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Disclaimer: I am the founder of Hiome, a smart home startup focused on private by design local-only products. What actions are you looking to handle with the a

Disclaimer: I am the founder of Hiome, a smart home startup focused on private by design local-only products. What actions are you looking to handle with the assistant? Reason I ask is because a voice assistant is a command line interface with no auto-complete or visual feedback. It doesn’t scale well as you add more devices or commands to your home, because it becomes impossible to remember all the phrases you programmed. We’ve found the person who sets up the voice assistant will use it for simple tasks like “turn off all lights” but nobody else benefits and it gets little use beyond timers and music. They are certainly nice to have, but they don’t significantly improve the smart home experience. If you’re looking to control individual devices, I suggest taking a look at actual occupancy sensors like Hiome (https://hiome.com https://hiome.com), which can let you automate your home with zero interaction so it just works for everyone without learning anything (like in a sci-fi movie). Even if you’re the only user, it’s much nicer to never think about your devices again. Happy to answer any questions about Hiome or what we’ve learned helping people with smart homes in general! -> neil@hiome.com

byteshock 7y ago
You really trying to promote your product? Corporate promotions really ruin the atmosphere... Take your corporate shilling elsewhere. I'm sure OP doesn't appreciate it.
- etrabroline 7y ago
  I don't think mentioning your smart home startup in response to someone asking for recommendations for their smart home is unappreciated "corporate shilling".
  - detaro 7y ago
    It feels very borderline to me, given that it doesn't really address the question, but instead goes more like "actually, you don't want what you ask. instead, what I'm selling is better". At least that's how it comes across to me.
- mthoms 7y ago
  From the site guidelines: > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data. Besides, the commenter was upfront about their affiliation and offered insights that appear helpful to the discussion. From elsewhere in the site guidelines: > Assume good faith
  - detaro 7y ago
    I don't think that first rule applies here, precisely because they were upfront (and thus byteshock isn't insinuating some hidden motive, but directly criticizing what they said)
    - peglasaurus 7y ago
      I think the guidelines almost need some "case law" examples. Although I understand why they wouldn't.
- guptaneil 7y ago
  Sorry you felt like that was corporate shilling. This is a problem we see people hit often and have built something to improve the experience, so it felt worth sharing. If it helps, we're a 2 person team (hardly a corporation) and we received YC's Startup School grant last year, for whatever that's worth on their forums. I do mean it that I'm happy to talk about anything smart home related, so feel free to email me! I spend a lot of my time helping people plan out their smart home build from scratch, including choosing between types of light switches, thermostats, platform, etc unrelated to our sensors.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    Don't know about "corporate shilling" - you weren't covert at all. I did ask for options after all. The only gotcha is the requirements will overwhelm most basic setups fairly quickly. Not talking 20 lights here or a tv or desk or two. I've replied to your original comment, thanks. PS I forgot to mention, all this exists right now as a mixture of amazon echo and a set of text inputs via phone over wifi for evaluation. As we implement more it turns into more voice control and less of a giant hack. So some bits are half-baked but functional.
rs23296008n1 7y ago
Sure. We've got a house with multiple buildings, including sheds, halls etc. Around 100 people need separate profiles, each should be able to set alarms, timers, reminders, etc. if they want a routine to create any of those or tell them time or date or temperature they should be able to do that from any of the voice assistants in any room. They might only want such a routine in a particular room. They should be able to define a home device and a current device. Home device would usually be a bedroom for those of us that need them etc. I definitely don't want to have to create any of those routines etc for any of them. Nothing about these should be fixed in stone. They have to be able to self-serve. We can assume they can navigate the ios amazon app as a baseline level of knowledge. Room settings include temperature, lighting, curtains, tv on/off, channel, volume to name a few. The voice assistant in some rooms should be able to show web pages on-screen, or even youtube etc. including the laptop someone plugged in on HDMI1. ...the coffee machine automation is also a requirement. Its controlled by a flask app. The voice control should be able to let you order a coffee, strong, black. Or a Dave#5. We'd also like device detection to trigger when people's phones appear in certain locations. What kinds of options exist for this?
- guptaneil 7y ago
  That's definitely a new situation we haven't seen before! Are the 100 people using all of the different rooms, or do people mostly stick to their own rooms (like a hotel/dorm)? I'd love to see what you've built so far, and better understand the problems you're trying to fix. For example, does each room have its own coffee machine, or is it a communal coffee machine? Are the people living here permanently or rotating regularly? What is the goal for device detection (e.g., do you want to use that for presence detection or as a security system or something else)? We have a prototype for a machine learning system that learns how you use your devices and then automates them by itself, so you don't have to set anything up. Our focus is lights because that's what most people have, but it can also control other on/off things like curtains or tv right now. It sounds like it could be good fit for a situation like this, and I'd be happy to chat with you more on whether it makes sense to try out! Can you send me an email (neil@hiome.com)?
TheHundredK 7y ago
How have you addressed the challenge of things getting out of sync? (eg. Suppose two people enter a room via the same entry at the same time, then one leaves the room later; power outage; missed detection, etc.) Would you share the sensor(s) you're using in the device?

byteshock 7y ago

You really trying to promote your product? Corporate promotions really ruin the atmosphere... Take your corporate shilling elsewhere. I'm sure OP doesn't appreciate it.

etrabroline 7y ago
I don't think mentioning your smart home startup in response to someone asking for recommendations for their smart home is unappreciated "corporate shilling".
- detaro 7y ago
  It feels very borderline to me, given that it doesn't really address the question, but instead goes more like "actually, you don't want what you ask. instead, what I'm selling is better". At least that's how it comes across to me.
mthoms 7y ago
From the site guidelines: > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data. Besides, the commenter was upfront about their affiliation and offered insights that appear helpful to the discussion. From elsewhere in the site guidelines: > Assume good faith
- detaro 7y ago
  I don't think that first rule applies here, precisely because they were upfront (and thus byteshock isn't insinuating some hidden motive, but directly criticizing what they said)
  - peglasaurus 7y ago
    I think the guidelines almost need some "case law" examples. Although I understand why they wouldn't.
guptaneil 7y ago
Sorry you felt like that was corporate shilling. This is a problem we see people hit often and have built something to improve the experience, so it felt worth sharing. If it helps, we're a 2 person team (hardly a corporation) and we received YC's Startup School grant last year, for whatever that's worth on their forums. I do mean it that I'm happy to talk about anything smart home related, so feel free to email me! I spend a lot of my time helping people plan out their smart home build from scratch, including choosing between types of light switches, thermostats, platform, etc unrelated to our sensors.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  Don't know about "corporate shilling" - you weren't covert at all. I did ask for options after all. The only gotcha is the requirements will overwhelm most basic setups fairly quickly. Not talking 20 lights here or a tv or desk or two. I've replied to your original comment, thanks. PS I forgot to mention, all this exists right now as a mixture of amazon echo and a set of text inputs via phone over wifi for evaluation. As we implement more it turns into more voice control and less of a giant hack. So some bits are half-baked but functional.

rs23296008n1 7y ago

Sure. We've got a house with multiple buildings, including sheds, halls etc. Around 100 people need separate profiles, each should be able to set alarms, timers, reminders, etc. if they want a routine to create any of those or tell them time or date or temperature they should be able to do that from any of the voice assistants in any room. They might only want such a routine in a particular room. They should be able to define a home device and a current device. Home device would usually be a bedroom for those of us that need them etc. I definitely don't want to have to create any of those routines etc for any of them. Nothing about these should be fixed in stone. They have to be able to self-serve. We can assume they can navigate the ios amazon app as a baseline level of knowledge. Room settings include temperature, lighting, curtains, tv on/off, channel, volume to name a few. The voice assistant in some rooms should be able to show web pages on-screen, or even youtube etc. including the laptop someone plugged in on HDMI1. ...the coffee machine automation is also a requirement. Its controlled by a flask app. The voice control should be able to let you order a coffee, strong, black. Or a Dave#5. We'd also like device detection to trigger when people's phones appear in certain locations. What kinds of options exist for this?

guptaneil 7y ago
That's definitely a new situation we haven't seen before! Are the 100 people using all of the different rooms, or do people mostly stick to their own rooms (like a hotel/dorm)? I'd love to see what you've built so far, and better understand the problems you're trying to fix. For example, does each room have its own coffee machine, or is it a communal coffee machine? Are the people living here permanently or rotating regularly? What is the goal for device detection (e.g., do you want to use that for presence detection or as a security system or something else)? We have a prototype for a machine learning system that learns how you use your devices and then automates them by itself, so you don't have to set anything up. Our focus is lights because that's what most people have, but it can also control other on/off things like curtains or tv right now. It sounds like it could be good fit for a situation like this, and I'd be happy to chat with you more on whether it makes sense to try out! Can you send me an email (neil@hiome.com)?

TheHundredK 7y ago

How have you addressed the challenge of things getting out of sync? (eg. Suppose two people enter a room via the same entry at the same time, then one leaves the room later; power outage; missed detection, etc.) Would you share the sensor(s) you're using in the device?