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There’s another part that people forget: analog tech is nigh bulletproof. Your $50 smart light switch may last a decade or more, but a $0.50 analog light switch

There’s another part that people forget: analog tech is nigh bulletproof. Your $50 smart light switch may last a decade or more, but a $0.50 analog light switch will last a century. The extreme difference in cost often leaves you with something that is worse in the long run. Agree about the complexity as well. Analog circuits don’t have an API that changes every few years — a modern 3-way light switch circuit would be easily understood by an electrician from 1920 (and vice-versa). Good luck doing that with Lutron gear from a decade ago. I probably dropped $5k on home automation stuff. While I could afford it and it was partially a research project, the main lesson I learned was that home automation is generally more trouble than its worth at any price. Sure, it’s great that I can tell Alexa to turn my lights off, but I also have to make sure that the 3 services required to make that work remain talking to each other. I would cumulatively save more time by just walking downstairs to turn the lights off.

ghaff 7y ago
I use Alexa for one light that never got connected to a light switch. I used wireless X-10 for it previously :-) I agree about reliability. It's one reason I won't get a Nest thermostat. I live in snow country and I'm not going to do anything that potentially introduces a new failure mode into my heating system. (I actually have a couple of the Nest smoke detectors. The internet connection isn't required for them to function as dumb detectors and they work well in my experience.)
- jld 7y ago
  An internet connection isn’t required for the Nest thermostat to operate the furnace either. I can appreciate not wanting to allow Google the opportunity to brick your thermostat (and hence your furnance) through some kind of software issue but if you’re willing to extend that faith to their smoke detectors, why not your furnace?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I guess my feeling with the smoke/CO detectors is that I also have other "dumb" models throughout the house. Furthermore, a thermostat needs to work basically all the time at certain times of the year, whereas the detector only needs to work when there's something to detect. I guess Google could silently brick them and I'd never know about it but that seems to be getting into paranoia territory. (And it's not like other detectors can't silently fail too.) It's probably paranoia about the thermostat too TBH. But other than looking cooler than my old programmable Honeywell, a Nest thermostat also wouldn't really do anything for me anyway.
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      Yeah, the Nest was ahead of its time in 2010; but by 2012 the big players like Honeywell and Carrier had caught up. At this point they beat Nest on both price and features. A good friend of mine owns an HVAC company and would recommend a dozen thermostats over a Nest on functionality alone.
- dmoose 7y ago
  I live in snow country as well so when I updated my boiler for home automation I connected the existing controller that has worked for 20 years to the NC side of each relay. This way if the HA controller fails it falls back to the old less sophisticated but near bullet proof analog control system. I dialed those thermostats down 10 degrees below the HA setpoints. If the HA system fails the relays are inert and the old system keeps the house from freezing. I suppose if it fails with the relays energized it's going to get pretty hot inside, but in the meantime if I have issues with the HA system I can just turn it off and use the old thermostats. This was great while I was debugging my design.
- SkyPuncher 7y ago
  > I live in snow country and I'm not going to do anything that potentially introduces a new failure mode into my heating system. On the flip side, my Ecobee notified me that my furnace was broken while I was at work. I don't really see name-brand smart thermostats in the same category as most home automation devices. There's also a lot of nice features that can improve efficiency. For example, we drastically cut our cooling bill by utilizing the scheduled fan mode to pull cool, main floor air into the air handler and redistributing it (partially to the second floor).
marcosdumay 7y ago
> but a $0.50 analog light switch will last a century Most will. Some will break within 3 months. Our old home tech (there is nothing analog in a light switch) isn't as flawless as most people claim. Power outlets do short circuit, wires to break, circuit breakers to burn closed. They are still way more reliable than most electronic trash people push as smart home devices, but at this point, it's a marketing decision not an inherent property of electronics.
- noja 7y ago
  > but at this point, it's a marketing decision not an inherent property of electronics. It's an inherent property of many things that increased complexity tends to mean increased failure rate (or earlier failure).
- SllX 7y ago
  Everything we make and buy will someday return to dust. It is an economic decision to make choices about the level of complexity you are willing to tolerate from device to device. The lights go out, I can burn some candles, but I would still rather have my lights working despite their relative complexity over the candles, but I want them to always work with a manual toggle. The toggle shouldn’t have 30 pages of legalese and a promise to not violate my privacy too much for too much personal gain, with the words “too” and “much” defined rather loosely in all the legal jargon.
WalterBright 7y ago
> I would cumulatively save more time by just walking downstairs to turn the lights off. Unless one is bedridden, it's better to get up and turn the lights on/off manually, including the stairs.
bestnameever 7y ago
> but I also have to make sure that the 3 services required to make that work remain talking to each other. this problem doesn't always exist in all setups. I have lights that connect directly to Google Home/Nest that have never lost a connection. As long as Google assistant is up, it works without issue. I've had other setups that use a hub and if the connection is not working for some reason, you're provided with that feedback at the time you issue your command.
- alexktz 7y ago
  And as we all know, Google never kill a product.
  - bestnameever 7y ago
    thats unrelated, Google is just one company and the ecosystem is evolving to a more customer friendly experience. I can look at the house security cameras set up years ago and that required a dedicated sever, video recording software and all sorts of networking knowledge. Now people are just able to buy Ring devices.

ghaff 7y ago

I use Alexa for one light that never got connected to a light switch. I used wireless X-10 for it previously :-) I agree about reliability. It's one reason I won't get a Nest thermostat. I live in snow country and I'm not going to do anything that potentially introduces a new failure mode into my heating system. (I actually have a couple of the Nest smoke detectors. The internet connection isn't required for them to function as dumb detectors and they work well in my experience.)

jld 7y ago
An internet connection isn’t required for the Nest thermostat to operate the furnace either. I can appreciate not wanting to allow Google the opportunity to brick your thermostat (and hence your furnance) through some kind of software issue but if you’re willing to extend that faith to their smoke detectors, why not your furnace?
- ghaff 7y ago
  I guess my feeling with the smoke/CO detectors is that I also have other "dumb" models throughout the house. Furthermore, a thermostat needs to work basically all the time at certain times of the year, whereas the detector only needs to work when there's something to detect. I guess Google could silently brick them and I'd never know about it but that seems to be getting into paranoia territory. (And it's not like other detectors can't silently fail too.) It's probably paranoia about the thermostat too TBH. But other than looking cooler than my old programmable Honeywell, a Nest thermostat also wouldn't really do anything for me anyway.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    Yeah, the Nest was ahead of its time in 2010; but by 2012 the big players like Honeywell and Carrier had caught up. At this point they beat Nest on both price and features. A good friend of mine owns an HVAC company and would recommend a dozen thermostats over a Nest on functionality alone.
dmoose 7y ago
I live in snow country as well so when I updated my boiler for home automation I connected the existing controller that has worked for 20 years to the NC side of each relay. This way if the HA controller fails it falls back to the old less sophisticated but near bullet proof analog control system. I dialed those thermostats down 10 degrees below the HA setpoints. If the HA system fails the relays are inert and the old system keeps the house from freezing. I suppose if it fails with the relays energized it's going to get pretty hot inside, but in the meantime if I have issues with the HA system I can just turn it off and use the old thermostats. This was great while I was debugging my design.
SkyPuncher 7y ago
> I live in snow country and I'm not going to do anything that potentially introduces a new failure mode into my heating system. On the flip side, my Ecobee notified me that my furnace was broken while I was at work. I don't really see name-brand smart thermostats in the same category as most home automation devices. There's also a lot of nice features that can improve efficiency. For example, we drastically cut our cooling bill by utilizing the scheduled fan mode to pull cool, main floor air into the air handler and redistributing it (partially to the second floor).

marcosdumay 7y ago

> but a $0.50 analog light switch will last a century Most will. Some will break within 3 months. Our old home tech (there is nothing analog in a light switch) isn't as flawless as most people claim. Power outlets do short circuit, wires to break, circuit breakers to burn closed. They are still way more reliable than most electronic trash people push as smart home devices, but at this point, it's a marketing decision not an inherent property of electronics.

noja 7y ago
> but at this point, it's a marketing decision not an inherent property of electronics. It's an inherent property of many things that increased complexity tends to mean increased failure rate (or earlier failure).
SllX 7y ago
Everything we make and buy will someday return to dust. It is an economic decision to make choices about the level of complexity you are willing to tolerate from device to device. The lights go out, I can burn some candles, but I would still rather have my lights working despite their relative complexity over the candles, but I want them to always work with a manual toggle. The toggle shouldn’t have 30 pages of legalese and a promise to not violate my privacy too much for too much personal gain, with the words “too” and “much” defined rather loosely in all the legal jargon.

WalterBright 7y ago

> I would cumulatively save more time by just walking downstairs to turn the lights off. Unless one is bedridden, it's better to get up and turn the lights on/off manually, including the stairs.

bestnameever 7y ago

> but I also have to make sure that the 3 services required to make that work remain talking to each other. this problem doesn't always exist in all setups. I have lights that connect directly to Google Home/Nest that have never lost a connection. As long as Google assistant is up, it works without issue. I've had other setups that use a hub and if the connection is not working for some reason, you're provided with that feedback at the time you issue your command.

alexktz 7y ago
And as we all know, Google never kill a product.
- bestnameever 7y ago
  thats unrelated, Google is just one company and the ecosystem is evolving to a more customer friendly experience. I can look at the house security cameras set up years ago and that required a dedicated sever, video recording software and all sorts of networking knowledge. Now people are just able to buy Ring devices.