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> I honestly don't understand people who want all this internet connected garbage. Because it’s convenient. As I leave work, my home’s AC turns on. When I arri

> I honestly don't understand people who want all this internet connected garbage. Because it’s convenient. As I leave work, my home’s AC turns on. When I arrive and open the door, my lights fade on and my blinds gradually roll up. My music seamlessly transitions to my home theatre with a tap. If someone’s at my door, it appears on my TV. When it’s time to go to bed I can turn everything off with a murmur. Adjust my temperature to be absolutely perfect without getting out of bed. When it’s time to wake up, the lights gradually increase in intensity, and my blinds automatically open again. I can ask for my schedule and whether I need a jacket while getting ready for work. Have my car turn on the AC as I leave my apartment, and have my lights, blinds, and AC automatically turn off when I leave home. The little things add up. Life in a connected home is easier. I can spend the time saved on things that actually matter. All that is well worth the marginal privacy impact of HomeKit for most people.

the_cat_kittles 6y ago
i think people who repair and make stuff hate these sorts of things because they introduce a layer of complexity that ruins longevity and predictability. what you call convenience, i call added costs down the line, and unreliability. also, the "time saved" is a bit like saying modal editors are good because you can enter text more efficiently. its all technically true, but seems irrelevant to me (and i use vim exclusively). but i have to concede that this idea of IOT home convenience stuff may be legitimately useful for some people, like yourself. it just seems to be the case that thats only true for some people.
- xvector 6y ago
  > introduce a layer of complexity that ruins longevity and predictability. These are more growing pains than anything else. Adding a HomeKit appliance is absurdly simply these days (you just scan it with your phone) and then it just works. > the "time saved" is a bit like saying modal editors are good because you can enter text more efficiently It’s not an insignificant amount. If you live in a highly connected smart home, you will definitely notice the saved time and you will definitely notice how you simply have to do less things. There’s a sort of lightened cognitive load that’s difficult to describe. Things just feel more chill when you can adjust conditions to perfection without lifting a finger.
  - drewzero1 6y ago
    There is a level of internal complexity implied within "it just works," and an added layer of frustration when someday down the line, it just doesn't work. Eventually an electronic component wears out, or the manufacturer shuts down their server, or your phone is no longer supported. I have always loved the idea of a connected house, but I haven't yet seen a feature that would make it worth the trouble of installation, added cost, and yet another app to control my life.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Curious if, in ten years, the HomeKit appliances of today will still work. Or will you have to find a decades-old phone to control them? It's always interesting to see vestiges of a home intercom in really old homes, the phone jacks in bedrooms, ladder-style wire for TV aerials mounted in the walls, bits of some kind of home-alarm system....
    - vidarh 6y ago
      I don't know specifically about HomeKit, no experience with it, but many of the underlying standards are "old". E.g. Zigbee is 20+ years old and was standardized in 2003. Most of these systems today also let you put in place one hub per standard you care about, and then just update devices, and you can mix and match. Some, like Zigbee, are standards supported by multiple manufacturers. The radiator thermostat interface I rely on is standard for UK radiators at least, and is physical and pre-dates electronic thermostats by decades - the smart thermostats physically press down on a switch on the radiators; to replace them with another standard - or a manual one - you just twist the old one off and twist a new one one, done in ~2 minutes. They similarly communicate with a hub, and an optional central boiler thermostat. The boiler thermostat is the only part that took any time to figure out (but there are plenty of installer services available), and the thermostat interface for boilers in the UK at least is built so that anyone can build replacements; you just need something that can switch a current. Keep in mind that the only thing that is new here is the network enabled smart control - many of the interfaces are already really old and established. I have ~20 Zigbee lightbulbs. I also have some LightwaveRF switches. As I refurbish and/or as the Zigbee bulbs die, I'll slowly replace the Zigbee lightbulbs with Lightwave switches as they are more convenient. But the difference is small enough that I've not bothered going over the house to replace them all. If either one of them become hard or expensive to come by, I'll just at that point add a hub that can bridge between a new standard and whatever device I use to interact with them. Setting up the Lightwave hub took me less than half an hour. If I have to invest half an hour to add a new type of hub every 10-20 years, I'm fine with that. In this case, if Lightwave "dies" entirely and becomes impossible to support, I'll lose the smart functionality of those switches, but nothing else is hard-wired (the Zigbee setup is all mesh between the bulbs themselves, and a hub built into one of my Alexas, and they too require no extra wiring that a normal switch doesn't, and fall back to working like a slightly fancy normal switch if the network is unavailable, and someone unaware of Lightwave wouldn't know anything was broken. And that's what I'd face while transitioning to something new.
userbinator 6y ago
Life in a connected home is easier. I can spend the time saved on things that actually matter. Philosophical point: If everything you do is under the whims of large corporations, does anything "actually matter" anymore? Is it really your life, or are you just "living" an empty existence controlled by global faceless entities who seek to maximise only their profits? "We fight because we live. We live because we fight."
- xvector 6y ago
  > If everything you do is under the whims of large corporations, does anything "actually matter" anymore? First, you already live life at the whims of many other entities. Whether you use HomeKit or not, will most certainly not be the breaking point for your freedom. Second, what relation does being under some level of control have to the value of life? For example, would an otherwise fulfilling life under a monarch be empty and meaningless?
- jsight 6y ago
  Who said anything about big corporations? Maybe all of his stuff uses zigbee or z-wave and is controlled by FOSS controllers?
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    I believe we were talking about all the major "smart" television manufacturers. Wether they use a Zigbee under the hood is orthogonal.
    - jsight 6y ago
      The post we are responding to had only one smart TV element involved, and that was the door camera. The rest was about thermostats, light control, and window shades. I think its fair to point out that those things don't have to be proprietary. Even the door camera doesn't really have to use a smart tv, though it probably does in that case.
christiansakai 6y ago
You are living the Tony Stark life lol.
- xvector 6y ago
  Ah, that’s the dream. At least for me!
asdff 6y ago
Most of that stuff aside from the surveillance feed you could set up, probably in a lot less time, with analog outlet timers. My grandparents had a setup similar to this smart home setup 30 years ago.
talentedcoin 6y ago
I’d love to see an estimate of how much time per year saved. My suspicion is, not much. And my bet would be that one or two outages (likely to happen at some point with these devices) would tip the scale the other way. Nothing wrong with liking cool stuff, but this type of argument doesn’t resonate with me.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  Phillips hue works like a normal light if there is no internet or if you cycle the power from the switch.
  - timrichard 6y ago
    Mine works completely if there is no internet. I like the Hue system as it only relies on the internet connection for software updates of you want them. The Zigbee network it uses has been super reliable for me, and always responds to the app which only needs to work on my LAN. It only gets spotty sometimes for me when used via Amazon Echo devices, which have to phone home to interpret the voice command before triggering the Hue devices.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      Yes good point. I always have internet so I never noticed but of course it's all on the local network.
    - twothamendment 6y ago
      Your approach sounds similar to mine. While it is true the switches work without internet, out even without the local controller - I just learned the hard way that they don't work at all when the capacitor inside dies. Keep a dumb switch on hand so you can swap it in when you have a light you can no longer turn on! I had 2 die recently. The is a thread out there on repairing them, but I don't think my soldering skills are that good. I'm also thinking "repair my light switch?" What has the world come to?
  - jrussino 6y ago
rorykoehler 6y ago
HomeKit is so bad and clunky I had to delete it and just use the proprietary apps shipped with the iot products we use. I really wish they tried to do less and opened up their OS to better developers to build their own solutions instead.
Aerroon 6y ago
But won't having to sit through a few additional ads wipe out all of those time savings? Not to mention the time spent on setting them up in a way to make the appliances not spy on you.
- xvector 6y ago
  I’m talking more about general smart appliances than smart TVs. I don’t connect my smart TV to the internet, that’s the job of the Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.
AshWolfy 6y ago
How much time or effort is this actually saving you? Maybe its just me, but id say i spend maybe a few minutes doing these tasks every year. A lot of this is achievable without smart technology anyways
- xvector 6y ago
  Originally I thought the same as you, but when I tried it, I noticed that it actually saves way more time than I expected. I think we simply don’t notice the amount of time spent on the little, meaningless things. For me, once things were connected it kind of felt like I had aliased a commonly-used command. You could also argue that the saved time was already spent in researching which smart home appliances to get (bad ones can be a flaky nightmare), which is a fair argument. For me, though, the increased convenience in actual day to day use was well worth it.
  - AshWolfy 6y ago
    Maybe you overestimate the amount of time you save? Ive definitely noticed that when i get a something thats a time saver, i tend to overestimate how much time it saved, maybe its more that mental load of not having to worry about it.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
  I wanted to install a system to automatically switch lights on and off when I enter/leave the room, but a quick calculation showed that the system will pay off in maybe 10 years, with today's efficient LED lights. And it will sure not work 100% exactly as expected, causing frustration.
SECProto 6y ago
I flick lights on and off as I enter a room, which I agree, might use 1/8th of a second each time, say 2 seconds a day. And the light switches are well over two decades old. I have given them 0 thought over those years, and don't expect I will for a few more decades. A simple $25 programmable thermostat keeps the temperatures moderated. It may use a bit more energy if I'm running a different schedule than usual, but again - decades old, works fine. Car AC, again - works fine, turns on when I turn on the car. My blinds go up and down when I want them to, which has nothing to do with my schedule. Nothing you've listed (or anyone else who talks about smart homes) is even a positive to me, let alone a time saver.
- lvturner 6y ago
  For me, the real killer was being able to turn off all the lights in the house from my bed. I could live without it (and currently am, due to an apartment move), but it was certainly handy.
  - dham 6y ago
    Phones are too dirty to be allowed in bed. This was my thinking pre Covid 69 too. In my opinion it's like wearing shoes in bed.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Why, because you take it outside?
      - klyrs 6y ago
        Maybe it's a loving bed, not a doomscrolling bed. Mad respect
        coldtea 6y ago
        If they're worried about "dirt" on the phone, I doubt it's anything than a "lie down and worry needlessly about cleanniness and heath" bed...
misterkrabs 6y ago
This reads like an American Psycho monologue (no offense).
wdb 6y ago
Personally, I enjoyed the ceremony of opening blinds, turn on the lights when I returned from work.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
I found this "convenience" is mostly not convenient at all, wastes a lot of time, brings a lot of frustration and sometimes is outright dangerous. For example, an internet connected CO2 detector provides a perfect way for burglars to detect when no one is at home. Connections are always broke, wifi passwords are forgotten, sites not accessible, phone number does not pass verification process etc. Thankfully, all my devices still have buttons that allow them to operate without internet connection, but I fear that will not be the case in the future ..
sgtnoodle 6y ago
Does it all work that seamlessly? If so, that sounds lovely. As a software engineer with a master's degree in computer science engineering and over a decade of experience working on high reliability embedded systems, I'm about ready to just give up and expel any electronics from my home more elaborate than a dimmable LED lightbulb. On the other hand, maybe consumer electronics are flaky for me due to the fact that there's 20+ other wifi access points in range besides my own, and half my electric sockets are still on 100 year old knob and tube wiring...
lm28469 6y ago
These stories almost reads like a parody or a dystopia. What's the next step of automation ? To be put in an artificial coma in sleeping pods to conserve as much energy and live as long as possible in some kind of VR in which nothing bad ever happens ? So much time, energy and money spent on something that tells you who's at the door or if you need a damned jacket... So many gadgets that need to be manufactured and shipped to the other side of the world to open your blinds... I can already see a future in which people don't know how to use a "dumb" door knobs All this shit will end up in a landfill in less than 50 years, and probably be deprecated well before. The amount of waste generated for such a minor improvement of quality of life over good old proven tech which are a fraction of the cost, waste and maintenance (light switches, regular timed central heating/cooling, weather reports and peepholes). These things are the literal opposite of sustainability. Did we all collectively go mad ?
- tommit 6y ago
  It's okay if you decide for yourself that you want no part in this. But I don't think our global waste problem will be solved by berating people that enjoy smart homes as a hobby, convenience, or both. I've been a fan for about 5 years now and I have everything connected as well. It used to be a big pain and it still can be sometimes, so I don't agree 100% with the comment you replied on that it saves time in a significant way. Though I assume that depends on your setup and how much you tinker with it. I know I will never get back the time I invested over the years in trying to make things work by not having to press light switches anymore. But you know what? It's fun. I like it. It's the closest thing to an Iron Man like house we have so far. And I will be damned if I let it be ruined by you shaking your head and calling us enthusiasts mad.
  - lm28469 6y ago
    > But you know what? It's fun. I like it. It's the closest thing to an Iron Man like house we have so far. That's the only argument I can accept, "it's cool". I still believe it's not sustainable in any way, shape or form and that it's going to be a major pain in the ass down the line both in term of waste and long term maintenance. It's like huge diesel trucks running straight pipes, some people think it's fun, I'm glad most people don't and that most places ban them. We'd get more time to spend on "real life" if we used automation's productivity improvements to reduce working hours to 4 hours a day rather than by getting gadgets rolling our blinds and setting the AC automatically.
suifbwish 6y ago
It isn’t even really that convenient having smart home devices. Managing the extra network overhead to keep their spying packets away from everything else is not convenient. I wouldn’t mind a smart TV but I want root access if I buy one
- xvector 6y ago
  I just toss them on their own VLAN.
epalm 6y ago
My dishwasher and washing machine do meaningful work for me, saving many hours each day/week. But what you describe is saving a minute here, a second there. Spending time on things that matter is all well and good, but is there really a difference between doing those things for 4 hours rather than 3 hours and 52 minutes?
bradgranath 6y ago
No it's CHEAP. A 31" Sony Trimaster costs $30,000. Getting a 4K OLED screen the size of a windshield for $1,500 is beyond suspicious.

the_cat_kittles 6y ago

i think people who repair and make stuff hate these sorts of things because they introduce a layer of complexity that ruins longevity and predictability. what you call convenience, i call added costs down the line, and unreliability. also, the "time saved" is a bit like saying modal editors are good because you can enter text more efficiently. its all technically true, but seems irrelevant to me (and i use vim exclusively). but i have to concede that this idea of IOT home convenience stuff may be legitimately useful for some people, like yourself. it just seems to be the case that thats only true for some people.

xvector 6y ago
> introduce a layer of complexity that ruins longevity and predictability. These are more growing pains than anything else. Adding a HomeKit appliance is absurdly simply these days (you just scan it with your phone) and then it just works. > the "time saved" is a bit like saying modal editors are good because you can enter text more efficiently It’s not an insignificant amount. If you live in a highly connected smart home, you will definitely notice the saved time and you will definitely notice how you simply have to do less things. There’s a sort of lightened cognitive load that’s difficult to describe. Things just feel more chill when you can adjust conditions to perfection without lifting a finger.
- drewzero1 6y ago
  There is a level of internal complexity implied within "it just works," and an added layer of frustration when someday down the line, it just doesn't work. Eventually an electronic component wears out, or the manufacturer shuts down their server, or your phone is no longer supported. I have always loved the idea of a connected house, but I haven't yet seen a feature that would make it worth the trouble of installation, added cost, and yet another app to control my life.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  Curious if, in ten years, the HomeKit appliances of today will still work. Or will you have to find a decades-old phone to control them? It's always interesting to see vestiges of a home intercom in really old homes, the phone jacks in bedrooms, ladder-style wire for TV aerials mounted in the walls, bits of some kind of home-alarm system....
  - vidarh 6y ago
    I don't know specifically about HomeKit, no experience with it, but many of the underlying standards are "old". E.g. Zigbee is 20+ years old and was standardized in 2003. Most of these systems today also let you put in place one hub per standard you care about, and then just update devices, and you can mix and match. Some, like Zigbee, are standards supported by multiple manufacturers. The radiator thermostat interface I rely on is standard for UK radiators at least, and is physical and pre-dates electronic thermostats by decades - the smart thermostats physically press down on a switch on the radiators; to replace them with another standard - or a manual one - you just twist the old one off and twist a new one one, done in ~2 minutes. They similarly communicate with a hub, and an optional central boiler thermostat. The boiler thermostat is the only part that took any time to figure out (but there are plenty of installer services available), and the thermostat interface for boilers in the UK at least is built so that anyone can build replacements; you just need something that can switch a current. Keep in mind that the only thing that is new here is the network enabled smart control - many of the interfaces are already really old and established. I have ~20 Zigbee lightbulbs. I also have some LightwaveRF switches. As I refurbish and/or as the Zigbee bulbs die, I'll slowly replace the Zigbee lightbulbs with Lightwave switches as they are more convenient. But the difference is small enough that I've not bothered going over the house to replace them all. If either one of them become hard or expensive to come by, I'll just at that point add a hub that can bridge between a new standard and whatever device I use to interact with them. Setting up the Lightwave hub took me less than half an hour. If I have to invest half an hour to add a new type of hub every 10-20 years, I'm fine with that. In this case, if Lightwave "dies" entirely and becomes impossible to support, I'll lose the smart functionality of those switches, but nothing else is hard-wired (the Zigbee setup is all mesh between the bulbs themselves, and a hub built into one of my Alexas, and they too require no extra wiring that a normal switch doesn't, and fall back to working like a slightly fancy normal switch if the network is unavailable, and someone unaware of Lightwave wouldn't know anything was broken. And that's what I'd face while transitioning to something new.

userbinator 6y ago

Life in a connected home is easier. I can spend the time saved on things that actually matter. Philosophical point: If everything you do is under the whims of large corporations, does anything "actually matter" anymore? Is it really your life, or are you just "living" an empty existence controlled by global faceless entities who seek to maximise only their profits? "We fight because we live. We live because we fight."

xvector 6y ago
> If everything you do is under the whims of large corporations, does anything "actually matter" anymore? First, you already live life at the whims of many other entities. Whether you use HomeKit or not, will most certainly not be the breaking point for your freedom. Second, what relation does being under some level of control have to the value of life? For example, would an otherwise fulfilling life under a monarch be empty and meaningless?
jsight 6y ago
Who said anything about big corporations? Maybe all of his stuff uses zigbee or z-wave and is controlled by FOSS controllers?
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  I believe we were talking about all the major "smart" television manufacturers. Wether they use a Zigbee under the hood is orthogonal.
  - jsight 6y ago
    The post we are responding to had only one smart TV element involved, and that was the door camera. The rest was about thermostats, light control, and window shades. I think its fair to point out that those things don't have to be proprietary. Even the door camera doesn't really have to use a smart tv, though it probably does in that case.

christiansakai 6y ago

You are living the Tony Stark life lol.

xvector 6y ago
Ah, that’s the dream. At least for me!

asdff 6y ago

Most of that stuff aside from the surveillance feed you could set up, probably in a lot less time, with analog outlet timers. My grandparents had a setup similar to this smart home setup 30 years ago.

talentedcoin 6y ago

I’d love to see an estimate of how much time per year saved. My suspicion is, not much. And my bet would be that one or two outages (likely to happen at some point with these devices) would tip the scale the other way. Nothing wrong with liking cool stuff, but this type of argument doesn’t resonate with me.

rorykoehler 6y ago
Phillips hue works like a normal light if there is no internet or if you cycle the power from the switch.
- timrichard 6y ago
  Mine works completely if there is no internet. I like the Hue system as it only relies on the internet connection for software updates of you want them. The Zigbee network it uses has been super reliable for me, and always responds to the app which only needs to work on my LAN. It only gets spotty sometimes for me when used via Amazon Echo devices, which have to phone home to interpret the voice command before triggering the Hue devices.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    Yes good point. I always have internet so I never noticed but of course it's all on the local network.
  - twothamendment 6y ago
    Your approach sounds similar to mine. While it is true the switches work without internet, out even without the local controller - I just learned the hard way that they don't work at all when the capacitor inside dies. Keep a dumb switch on hand so you can swap it in when you have a light you can no longer turn on! I had 2 die recently. The is a thread out there on repairing them, but I don't think my soldering skills are that good. I'm also thinking "repair my light switch?" What has the world come to?
- jrussino 6y ago

rorykoehler 6y ago

HomeKit is so bad and clunky I had to delete it and just use the proprietary apps shipped with the iot products we use. I really wish they tried to do less and opened up their OS to better developers to build their own solutions instead.

Aerroon 6y ago

But won't having to sit through a few additional ads wipe out all of those time savings? Not to mention the time spent on setting them up in a way to make the appliances not spy on you.

xvector 6y ago
I’m talking more about general smart appliances than smart TVs. I don’t connect my smart TV to the internet, that’s the job of the Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.

AshWolfy 6y ago

How much time or effort is this actually saving you? Maybe its just me, but id say i spend maybe a few minutes doing these tasks every year. A lot of this is achievable without smart technology anyways

xvector 6y ago
Originally I thought the same as you, but when I tried it, I noticed that it actually saves way more time than I expected. I think we simply don’t notice the amount of time spent on the little, meaningless things. For me, once things were connected it kind of felt like I had aliased a commonly-used command. You could also argue that the saved time was already spent in researching which smart home appliances to get (bad ones can be a flaky nightmare), which is a fair argument. For me, though, the increased convenience in actual day to day use was well worth it.
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  Maybe you overestimate the amount of time you save? Ive definitely noticed that when i get a something thats a time saver, i tend to overestimate how much time it saved, maybe its more that mental load of not having to worry about it.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
I wanted to install a system to automatically switch lights on and off when I enter/leave the room, but a quick calculation showed that the system will pay off in maybe 10 years, with today's efficient LED lights. And it will sure not work 100% exactly as expected, causing frustration.

SECProto 6y ago

I flick lights on and off as I enter a room, which I agree, might use 1/8th of a second each time, say 2 seconds a day. And the light switches are well over two decades old. I have given them 0 thought over those years, and don't expect I will for a few more decades. A simple $25 programmable thermostat keeps the temperatures moderated. It may use a bit more energy if I'm running a different schedule than usual, but again - decades old, works fine. Car AC, again - works fine, turns on when I turn on the car. My blinds go up and down when I want them to, which has nothing to do with my schedule. Nothing you've listed (or anyone else who talks about smart homes) is even a positive to me, let alone a time saver.

lvturner 6y ago
For me, the real killer was being able to turn off all the lights in the house from my bed. I could live without it (and currently am, due to an apartment move), but it was certainly handy.
- dham 6y ago
  Phones are too dirty to be allowed in bed. This was my thinking pre Covid 69 too. In my opinion it's like wearing shoes in bed.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Why, because you take it outside?
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Maybe it's a loving bed, not a doomscrolling bed. Mad respect
      - coldtea 6y ago
        If they're worried about "dirt" on the phone, I doubt it's anything than a "lie down and worry needlessly about cleanniness and heath" bed...

misterkrabs 6y ago

This reads like an American Psycho monologue (no offense).

wdb 6y ago

Personally, I enjoyed the ceremony of opening blinds, turn on the lights when I returned from work.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago

I found this "convenience" is mostly not convenient at all, wastes a lot of time, brings a lot of frustration and sometimes is outright dangerous. For example, an internet connected CO2 detector provides a perfect way for burglars to detect when no one is at home. Connections are always broke, wifi passwords are forgotten, sites not accessible, phone number does not pass verification process etc. Thankfully, all my devices still have buttons that allow them to operate without internet connection, but I fear that will not be the case in the future ..

sgtnoodle 6y ago

Does it all work that seamlessly? If so, that sounds lovely. As a software engineer with a master's degree in computer science engineering and over a decade of experience working on high reliability embedded systems, I'm about ready to just give up and expel any electronics from my home more elaborate than a dimmable LED lightbulb. On the other hand, maybe consumer electronics are flaky for me due to the fact that there's 20+ other wifi access points in range besides my own, and half my electric sockets are still on 100 year old knob and tube wiring...

lm28469 6y ago

These stories almost reads like a parody or a dystopia. What's the next step of automation ? To be put in an artificial coma in sleeping pods to conserve as much energy and live as long as possible in some kind of VR in which nothing bad ever happens ? So much time, energy and money spent on something that tells you who's at the door or if you need a damned jacket... So many gadgets that need to be manufactured and shipped to the other side of the world to open your blinds... I can already see a future in which people don't know how to use a "dumb" door knobs All this shit will end up in a landfill in less than 50 years, and probably be deprecated well before. The amount of waste generated for such a minor improvement of quality of life over good old proven tech which are a fraction of the cost, waste and maintenance (light switches, regular timed central heating/cooling, weather reports and peepholes). These things are the literal opposite of sustainability. Did we all collectively go mad ?

tommit 6y ago
It's okay if you decide for yourself that you want no part in this. But I don't think our global waste problem will be solved by berating people that enjoy smart homes as a hobby, convenience, or both. I've been a fan for about 5 years now and I have everything connected as well. It used to be a big pain and it still can be sometimes, so I don't agree 100% with the comment you replied on that it saves time in a significant way. Though I assume that depends on your setup and how much you tinker with it. I know I will never get back the time I invested over the years in trying to make things work by not having to press light switches anymore. But you know what? It's fun. I like it. It's the closest thing to an Iron Man like house we have so far. And I will be damned if I let it be ruined by you shaking your head and calling us enthusiasts mad.
- lm28469 6y ago
  > But you know what? It's fun. I like it. It's the closest thing to an Iron Man like house we have so far. That's the only argument I can accept, "it's cool". I still believe it's not sustainable in any way, shape or form and that it's going to be a major pain in the ass down the line both in term of waste and long term maintenance. It's like huge diesel trucks running straight pipes, some people think it's fun, I'm glad most people don't and that most places ban them. We'd get more time to spend on "real life" if we used automation's productivity improvements to reduce working hours to 4 hours a day rather than by getting gadgets rolling our blinds and setting the AC automatically.

suifbwish 6y ago

It isn’t even really that convenient having smart home devices. Managing the extra network overhead to keep their spying packets away from everything else is not convenient. I wouldn’t mind a smart TV but I want root access if I buy one

xvector 6y ago
I just toss them on their own VLAN.

epalm 6y ago

My dishwasher and washing machine do meaningful work for me, saving many hours each day/week. But what you describe is saving a minute here, a second there. Spending time on things that matter is all well and good, but is there really a difference between doing those things for 4 hours rather than 3 hours and 52 minutes?

bradgranath 6y ago

No it's CHEAP. A 31" Sony Trimaster costs $30,000. Getting a 4K OLED screen the size of a windshield for $1,500 is beyond suspicious.