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This is why I don't buy the "IoT smart home" future. There's no such thing as a "smart" device that doesn't typically break within 4-5 years. Dozens of such dev

This is why I don't buy the "IoT smart home" future. There's no such thing as a "smart" device that doesn't typically break within 4-5 years. Dozens of such devices in a house means you'd be dealing with a broken device every few months, which is my nightmare. I want the LEAST amount of complexity possible to control all my critical living functions, from fridges to windows to lights to cars.

acje 7y ago
I decided to give away my "smart" door lock and test setup of "smart" light bulbs. I have better things to do than pretending to be tech helpdesk for mye house/family for things that aren't really giving me much benefit. The door lock had some nice features, but I had no secondary way of entering the house without breaking something so I decided it was too high risc. The Philips HUE lightbulbs are not capable of remembering their last state so they default to full throttle, making them painful to live with.
- bhj 7y ago
  > The Philips HUE lightbulbs are not capable of remembering their last state so they default to full throttle That is indeed the default behavior, but they can recall the previous state or another setting altogether after losing power. See “Power-on behavior” under Settings in the app.
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    TIL, thanks! Won’t have to wake up to practically full sunlight at night if there’s a power blip now.
    - wlesieutre 7y ago
      It was a relatively recent addition, so if you were trying to do this before last December, that's why you didn't find it. https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain-color-when-turned-back-on/ https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain-colo... The two choices are: • Philips Hue default – Warm white, full brightness • Power loss recovery – Last used color and brightness
- BeetleB 7y ago
  >The door lock had some nice features, but I had no secondary way of entering the house without breaking something so I decided it was too high risc. Which smart door lock doesn't allow a key to unlock? Even if it malfunctions horribly, it's not as if the lock is powerful enough to prevent someone from twisting using the key. Most use AA batteries.
kalleboo 7y ago
My smart home is pretty simple: our existing ceiling lights and air conditioners are IR controlled so I bought some cheap Chinese IR blasters and installed Homebridge on my NAS. This means when I'm lying in the sofa trying to get my daughter to sleep I can easily turn the lights down/redirect the breeze, but at the same time nothing at all is actually dependent on the smarts, it's pure convenience.
roland35 7y ago
I am all for dumb appliances over the current crop of "smart" appliances, but one feature I would LOVE would be some kind of sensor log of my refrigerator! This would help to know if the power went off while I was gone - did the temperature rise too much? That is all I need... The same would apply to other appliances and HVAC, just simple data to know everything is working correctly.
- delfinom 7y ago
  Just shove in a $10 zigbee temperature monitor.
  - roland35 7y ago
    I can't believe I haven't thought of that ha! I'll have to check it out - hopefully I can get a zigbee signal through the fridge itself (I am not sure if it is a Faraday cage or not)
    - RogerL 7y ago
      Why do you need a signal? You don't care about the temperature until you open your fridge to either consume to toss food, do you? Buy a digital thermometer for ten bucks, one that keeps a record of max/min, toss it in there, look at the max reading when you return from out of town. If your power goes out you'll need aux power for whatever is reading the signal, otherwise it also won't work. You are making a huge project with all kinds of failure modes when this problem has been solved for ages. Kind of like the house with no mechanical light switches that you are responding to!
      - roland35 7y ago
        I mentioned it up earlier but I did try out a simple battery digital min/max thermometer, but every time you opened the door the air temperature would rise above 40F (highest recommended temp to store dairy), which made it hard to use for the intended purpose! If the thermometer had more thermal mass attached to it (or simply had a low pass filter on the readout), it would have worked great. I also had an analog thermometer at one point, but obviously the problem here is if the power goes out, then comes back on and returns to the proper temperature. It should be a simple thing I agree!
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Can you name the vendor?

acje 7y ago

I decided to give away my "smart" door lock and test setup of "smart" light bulbs. I have better things to do than pretending to be tech helpdesk for mye house/family for things that aren't really giving me much benefit. The door lock had some nice features, but I had no secondary way of entering the house without breaking something so I decided it was too high risc. The Philips HUE lightbulbs are not capable of remembering their last state so they default to full throttle, making them painful to live with.

bhj 7y ago
> The Philips HUE lightbulbs are not capable of remembering their last state so they default to full throttle That is indeed the default behavior, but they can recall the previous state or another setting altogether after losing power. See “Power-on behavior” under Settings in the app.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  TIL, thanks! Won’t have to wake up to practically full sunlight at night if there’s a power blip now.
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    It was a relatively recent addition, so if you were trying to do this before last December, that's why you didn't find it. https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain-color-when-turned-back-on/ https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain-colo... The two choices are: • Philips Hue default – Warm white, full brightness • Power loss recovery – Last used color and brightness
BeetleB 7y ago
>The door lock had some nice features, but I had no secondary way of entering the house without breaking something so I decided it was too high risc. Which smart door lock doesn't allow a key to unlock? Even if it malfunctions horribly, it's not as if the lock is powerful enough to prevent someone from twisting using the key. Most use AA batteries.

kalleboo 7y ago

My smart home is pretty simple: our existing ceiling lights and air conditioners are IR controlled so I bought some cheap Chinese IR blasters and installed Homebridge on my NAS. This means when I'm lying in the sofa trying to get my daughter to sleep I can easily turn the lights down/redirect the breeze, but at the same time nothing at all is actually dependent on the smarts, it's pure convenience.

roland35 7y ago

I am all for dumb appliances over the current crop of "smart" appliances, but one feature I would LOVE would be some kind of sensor log of my refrigerator! This would help to know if the power went off while I was gone - did the temperature rise too much? That is all I need... The same would apply to other appliances and HVAC, just simple data to know everything is working correctly.

delfinom 7y ago
Just shove in a $10 zigbee temperature monitor.
- roland35 7y ago
  I can't believe I haven't thought of that ha! I'll have to check it out - hopefully I can get a zigbee signal through the fridge itself (I am not sure if it is a Faraday cage or not)
  - RogerL 7y ago
    Why do you need a signal? You don't care about the temperature until you open your fridge to either consume to toss food, do you? Buy a digital thermometer for ten bucks, one that keeps a record of max/min, toss it in there, look at the max reading when you return from out of town. If your power goes out you'll need aux power for whatever is reading the signal, otherwise it also won't work. You are making a huge project with all kinds of failure modes when this problem has been solved for ages. Kind of like the house with no mechanical light switches that you are responding to!
    - roland35 7y ago
      I mentioned it up earlier but I did try out a simple battery digital min/max thermometer, but every time you opened the door the air temperature would rise above 40F (highest recommended temp to store dairy), which made it hard to use for the intended purpose! If the thermometer had more thermal mass attached to it (or simply had a low pass filter on the readout), it would have worked great. I also had an analog thermometer at one point, but obviously the problem here is if the power goes out, then comes back on and returns to the proper temperature. It should be a simple thing I agree!

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

Can you name the vendor?