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I love smart home stuff, but greatly prefer open source compatible (Home Assistant etc), non-internet-connected smart home equipment that still has hardware swi

by jchw 4y ago

I love smart home stuff, but greatly prefer open source compatible (Home Assistant etc), non-internet-connected smart home equipment that still has hardware switches. There's no good standard for RGBW addressability over wires here in the U.S. (that I'm aware of) so I do use some Philips Hue bulbs, but only accompanied by a hard-wired switch capable of associating directly with the bulb, so that all it needs to work is power. I will admit though that I still mostly just do it because it's fun. But hey, it's fun that comes in handy, too.

makestuff 4y ago
Yeah if someone came out with a piece of hardware that could run the an NLP model to detect the common phrases (turn lights on/off, play music, etc.) and then have it prepackaged with home assistant it would ruin a lot of these cloud connected devices.
PaulHoule 4y ago
System like X10 or power line Ethernet that communicate over power lines have huge transformers and I think high power consumption. You’d think you could have power line Ethernet in your PC or X10 bulbs but it is not so practical.
- jchw 4y ago
  Yeah, powerline data transmission seems impractical. It works, but reliability has always been a huge problem for me, even with the most expensive adapters. Now that I own instead of rent, I just run ethernet for my computers. For smart home, I don't really care for throwing RF at every single problem, but ZigBee and Zwave at least do work, so I am just doing that for now. What would be cool is just having something simple, like maybe one or two wire serial, at least between the switches and bulbs. Today, the best solution I'm aware of for smart bulbs is something like Inovelli Blue Series or Embrighten switches, which can associate with the bulbs directly. Even though in smart bulb it must use RF, it can at least skip the hub and work when everything else is down. (Though, I am a little disappointed that I had to bypass the power control for my Blue Series. I was hoping I could have it connected to measure power usage even in smart bulb mode, but it seems even in smart bulb mode where the power is passthru you still can't have an inductive load like a ceiling fan motor or it will cause problems. Bummer.)

by jchw 4y ago

makestuff 4y ago

Yeah if someone came out with a piece of hardware that could run the an NLP model to detect the common phrases (turn lights on/off, play music, etc.) and then have it prepackaged with home assistant it would ruin a lot of these cloud connected devices.

PaulHoule 4y ago

System like X10 or power line Ethernet that communicate over power lines have huge transformers and I think high power consumption. You’d think you could have power line Ethernet in your PC or X10 bulbs but it is not so practical.

jchw 4y ago
Yeah, powerline data transmission seems impractical. It works, but reliability has always been a huge problem for me, even with the most expensive adapters. Now that I own instead of rent, I just run ethernet for my computers. For smart home, I don't really care for throwing RF at every single problem, but ZigBee and Zwave at least do work, so I am just doing that for now. What would be cool is just having something simple, like maybe one or two wire serial, at least between the switches and bulbs. Today, the best solution I'm aware of for smart bulbs is something like Inovelli Blue Series or Embrighten switches, which can associate with the bulbs directly. Even though in smart bulb it must use RF, it can at least skip the hub and work when everything else is down. (Though, I am a little disappointed that I had to bypass the power control for my Blue Series. I was hoping I could have it connected to measure power usage even in smart bulb mode, but it seems even in smart bulb mode where the power is passthru you still can't have an inductive load like a ceiling fan motor or it will cause problems. Bummer.)