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It's all pretty impressive until I start to imagine myself renting an apartment or house like this or being a guest in house like this. Then it fills me with dr

by pxtail 5y ago

It's all pretty impressive until I start to imagine myself renting an apartment or house like this or being a guest in house like this. Then it fills me with dread and starts to send shivers down my spine. Every damn single activity monitored, human being like NPC in Sims game - wth,bed occupancy sensors?

matthew-wegner 5y ago
I think that's a fair response! It's worth clarifying a few things. In general, I think people tend to have that reaction because there's a growing assumption that "technology" = "the cloud"--i.e. a Google or Alexa kind of smart speaker that is very clearly vacuuming all kinds of data: - Home Assistant runs locally, in my house. None of this data is uploaded anywhere outside of my control - I live alone. And really, the vast majority of my automation really uses/needs that assumption (computer activity turning off other rooms, etc) - I don't have any interior-facing cameras, because yeah--even with those also purely-local, it's very odd to know they're there. Years ago, when I did leave the house every day for work, I had a living room camera to keep an eye on my cats. I completely de-powered its PoE port based on whether my automation knew I was home or not--it was only on if I was gone. There are a couple of ways to do person tracking, but I just used my phone and Home Assistant's app - I do have a global override for a "guest" mode, mostly so lights don't inexplicably turn off. That mode turns on automatically when my girlfriend uses her keypad to unlock my door That said, I do occasionally browse the wider HASS forums and communities. I don't have kids, but I see people use some automation pretty effectively for things like chore management/reminders. People do stuff like put cheap tablets somewhere central with status updates of who is supposed to take out the trash, reminders if any perimeter doors are open, etc

by pxtail 5y ago

matthew-wegner 5y ago

I think that's a fair response! It's worth clarifying a few things. In general, I think people tend to have that reaction because there's a growing assumption that "technology" = "the cloud"--i.e. a Google or Alexa kind of smart speaker that is very clearly vacuuming all kinds of data: - Home Assistant runs locally, in my house. None of this data is uploaded anywhere outside of my control - I live alone. And really, the vast majority of my automation really uses/needs that assumption (computer activity turning off other rooms, etc) - I don't have any interior-facing cameras, because yeah--even with those also purely-local, it's very odd to know they're there. Years ago, when I did leave the house every day for work, I had a living room camera to keep an eye on my cats. I completely de-powered its PoE port based on whether my automation knew I was home or not--it was only on if I was gone. There are a couple of ways to do person tracking, but I just used my phone and Home Assistant's app - I do have a global override for a "guest" mode, mostly so lights don't inexplicably turn off. That mode turns on automatically when my girlfriend uses her keypad to unlock my door That said, I do occasionally browse the wider HASS forums and communities. I don't have kids, but I see people use some automation pretty effectively for things like chore management/reminders. People do stuff like put cheap tablets somewhere central with status updates of who is supposed to take out the trash, reminders if any perimeter doors are open, etc