc
TheCraiggers 7y ago
Everyone has different use cases. Some people just want to show a cool thing off to their friends, or even to prove they can do something at that scale. Silly? Perhaps, but who am I to judge their hobbies? Personally, I do find things like HVAC automation nice. If I forget to turn the thermostat down when I leave for a trip, I can do so remotely and that is real savings. Everyone has their use cases though.
- nerdkid93 7y ago
  Absolutely agree with the HVAC automation. I love being able to remotely change settings and glean a little bit of data from my home when I'm away from home. The only other super tempting "smart home" products I'd be tempted to use would be electrical monitoring sensors to analyze phantom power usage and identify when devices are turning on and off throughout the day.
akeck 7y ago
Your comment reminded me of https://vas3k.com/blog/dumbass_home/?ref=sn https://vas3k.com/blog/dumbass_home/?ref=sn
weberc2 7y ago
If you're looking to IoT devices to fill your life with meaning and purpose, yes, you'll be disappointed. If you want meager quality of life improvements and aren't overtly trying to have a bad experience (as you describe in your last two paragraphs), you'll probably be pretty happy with your purchases. My wife and I use smart sockets and switches to turn on and off lights by voice command rather than walking around to every lamp and hunting around for the switches as we used to do. Was it a massive time savings? No. Did it change our lives substantially? No. Was it a small quality of life improvement? Yes. And yeah, there are issues--Alexa gets confused when you try to change the label associated with a device. But the issue was easily fixed and we were no worse off than we were before the purchase.
DisruptiveDave 7y ago
Rarely do we ask ourselves how short-term conveniences may harm us in the long run. Chores are important. Discomfort is important. Mild annoyances are important. Physically moving is important. Focusing on unexciting things is important.
czr 7y ago
This is overstating the case a bit, imo. There are plenty of smart home devices that are either objectively terrible or worse relative to their "dumb" alternatives–I'd happily concede that this is the majority of the smart-home market. But there are some genuinely good products mixed in there too. In the same way that dishwashers and washers/dryers have endured while other 70s smarter-home tech didn't [0], I would guess that some modern automations that actually provide value (e.g. robot vacuums) will continue on even as the hype dies down. [0] For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_316#Kitchen_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_316#Kitchen_Computer
harshaw 7y ago
to counter point this post and your assumption that I am not smart - I use of home automation and smart devices extensively. I use Alexa, smarthings, z-wave switches, and various things. 1) "Alexa, turn on kitchen". Turns on the various light switches that are collectively the kitchen. 2) all things turn off at 11PM during the weekdays. Make sure that the various lights that were on get turned off. 3) When turning on the basement light switch it automatically turns on the lights in the utility room where the laundry is. 4) When turning on the basement playroom light switch, in turns on "all the lights in that room", because that's the common use case. 5) outside lights come on and turn off automatically 6) Christmas tree lights outside come on and off on a regular basis. 7) Inside christmas lights come on and off 8) Front door opens automatically and locks automatically based on kids schedule. 9) Custom key codes for the front door for contractors 10) "Alexa, announce dinner". Announces dinner everywhere in the house. really useful. 11) Nest goes to eco mode when no-one is in the house. 12) Lights turn on automatically in the kitchen when you get home. etc etc etc. It all works and doesn't require much work. The mobile based alerts are the weakest link in the system as they don't always work.
rhacker 7y ago
This is the exact kind of comment that would make it to the top because it just empowered everyone that DOESN'T have one such system. It's filled with finger pointing. Most of the replies basically point out yeah, I hate IoT lights, but this use case is good... It's not genuine to dismiss the entire enchilada because YOU don't have it. In 5 years when all the crap is worked out and you eventually buy a system with extra security at your door or backyard, or a something to that effect I'd like you to come back and admit it.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  > In 5 years when all the crap is worked out and you eventually buy a system with extra security at your door or backyard, or a something to that effect I'd like you to come back and admit it. I heard this same song and dance 5 years ago. The problems with the "IoT" market are foundational. Most IoT devices are not designed to be used for extended periods without internet access and a continuous stream of updates. The former means that, in general, they are only as reliable as your internet connection (including that crappy modem/router the ISP gave you). The latter means that unlike traditional home hardware, once you install "smart" devices you're at the mercy of the business plans of the vendor. So even if you get something set up that works acceptably, it will last 5 years tops (see Nest) before the vendor's priorities change. Finally to address the "extra security" comment. Security from what? The developed world is objectively safer than ever, why would I invest in "solutions" to problems invented out of whole cloth? The paranoia of people installing cameras all over their own home (often cameras whose footage they have no real control over) astounds me. We're more mistrustful of our own neighbours than the companies that are actually exploiting our privacy and manipulating us psychologically for profit.
  - smbullet 7y ago
    Not all of us live in safe neighborhoods like yourself.
    - bradlys 7y ago
      It's not even a matter of "safe". I live in a neighborhood that is seen as very safe. Yet, we had a burglary two houses down not too long ago. And they happen frequently enough to myself. I've had plenty stolen. Without a camera, there's ~0% chance of anyone being caught. I ended up buying a camera for peace of mind and for checking in on my place to see who's entering my residence area. Sometimes it's genuinely helpful.
pathartl 7y ago
I think it's more about managing expectations. I for one have not had a scenario where I haven't been able to turn on/off the lights because of a service outage... because I'm not dumb and I don't buy smart bulbs. I replace switches that can work independently from their smart features. I'm at the point where living without smart lights is very inconvenient. I was at my parents the other day carrying a heavy can of garbage through their completely black basement. Instead of just being able to tell my voice assistant to turn on the basement lights, I had to fumble around to find the right switch that actually lights the room. As far as being on topic with Nest... I've never "gone cold". The device works fine without their service and I would say works better than most other thermostats when it comes to actually performing the task of a thermostat.
- Sir_Substance 7y ago
  >I was at my parents the other day carrying a heavy can of garbage through their completely black basement. Instead of just being able to tell my voice assistant to turn on the basement lights, I had to fumble around to find the right switch that actually lights the room. That's a highly specific scenario that I personally would solve with a motion sensor light if I felt it was likely to happen often.
vincentmarle 7y ago
I refuse to talk to the Siris, Alexas, and Hey Googles in this world. I simply don’t want to talk to a computer, not even on my phone. I visited my friend at home the other day, and every couple of minutes he would interrupt our conversation to shout some command to some voice assistant. It was frankly very annoying.
jonstewart 7y ago
Thanks for calling me not smart. I live in DC but have a second house in the upper Midwest (close to family). An internet-enabled thermostat lets me keep an eye on the temperature remotely, and adjust it to cold and warm spells. It was -25F for a few days this past winter.
lallysingh 7y ago
This is pure FUD. I'm disappointed that it's got so many responses on HN instead of being down-voted in exchange for a better anti-IoT argument at the top instead. But hey, sure, let's go through this: - I don't care about some dude you saw on TV. A single anecdote means nothing. Even less when it's someone not representative of the population. - A strawman convenience is another terrible argument. Sometimes it matters that you don't have to leave the room to fiddle with a device. Sometimes you're talking to someone and ask them "are you cold?" and would like to just make it warmer without leaving them. - Being able to monitor your house's status remotely is helpful. - Switches and light bulbs are low investment, low risk purchases. If they don't work, you have a simple fallback and it didn't cost much. The industry's developing and it'll take time, but it's generally fine because most of this stuff is such low risk.
- dingaling 7y ago
  > Switches and light bulbs are low investment, low risk purchases. Outfitting my house with smart bulbs would cost about £400. I've better uses for that amount of money.
- Gorbzel 7y ago
  Nope, your comment is just rationalization disguised as exasperated criticism. When a given product/technology just fundamentally doesn’t work, or even worse is a security nightmare, you don’t get to write it off as a risk that didn’t cost much. Especially since that last part isn’t true in most cases.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    I'm frankly stunned that somebody could, with a straight face, turn to somebody else and say "No. You are wrong. That thing you like isn't actually worth it."
- yummypaint 7y ago
  There are extremely serious and well known security problems with smart light bulbs. Compromising one's home network is in no way low risk.
tensor 7y ago
> Smart people don't buy smart home devices. Insulting everyone you presumably intend to convince with your argument is not a smart move.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Convince? This is just posturing for karma from the other low-effort kneejerk contrarians on HN
anbop 7y ago
I love having voice activated lights. I live in a loft where all the lights are upstairs to keep the cords away from my toddler. When we get home, instead of needing to go upstairs, I can turn on the lights from downstairs, and have also set it up to only work when you say “please” to teach her proper manners.
dd36 7y ago
I love my Hue lights. They always work.
balabaster 7y ago
This is funny because we lost the remote controller for the soundbar I have for my TV about a month ago, so now we get up and turn the volume up and down. It was slightly annoying at first, but now nobody cares. Eventually the remote will show up, but nobody cared about having to get up and change the volume enough to find it. One of the kids probably took it outside with them and left it laying around the farm somewhere. To be honest, it's probably done us more good than we'd care to admit. The TV isn't quite so convenient, with the smart TV, without the remote it's all but impossible to drive.
brandonwamboldt 7y ago
Ignoring your insults, I think there are many valid use cases for smart home devices. For example, automatically turning lights on and off on a schedule, changing light color to red at night, being able to casually set reminders without bothering with a phone, controlling your TV without needing your phone (e.g. for netflix), being able to change temperature on a schedule, all kinds of things. Just because they occasionally have bugs for some people doesn't mean they are entirely useless. Many people (myself included) have few to no problems with their smart home devices.
wjp3 7y ago
It's not a binary thing, though. When my IoT smart lights don't turn on from a voice command, I can always walk over to the switch and flip them on. My IoT smart home makes things more convenient, not unusable.
spilk 7y ago
It's like you're purposely describing the least useful application of smarthome devices. Setting up geofence triggers, time/event-based triggers, etc. is the real power of smart devices. I have automations set up so if I arrive home when it's dark, lights in my house turn on automatically so I don't have to fumble for light switches. I have motion sensors so if I walk into rooms, the lights turn on automatically and then turn off after I leave. I can set up schedules to turn lights on and off while I'm not at home so my house looks occupied. Also, with Apple Homekit, there is a control center widget so you just swipe up, tap home and your "favorite" devices are very quickly accessible from anywhere in the world.
- nominated1 7y ago
  I use astronomical timers for outdoor lighting and indoor night lights. The rest of your uses look more like “because I can” and are not filling an actual need. Besides, my pets jumping on and off furniture would trigger those senors more than I care to admit.
ajmurmann 7y ago
"It's just not a problem which I think people have, but somehow the consumer industry has convinced so many fools to buy cheaply fabricated, badly secured, even worse programmed and often not long supported smart home devices which add absolutely no benefit to anyone's everyday life and cause lots of problems." I'm not a big fan of smart devices, but I've had several issues that were solved very conveniently by smart devises. The temperature in my second floor bedroom and my first floor living room is usually totally different. The thermostat is in the living room. So all too often we'd be laying in bed and the temperature is wrong. So now you have to walk down stairs, adjust it and hope you got it right. We never bothered doing anything like turning on the vegetation function for 30 minutes. Nest thermostat was a total game changer. Sometimes it does annoying stuff and isn't nearly as smart as I'd like it to be, but it's so much better than the old thermostat. Similarly I have ceiling fans with light bulbs. You can turn the whole thing on and off with wall switches, but only control lights and fan with a strong that hangs from the fan. Unfortunately the builder or previous owner put these in a room with cathedral ceilings. So I'd need a ladder to control these properly. I put smart lightbulbs in and now at least those can be controlled independently.
- rconti 7y ago
  Ecobee was (I think) the first one to have remote temperature sensors, and now Nest has them, too. Yes, they're (still) smart devices, but this can work without the smart functionality. The sensors detect which room humans are in, and adjusts so that the thermostat controls the heat to get the OCCUPIED room to the desired temperature. So, no 'device with an app' required (eg, this could be replicated without internet functionality). Most fans these days ship with wireless remotes. Even my wall switch is a wireless remote. So the light and fan can be controlled separately -- no IoT required here as well.
teh_infallible 7y ago
This was my experience with Philips Hue lights. They were cool for awhile, but light switches stay in one place, while my phone does not. I eventually got their wall mounted buttons, and ultimately replaced them all with normal bulbs.
freewilly1040 7y ago
You're talking about a consumer luxury product as though it's being marketed as a food staple or some other necessity. It's not. People get these things because they think it'll be more convenient than the alternative. As a comparison, I didn't really consider typing in my phone pin every time I wanted to unlock my phone a disaster. But now that I've got Face ID and it works reasonably well (yes I know not everyone feels that way) it'd be annoying to go back. You can critique the current implementations but when someone comes up with a good ecosystem to integrate with these products will gain steam.
the_70x 7y ago
that's why the big profits, smart people is still a minority

gameswithgo 7y ago

I agree with this mostly, but I do vaguely pay attention to the space in case there is some smart home application that does end up proving truly useful. I haven't seen anything yet that is compelling to me but it could happen!

asark 7y ago
Useful home automation mostly involves robots of one kind or another. Stuff you might pay a person to do because it's so time consuming and tedious. Cleaning, washing & putting away clothes, lawn care, maybe cooking. Basically anything rich people tend not to do themselves, brought within the reach of the working class by robots. The problem is all the solutions so far kinda suck, and most are still expensive. If they weren't, absent regulation killing the spyvertising industry (oh please oh please oh please), guaranteed to be spyware wholly dependent on sending everything you or they do to "the cloud", I'd say Asimo-style general purpose home robots can't get here soon enough. Light switches, coffee makers, thermostats? Anyone who cared could already get 95% of the way to as-good-as-IoT with motion sensors and timers on existing, cheaper, out of the box solutions, without all the spying and "I'm sorry I can't reach my server so even though we're on the same local network and I'm more powerful than a late 90s desktop PC I still can't talk to your smartphone because I am a piece of absolute garbage."

hunter2_ 7y ago

Lighting hardwired to a stuck system and touching physical controllers (phone or otherwise) as you describe is one possible setup. On the contrary, I just have some table/floor lamps with smart outlets between their plugs and the outlets that can be quickly removed in case of failure, and touching my phone is only in case of voice (Google Home Mini) failure. Neither of which fail often, like much less than once a year. The convenience when half asleep is great.

Phenomenit 7y ago
Yeah, that's my approach as well, smart but with dumb fallback in case. Increases the WAF significantly.

thebiglebrewski 7y ago

Por que no los dos? Why not have perfectly functional on their own devices that can also be software addressed? Got that in my house and I'm a happy camper, when I have renters they don't even notice/have to use the smart features!

spaginal 7y ago

I use Zwave smart switches in my shop, tied to smart power strips for various lighting, fans, and tools at different stations in the shop. Instead of having to rewire switches physically everytime I move something, I can program different routines depending on my needs, and nothing is tied down in my shop, I can always reconfigure the layout to make it more efficient if need be. It’s been a life saver and it’s saved my energy bill also. I’m in there 10 hours a day sometimes, and I love the home automation stuff, I just use it not in the home.

AlexandrB 7y ago

> It's just not a problem which I think people have, but somehow the consumer industry has convinced so many fools to buy cheaply fabricated, badly secured, even worse programmed and often not long supported smart home devices which add absolutely no benefit to anyone's everyday life and cause lots of problems. This. Every time I hear a friend or someone on a podcast talking about their smart home they talk about how now they just need to find a new smart hub/lightswitch/integration service and everything will come together and nirvana will be achieved. Life's too short to spend that kind of time and energy on turning lights on and off.

dgzl 7y ago
I had a very high maintenance roommate and friend who is really into the easy smart-home devices. My understanding is he just likes the world to bend to his will as he maneuvers around in life. The doors unlock automatically, Nest changes our home temperatures as we walk in, "hey Siri, change lights to dance party", "play top radio". "What's the news today". Even though he earned a degree in computer science, he wasn't very interested in the hacker/tinker/development side of things.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > My understanding is he just likes the world to bend to his will as he maneuvers around in life. That would be cool, I'd like that too. Problem is, this only exists in a) marketing material, b) sci-fi movies, and c) if you do everything yourself. In the IoT industry, competition itself is ruining most of the "smart" devices' utility. They won't be useful until apps, hubs and devices are completely independent and commoditized, and you could argue they might not be useful to regulars even then (cue the long discussion on why stable society is incompatible with interesting life).

adjkant 7y ago

Smart homes are indeed mostly build out of supporting laziness, but there are ways to avoid some of these problems. If you've already sold your soul and have a home device with speech control, it's actually pretty easy to go and get a smart outlet device to control some lights. A single phrase without any screen or authentication and you're controlling your lights. If it breaks or gets outdated, you can always take it out in 10 seconds. Basically, if you do go for a smart home, keep it dumb and overridable.

matwood 7y ago

I mostly agree. Why do I need WIFI on my lights, coffee maker, or dishwasher? A thermostat is my personal exception though. Being able to program it on my phone is a huge UI improvement over prior thermostats. Also, being able to change it without getting out of bed in the middle of the night is a bonus.

Supermancho 7y ago
I also like smart thermostats. Similar to a remote autostart for my truck in the winter snows, which warms up the engine and the cabin, being able to turn on the AC before I get home from work (or heater) from my phone is a perk.
fibonachos 7y ago
I only recently, as in two weeks ago, purchased my first home automation product in the form of a few Philips hue bulbs. Not so much for the automation aspect, but the ability to control the color temp and brightness. The automation will be nice when I take my next vacation and want to give the appearance of someone being home during that time. As for what happens when the WiFi goes down or the bridge fails, simply power cycling the lights returns them to a default color/brightness state like a normal bulb.
- chappi42 7y ago
  Is Philips hue also connected to Google? If not this is a big positive point as there is a hard separation to other data (e.g. retrived via Android).
chappi42 7y ago
I just don't understand why programming a thermostat needs to bring Google into the loop? It's not needed. My data should stay with me if I so desire (without needing extensive mistake-prone config).
- asdff 7y ago
  They've had programmable thermostats for years. Having your house cool down at night/when you are at work is not a new concept that IoT suddenly made possible.

deleted 7y ago

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sjohnsonweb 7y ago

"Smart people don't buy home devices" Yikes. I mean sure, your points on why you don't see their value are valid. But calling people not smart because they enjoy being able to automate their homes is a leap and a half.

ben7799 7y ago

I totally agree, and it's hilarious how many engineers fall for this Smart home BS. We are all supposed to be keeping K.I.S.S. in mind because we're engineers. Smart home crap is the complete opposite of K.I.S.S. Smart home setups are the guy on your group who wants to write a java program dependent on spring to solve a problem that a shell one liner can solve. Smart Homes are prepping the space shuttle to go down the block to the drug store.

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

If I had a 100k cinema room ... I would ask myself some hard questions about my priorities in life.

ben_w 7y ago
If you were a billionaire, and 100k was 0.01% of your net worth? If someone owned a €300k home with neither mortgage nor investments, that’s the equivalent of €30. I’m may not be impressed with their blasé attitude to money, but I bet I looked more wasteful than that to a Nairobi friend of my partner when I visited on a plane ticket that cost half their annual rent, £350.
gambiting 7y ago
It's a sort of thing that you build when money is meaningless. And at that point you can still have very valid priorities - helping other people out, setting up charities, etc etc. Your house just happens to have a cinema room - it's no different "luxury" than having underfloor heating in your bathroom. It's comparably unnecessary, just on a different financial scale.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > it's no different "luxury" than having underfloor heating in your bathroom. It's comparably unnecessary, just on a different financial scale. Underfloor heating is not unnecessary, in fact it is about 10% more efficient in operating cost[1] as it can operate at lower inlet temperatures (30-35 °C, compared to 60+ °C for conventional radiators). In addition conventional radiators are often placed on the outside-facing wall below a window, which means that much of the generated heat gets lost. As for the installation costs, for new construction conventional radiators and underfloor heating are approximately at the same price level. [1]: https://www.t-online.de/heim-garten/energie/id_73373816/fussbodenheizung-das-sind-die-vor-und-nachteile.html https://www.t-online.de/heim-garten/energie/id_73373816/fuss...
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    And $100k home cinema is more efficient than having to go to actual cinema. Still, a luxury.

chomp 7y ago

I halfway agree with your comment. I think smart home technology is still in the realm of tinkerers right now, and investing in an ecosystem requires a lot of forethought. I replaced all of my dumb light switches with zwave light switches, but the nice thing is that they still act as light switches. I bought dumb IP cameras that can stream RTSP instead of going to someone's "cloud". I feed all of this into a homeassistant server that, when it goes down, I shrug because this is a fun hobby of mine, not anything I expect to actually work. When people ask "wow how can I make my TV do that trick" or "that is cool, what do I need to get started with home automation", I cringe a little because of how embarrassingly techy the industry still is. Even Control4, which is probably the premiere home automation ecosystem, requires a ton of upkeep to keep it running (though at least you can throw money down a hole to have someone fix it). Also with regards to your comment about turning on the lights to your phone, there's something magical about walking into the living room and saying "Hey Siri, good morning" and having your TV kick on, automatically start streaming the morning news, kitchen and living room lights turn on, and blinds open. There's nothing that really saves a ton of time in it, but it's just nice.

vbezhenar 7y ago
So the answer for your friends would be "ask that company and buy their premium support package". And "that company" will ensure that tech industry bends to ordinary people needs. I don't know about you, but that's the way things work around me. Ordinary people don't know how to work on computer. They learned few buttons and sequence to push those buttons, but if they pushed caps lock, they instantly lost. So they call support and that guy comes to them and pushes caps lock, so they can continue to work. It could work with smart home exactly similar. Some company installing devices and maintains them. If you have a problem, you just call them and they'll help you.
richk449 7y ago
> there's something magical about walking into the living room and saying "Hey Siri, good morning" and having your TV kick on, automatically start streaming the morning news Magical in the sense that hell is magical?
- 7y ago

optymizer 7y ago

I, for one, am enjoying my 'smart home' setup, where I can say "Alexa, turn off the TV", "Alexa, turn on Chromecast" and "Alexa, set the bedroom temperature to 72", regardless of which floor of the house I'm on. I'd rather fiddle with updates and setup once in a while (I have never had to reconfigure the devices in 2 years), than look for that goddamn remote between couch cushions, press the power button and possibly switch audio and video inputs, especially if I'm on the second floor and someone forgot the TV on on the first floor. I would hate to make that trip downstairs, annoyed and grumpy.

dustinmoris 7y ago
> I would hate to make that trip downstairs, annoyed and grumpy. My grandma always said "What you don't have in your head you must have in your legs". My calculation is simple: Where do I expect to waste more time in my life? Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected, or once in a while walk the stairs an extra time because I left the TV on. So far I don't forget to switch off my TV often enough to justify the human effort of smart home devices. Maybe one day when I become older and more forgetful and not turning of TVs and lamps becomes a habit then I might re-evaluate my decision.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected Software development in a nutshell. It's how I have spent most of my life.
- stickfigure 7y ago
  I have spent a non-negligible amount of my life looking for remotes. But the really big waste is the amount of time fiddling with 5 remotes trying to figure out how to get the f-ing AV system working. I have a magnificent non-smart home theatre on my property, set up by one of the other co-owners. He's pretty much the only person that knows how to use it; the last time I tried, I had to call him. This stuff is a disaster. Over in my house it's "Hey Google, play some music". I replaced my 60s-era manual mercury switch thermostat with a Nest. It's way better! More accurate, accepts voice commands, tells me the temperature, can be turned on before I get home, and can be turned off remotely when I left for vacation and forgot (yes, I've done this). Call me a very satisfied customer. I'll take the smart home, thank you. If that makes me dumb, fine. I don't want to have to be a genius just to watch a movie.

kyllo 7y ago

It's sad because the concept of IoT in the home has such great potential, but the execution so far has just been atrocious. https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://twitter.com/internetofshit

marssaxman 7y ago
I just can't see the potential. Increase the complexity of the system and you increase the risk of failure, and when things are failing at home, that means you've got more housework to do. Who wants that? I spent a bunch of money replacing every light bulb in my house with an LED so that I'd never have to deal with burnt-out light bulbs again. That was a use of improved technology that simplified my life. If you hook your household devices up to the internet and make them dependent on external services they will always be prone to breaking. If I get some fancy internet-connected light bulb and have to spend even so much as ten minutes, ever, in its lifetime, figuring out why it stopped working, then it has already become a worse value proposition than the passive, non-internet thing it hoped to replace.
- kyllo 7y ago
  Yeah, the first mistake was _and make them dependent on external services_. An internet-connected light bulb's failure mode should be "temporarily become a regular light bulb". "I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs." --Mitch Hedberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n1ryH3igKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n1ryH3igKc

TheCraiggers 7y ago

Everyone has different use cases. Some people just want to show a cool thing off to their friends, or even to prove they can do something at that scale. Silly? Perhaps, but who am I to judge their hobbies? Personally, I do find things like HVAC automation nice. If I forget to turn the thermostat down when I leave for a trip, I can do so remotely and that is real savings. Everyone has their use cases though.

nerdkid93 7y ago
Absolutely agree with the HVAC automation. I love being able to remotely change settings and glean a little bit of data from my home when I'm away from home. The only other super tempting "smart home" products I'd be tempted to use would be electrical monitoring sensors to analyze phantom power usage and identify when devices are turning on and off throughout the day.

akeck 7y ago

Your comment reminded me of https://vas3k.com/blog/dumbass_home/?ref=sn https://vas3k.com/blog/dumbass_home/?ref=sn

weberc2 7y ago

If you're looking to IoT devices to fill your life with meaning and purpose, yes, you'll be disappointed. If you want meager quality of life improvements and aren't overtly trying to have a bad experience (as you describe in your last two paragraphs), you'll probably be pretty happy with your purchases. My wife and I use smart sockets and switches to turn on and off lights by voice command rather than walking around to every lamp and hunting around for the switches as we used to do. Was it a massive time savings? No. Did it change our lives substantially? No. Was it a small quality of life improvement? Yes. And yeah, there are issues--Alexa gets confused when you try to change the label associated with a device. But the issue was easily fixed and we were no worse off than we were before the purchase.

DisruptiveDave 7y ago

Rarely do we ask ourselves how short-term conveniences may harm us in the long run. Chores are important. Discomfort is important. Mild annoyances are important. Physically moving is important. Focusing on unexciting things is important.

czr 7y ago

This is overstating the case a bit, imo. There are plenty of smart home devices that are either objectively terrible or worse relative to their "dumb" alternatives–I'd happily concede that this is the majority of the smart-home market. But there are some genuinely good products mixed in there too. In the same way that dishwashers and washers/dryers have endured while other 70s smarter-home tech didn't [0], I would guess that some modern automations that actually provide value (e.g. robot vacuums) will continue on even as the hype dies down. [0] For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_316#Kitchen_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_316#Kitchen_Computer

harshaw 7y ago

to counter point this post and your assumption that I am not smart - I use of home automation and smart devices extensively. I use Alexa, smarthings, z-wave switches, and various things. 1) "Alexa, turn on kitchen". Turns on the various light switches that are collectively the kitchen. 2) all things turn off at 11PM during the weekdays. Make sure that the various lights that were on get turned off. 3) When turning on the basement light switch it automatically turns on the lights in the utility room where the laundry is. 4) When turning on the basement playroom light switch, in turns on "all the lights in that room", because that's the common use case. 5) outside lights come on and turn off automatically 6) Christmas tree lights outside come on and off on a regular basis. 7) Inside christmas lights come on and off 8) Front door opens automatically and locks automatically based on kids schedule. 9) Custom key codes for the front door for contractors 10) "Alexa, announce dinner". Announces dinner everywhere in the house. really useful. 11) Nest goes to eco mode when no-one is in the house. 12) Lights turn on automatically in the kitchen when you get home. etc etc etc. It all works and doesn't require much work. The mobile based alerts are the weakest link in the system as they don't always work.

rhacker 7y ago

This is the exact kind of comment that would make it to the top because it just empowered everyone that DOESN'T have one such system. It's filled with finger pointing. Most of the replies basically point out yeah, I hate IoT lights, but this use case is good... It's not genuine to dismiss the entire enchilada because YOU don't have it. In 5 years when all the crap is worked out and you eventually buy a system with extra security at your door or backyard, or a something to that effect I'd like you to come back and admit it.

AlexandrB 7y ago
> In 5 years when all the crap is worked out and you eventually buy a system with extra security at your door or backyard, or a something to that effect I'd like you to come back and admit it. I heard this same song and dance 5 years ago. The problems with the "IoT" market are foundational. Most IoT devices are not designed to be used for extended periods without internet access and a continuous stream of updates. The former means that, in general, they are only as reliable as your internet connection (including that crappy modem/router the ISP gave you). The latter means that unlike traditional home hardware, once you install "smart" devices you're at the mercy of the business plans of the vendor. So even if you get something set up that works acceptably, it will last 5 years tops (see Nest) before the vendor's priorities change. Finally to address the "extra security" comment. Security from what? The developed world is objectively safer than ever, why would I invest in "solutions" to problems invented out of whole cloth? The paranoia of people installing cameras all over their own home (often cameras whose footage they have no real control over) astounds me. We're more mistrustful of our own neighbours than the companies that are actually exploiting our privacy and manipulating us psychologically for profit.
- smbullet 7y ago
  Not all of us live in safe neighborhoods like yourself.
  - bradlys 7y ago
    It's not even a matter of "safe". I live in a neighborhood that is seen as very safe. Yet, we had a burglary two houses down not too long ago. And they happen frequently enough to myself. I've had plenty stolen. Without a camera, there's ~0% chance of anyone being caught. I ended up buying a camera for peace of mind and for checking in on my place to see who's entering my residence area. Sometimes it's genuinely helpful.

pathartl 7y ago

I think it's more about managing expectations. I for one have not had a scenario where I haven't been able to turn on/off the lights because of a service outage... because I'm not dumb and I don't buy smart bulbs. I replace switches that can work independently from their smart features. I'm at the point where living without smart lights is very inconvenient. I was at my parents the other day carrying a heavy can of garbage through their completely black basement. Instead of just being able to tell my voice assistant to turn on the basement lights, I had to fumble around to find the right switch that actually lights the room. As far as being on topic with Nest... I've never "gone cold". The device works fine without their service and I would say works better than most other thermostats when it comes to actually performing the task of a thermostat.

Sir_Substance 7y ago
>I was at my parents the other day carrying a heavy can of garbage through their completely black basement. Instead of just being able to tell my voice assistant to turn on the basement lights, I had to fumble around to find the right switch that actually lights the room. That's a highly specific scenario that I personally would solve with a motion sensor light if I felt it was likely to happen often.

vincentmarle 7y ago

I refuse to talk to the Siris, Alexas, and Hey Googles in this world. I simply don’t want to talk to a computer, not even on my phone. I visited my friend at home the other day, and every couple of minutes he would interrupt our conversation to shout some command to some voice assistant. It was frankly very annoying.

jonstewart 7y ago

Thanks for calling me not smart. I live in DC but have a second house in the upper Midwest (close to family). An internet-enabled thermostat lets me keep an eye on the temperature remotely, and adjust it to cold and warm spells. It was -25F for a few days this past winter.

lallysingh 7y ago

This is pure FUD. I'm disappointed that it's got so many responses on HN instead of being down-voted in exchange for a better anti-IoT argument at the top instead. But hey, sure, let's go through this: - I don't care about some dude you saw on TV. A single anecdote means nothing. Even less when it's someone not representative of the population. - A strawman convenience is another terrible argument. Sometimes it matters that you don't have to leave the room to fiddle with a device. Sometimes you're talking to someone and ask them "are you cold?" and would like to just make it warmer without leaving them. - Being able to monitor your house's status remotely is helpful. - Switches and light bulbs are low investment, low risk purchases. If they don't work, you have a simple fallback and it didn't cost much. The industry's developing and it'll take time, but it's generally fine because most of this stuff is such low risk.

dingaling 7y ago
> Switches and light bulbs are low investment, low risk purchases. Outfitting my house with smart bulbs would cost about £400. I've better uses for that amount of money.
Gorbzel 7y ago
Nope, your comment is just rationalization disguised as exasperated criticism. When a given product/technology just fundamentally doesn’t work, or even worse is a security nightmare, you don’t get to write it off as a risk that didn’t cost much. Especially since that last part isn’t true in most cases.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  I'm frankly stunned that somebody could, with a straight face, turn to somebody else and say "No. You are wrong. That thing you like isn't actually worth it."
yummypaint 7y ago
There are extremely serious and well known security problems with smart light bulbs. Compromising one's home network is in no way low risk.

tensor 7y ago

> Smart people don't buy smart home devices. Insulting everyone you presumably intend to convince with your argument is not a smart move.

wutbrodo 7y ago
Convince? This is just posturing for karma from the other low-effort kneejerk contrarians on HN

anbop 7y ago

I love having voice activated lights. I live in a loft where all the lights are upstairs to keep the cords away from my toddler. When we get home, instead of needing to go upstairs, I can turn on the lights from downstairs, and have also set it up to only work when you say “please” to teach her proper manners.

dd36 7y ago

I love my Hue lights. They always work.

balabaster 7y ago

This is funny because we lost the remote controller for the soundbar I have for my TV about a month ago, so now we get up and turn the volume up and down. It was slightly annoying at first, but now nobody cares. Eventually the remote will show up, but nobody cared about having to get up and change the volume enough to find it. One of the kids probably took it outside with them and left it laying around the farm somewhere. To be honest, it's probably done us more good than we'd care to admit. The TV isn't quite so convenient, with the smart TV, without the remote it's all but impossible to drive.

brandonwamboldt 7y ago

Ignoring your insults, I think there are many valid use cases for smart home devices. For example, automatically turning lights on and off on a schedule, changing light color to red at night, being able to casually set reminders without bothering with a phone, controlling your TV without needing your phone (e.g. for netflix), being able to change temperature on a schedule, all kinds of things. Just because they occasionally have bugs for some people doesn't mean they are entirely useless. Many people (myself included) have few to no problems with their smart home devices.

wjp3 7y ago

It's not a binary thing, though. When my IoT smart lights don't turn on from a voice command, I can always walk over to the switch and flip them on. My IoT smart home makes things more convenient, not unusable.

spilk 7y ago

It's like you're purposely describing the least useful application of smarthome devices. Setting up geofence triggers, time/event-based triggers, etc. is the real power of smart devices. I have automations set up so if I arrive home when it's dark, lights in my house turn on automatically so I don't have to fumble for light switches. I have motion sensors so if I walk into rooms, the lights turn on automatically and then turn off after I leave. I can set up schedules to turn lights on and off while I'm not at home so my house looks occupied. Also, with Apple Homekit, there is a control center widget so you just swipe up, tap home and your "favorite" devices are very quickly accessible from anywhere in the world.

nominated1 7y ago
I use astronomical timers for outdoor lighting and indoor night lights. The rest of your uses look more like “because I can” and are not filling an actual need. Besides, my pets jumping on and off furniture would trigger those senors more than I care to admit.

ajmurmann 7y ago

"It's just not a problem which I think people have, but somehow the consumer industry has convinced so many fools to buy cheaply fabricated, badly secured, even worse programmed and often not long supported smart home devices which add absolutely no benefit to anyone's everyday life and cause lots of problems." I'm not a big fan of smart devices, but I've had several issues that were solved very conveniently by smart devises. The temperature in my second floor bedroom and my first floor living room is usually totally different. The thermostat is in the living room. So all too often we'd be laying in bed and the temperature is wrong. So now you have to walk down stairs, adjust it and hope you got it right. We never bothered doing anything like turning on the vegetation function for 30 minutes. Nest thermostat was a total game changer. Sometimes it does annoying stuff and isn't nearly as smart as I'd like it to be, but it's so much better than the old thermostat. Similarly I have ceiling fans with light bulbs. You can turn the whole thing on and off with wall switches, but only control lights and fan with a strong that hangs from the fan. Unfortunately the builder or previous owner put these in a room with cathedral ceilings. So I'd need a ladder to control these properly. I put smart lightbulbs in and now at least those can be controlled independently.

rconti 7y ago
Ecobee was (I think) the first one to have remote temperature sensors, and now Nest has them, too. Yes, they're (still) smart devices, but this can work without the smart functionality. The sensors detect which room humans are in, and adjusts so that the thermostat controls the heat to get the OCCUPIED room to the desired temperature. So, no 'device with an app' required (eg, this could be replicated without internet functionality). Most fans these days ship with wireless remotes. Even my wall switch is a wireless remote. So the light and fan can be controlled separately -- no IoT required here as well.

teh_infallible 7y ago

This was my experience with Philips Hue lights. They were cool for awhile, but light switches stay in one place, while my phone does not. I eventually got their wall mounted buttons, and ultimately replaced them all with normal bulbs.

freewilly1040 7y ago

You're talking about a consumer luxury product as though it's being marketed as a food staple or some other necessity. It's not. People get these things because they think it'll be more convenient than the alternative. As a comparison, I didn't really consider typing in my phone pin every time I wanted to unlock my phone a disaster. But now that I've got Face ID and it works reasonably well (yes I know not everyone feels that way) it'd be annoying to go back. You can critique the current implementations but when someone comes up with a good ecosystem to integrate with these products will gain steam.

the_70x 7y ago

that's why the big profits, smart people is still a minority