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I’m pretty blasé about control of my digital data, but the one place I won’t compromise is with smart home stuff. Run everything locally, or at least everything

I’m pretty blasé about control of my digital data, but the one place I won’t compromise is with smart home stuff. Run everything locally, or at least everything important. Use it as a convenience layer on top of physical control. Don’t ever rely on the cloud. And the best part is that this strategy perfectly aligns both control of your access and the ability/convenience for your house to still act like a normal house. > ”If you buy a device you own it, and that’s regardless of who you are,” No one disputed that he still owned his echo devices. The question is whether Amazon owes him access to their services. I think banning him over this was dumb but it’s not like Andy Jassey came into his house and took away all his Echo Dots.

x86x87 3y ago
I have a different take: i don't want to see any smart devices in my home. I'm cool with having a dumb home.
- mason55 3y ago
  Certainly your prerogative. I get a lot of value out of running Home Assistant (open source) + Zwave lights (local only + industry standard + physical switches for everything) + things like a Bluetooth controlled valve on my hose spigot that's underneath the deck. The only real failure mode is that my server goes down and I have to control the lights with the switches on the wall like a normal person. But I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't want to maintain the infrastructure.
signal11 3y ago
That’s what the person affected here did: > I was not truly in the dark for a week. My smart home runs mostly locally and Alexa really is just a polymorphic interface. I was just able to use Siri. Though out of habit I’d sometimes say “alexa” only for her to remind me how stupid I was. https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-week-without-amazon-df1074e3818b https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-w...
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I wish people wouldn't accept the vendor-driven personification of these systems. I'm concerned that it distorts people's thinking about the nature of the system and the business relationship.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
Can someone comment on the current state of local-only voice recognition for home automation? I'm not willing to cloud-connect anything for home automation, for the usual obvious reasons. But if good voice control were only possible via cloud services, I could at least understand the temptation.
- mason55 3y ago
  > Can someone comment on the current state of local-only voice recognition for home automation? I can't speak to quality because I haven't tried it, but Home Assistant is focused on local voice control for the entire year: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/04/27/year-of-the-voice-chapter-2/ https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/04/27/year-of-the-vo...

x86x87 3y ago

I have a different take: i don't want to see any smart devices in my home. I'm cool with having a dumb home.

mason55 3y ago
Certainly your prerogative. I get a lot of value out of running Home Assistant (open source) + Zwave lights (local only + industry standard + physical switches for everything) + things like a Bluetooth controlled valve on my hose spigot that's underneath the deck. The only real failure mode is that my server goes down and I have to control the lights with the switches on the wall like a normal person. But I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't want to maintain the infrastructure.

signal11 3y ago

That’s what the person affected here did: > I was not truly in the dark for a week. My smart home runs mostly locally and Alexa really is just a polymorphic interface. I was just able to use Siri. Though out of habit I’d sometimes say “alexa” only for her to remind me how stupid I was. https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-week-without-amazon-df1074e3818b https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-w...

CoastalCoder 3y ago
I wish people wouldn't accept the vendor-driven personification of these systems. I'm concerned that it distorts people's thinking about the nature of the system and the business relationship.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

Can someone comment on the current state of local-only voice recognition for home automation? I'm not willing to cloud-connect anything for home automation, for the usual obvious reasons. But if good voice control were only possible via cloud services, I could at least understand the temptation.

mason55 3y ago
> Can someone comment on the current state of local-only voice recognition for home automation? I can't speak to quality because I haven't tried it, but Home Assistant is focused on local voice control for the entire year: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/04/27/year-of-the-voice-chapter-2/ https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/04/27/year-of-the-vo...