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The biggest tech enthusiasts I know are tech workers, though. It's the normies in my life that couldn't care less about this stuff. I've been a developer for

The biggest tech enthusiasts I know are tech workers, though. It's the normies in my life that couldn't care less about this stuff. I've been a developer for 30 years and I love my home automation toys. But I do make sure that all of it fails gracefully to 'normal' when something interrupts HA. My software can (and does, every day) lock the door. But the deadlock still has a key on the outside and a standard twist knob on the inside. All the light switches work just fine without their wireless connection. Thermostat is indistinguishable from an old school Honeywell if you ignore the Z-Wave logo. etc. I do keep my hands on the wheel, though ;-). The whole 'dying in a ball of twisted metal' failure mode is pretty convincing.

dkarl 5y ago
> But I do make sure that all of it fails gracefully to 'normal' when something interrupts HA. This is why interest and trust don't have to go together. Sometimes the people who are most adventurous are simply the ones who are comfortable with a lower level of trust, because they can manage their risk. I'm comfortable playing with new or niche technology because I'm able to keep it low stakes. My most tech-phobic family members, on the other hand, act like they have complete faith in the software they use even when they say they have zero faith. They don't have the savoir-faire to do things that limit their risk, like withholding sensitive data and backing up important data in different places, so they resent technology as chronically treacherous and agonize over whether they can "trust" individual pieces of tech in an absolute yes/no way.