7 ms·

Time and time again It takes just one MBA trying to boost numbers to turn a good product into a data collection nightmare. Honestly is there any IoT brand that

by zeisch 3y ago

Time and time again It takes just one MBA trying to boost numbers to turn a good product into a data collection nightmare. Honestly is there any IoT brand that we can trust long-term? Maybe IKEA stuff?

brainzap 3y ago
companies are profit first, not trust first
- amelius 3y ago
  Yes, we need more regulation. Or a better system to begin with.
  - friend_and_foe 3y ago
    Do you think its a coincidence this came right after the ban on incandescent bulbs? Regulation got us here. It won't help when government is captured.
    - timeon 3y ago
      > Do you think its a coincidence this came right after the ban on incandescent bulbs? Not really. I do not use incandescent bulbs nor bulbs that require account. You've chosen 216 and you'll find it everywhere in nature.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      Yes. This is idiotic theory, Regulation is only about power efficiency
      - friend_and_foe 3y ago
        You must be European.
- solarkraft 3y ago
  Right: It's not the companies' fault they're engaging in deceptive and unfair business practices; they're profit-maximizing machines. They don't care about trust or know what it is. It's our fault we're letting them do that. Bad behavior should be affecting profits. Probably through regulation.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    It is absolutely their fault and not that of the public at large. Companies are not sentient “profit-maximizing machines, they’re a collection of people. And it’s people making the decisions.
    - solarkraft 3y ago
      But that's not how it effectively works at scale. It only takes a single person not bound by morals to mess it up for everyone. Those people naturally float to the top and are loved by shareholders (hence who's in charge at most places). Individually the organisation is made up of people, but at large it's a big anonymous machine because those people are rewarded super-duper one-dimensionally: Help profits and you're rewarded or hurt them and you're out. It makes about as much sense to anthropomorphise corporations as it does to anthropomorphise lawnmowers. They can not feel empathy.
      - _aavaa_ 3y ago
        > But that's not how it effectively works at scale. It only takes a single person not bound by morals to mess it up for everyone. The onus might be on us as the public to change the laws to outlaw bad behaviour, but this does not absolve the companies, and especially the people within them who conduct, condone, or reward deceptive and unfair business practices.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    > Right: It's not the companies' fault they're engaging in deceptive and unfair business practices; they're profit-maximizing machines. They don't care about trust or know what it is. this is an extremely dumb take, of course the people working at companies are responsible for bad dumb decisions that make their products worse.
jorvi 3y ago
There is a somewhat strangely named German brand that sells private IoT door / security cams. Forgot the name, sadly. They’re quite expensive though. My guess is they might sell private lightbulbs. For home audio, Sonos is great. Their voice assistant is completely locally processed.
- leononame 3y ago
  You might be thinking of the Homematic IP line, great products for home automation, they also have door locks etc. They are also compatible with just Homematic which doesn't use the internet (so no IoT), but rather a local gateway for controlling the devices. I don't think they have lightbulbs though. The company name is eQ-3
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    Homematic has a pretty good reputation. Their stuff is reliable and they're quite open to DIYers. In turn the products are a bit on the expensive side, but not wildly so. Fun fact: eQ-3 is a subsidiary of the DIY electronics store ELV: https://www.eq-3.com/about-eq-3.html https://www.eq-3.com/about-eq-3.html
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  This one is French, but I thought it might be what you are referring to. https://www.netatmo.com/ https://www.netatmo.com/
  - drcongo 3y ago
    Word of warning about Netatmo cameras - even if you buy the HomeKit Secure Video ones, they stop working if the memory card dies. And it dies a LOT on their cameras. I've got 3 of their outdoor security cameras, and two of them stopped working while I was away on holiday. I had a very long conversation with them about this massive flaw in their system, they kept just saying "it needs the memory card to save the video" - I pointed out that a) it doesn't, it's streaming to HSV, and b) with every other camera I own the memory card is optional. The quality of the video on them is also considerably worse than any of my other cameras.
imp0cat 3y ago
Unfortunately the IKEA bulbs and switches are of much lower quality than Philips. From my experience, they don't dim quite as smoothly. :(
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  I haven’t used Hue bulbs since their first products, so I can’t really compare, but I have had no problems with IKEA bulbs or switches in terms of quality and features. My only issue is that their Tradfri outlets are too big and poorly shaped. I can only fit small plugs next to them (in US outlets).
cassianoleal 3y ago
Shelly [0] seems trustworthy enough. In any case, if they ever go full-on enshittified, as long as you don't update the firmware you should be able to keep using your stuff. Anything you can flash Tasmota [1] on should be good to go as well. I believe that includes all or most Shelly devices as well. IKEA so far seems like a decent bet as well. [0] https://shellystore.co.uk/ https://shellystore.co.uk/ [1] https://tasmota.github.io/docs/ https://tasmota.github.io/docs/
- ender341341 3y ago
  my ikea stuff is pretty reliable, they seem conservative on adding features, but if you don't care about those specific features (which you probably don't) they've been pretty great, if not always the nicest design for the buttons/controllers.
LinAGKar 3y ago
Shelly seems very good so far. No need to connect it to the cloud at all, or use their app, since you can configure the via an onboard web UI (well, they'll still check for firmware updates when you connect them to Wi-Fi, but that's it). They can be controlled from Home Assistant completely without internet. Of course, there's no guarantee for future products, but once they're set up they're not gonna change unless you go in and update their firmware.
- vidarh 3y ago
  From what I can see most of their products (all?) are z-wave, so even if they try to change as long as they don't break the z-wave support, you can buy a z-wave USB dongle and drop whatever wants to be directly connected to your network anyway.
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    None of the Shelly devices I have are z-wave, they are all Wi-Fi entirely. This includes several of the Shelly 1 power management in-wall relays, several of the Shelly external power management plugs of the kind that you plug into an outlet, a few of the Shelly in-wall dimmers/fan controllers and a couple Shelly bulbs. I think if these had Z-Wave they would have cost a few dollars more each, due to licensing. It would be nice because I do have a Z-Wave mesh up and running alongside a zigbee mesh and a few oddball Wi-Fi only devices like these shellies, but they work well enough with home assistant that I don't consider to be a drawback yet. The only thing I wish they could do better is expose more of their configurable options via whatever API they present to home assistant. A couple of these devices speak mqtt which opens up a few more capabilities, but there are still many fine-tuning aspects like controlling the way a switch attached to the device functions, i.e. whether it behaves as if it is detached or functional - useful with toddlers around) are invisible unless you are using the built-in web configuration page.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      Thanks. Looking at their site again now, I have no idea what made me assume z-wave, and no recollection of what I was thinking.
_nalply 3y ago
Trust stuff running on generic embedded open-sourced hardware running on open-sourced software. Raspberry, Arduino and others: Release some awesome open-sourced hardware standard for the smart home: lighting, measuring, interfacing! Or does something already exist?
omnibrain 3y ago
Have a look at Shelly.
Angostura 3y ago
I'm sure the right answer is open source stuff, self-hosted. But as an alternative, the Apple Homekit architecture does seem serious about keepig as much info as possible on the devices themselves and not throwing stuff into the cloud.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Maybe that's why the number of smart devices that work with Homekit is so limited? I really don't understand many of the "smart" device manufacturers. They clearly aren't capable of running the services required to manage their devices, so why do they keep insisting on doing so? My parents have a smart radiator that couldn't be managed for over a month because a server in Norway was down. Why not just have it be manageable by Homekit and skip the infrastructure cost?
  - squigz 3y ago
    I really don't understand consumers who, despite companies clearly demonstrating this, will just buy the next IoT thing anyway. Why don't companies offer better, longer-lasting products that can be community-driven after EOL? Because money.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      Money for one but there is little actual standarization that have enough clout for it to happen. 99% of IoT devices would be fine with just "here is MQTT address" and a way to push updates (preferably with gateway downloading updates and devices updating only from gateway)
vidarh 3y ago
Buy based on protocols, and then focus on whether the bridges are trustworthy. That is, be cautious about anything that will directly link to your wifi (and so doesn't need a bridge) unless you can confirm you can isolate them on their own wifi network or firewall them off should you feel the need to now or in the future, or anything that uses proprietary protocols where you can't rip out the bridge if the provider goes rogue. Hue bulbs uses zigbee, so the bulbs themselves are not a problem. The bridge is. There are "dumb" zigbee bridges/interfaces, including USB controllers you can use with open source options like Home Assistant. If you can't avoid a proprietary bridge, only buy what you can afford to replace, or where the device is still serviceable to a sufficient degree if you turn off/remove the bridge (e.g. Lightwave switches go "dumb" if you turn off the bridge, but still work), or if you firewall it (e.g. if you can still control it via wifi even if the bridge can't reach the internet).
gumballindie 3y ago
There’s no such thing as trusting a brand - trust community effort only. That’s my rule where possible. If stuff doesnt work end to end with open solutions i am not buying it. I mean these companies take our money and then treat us as if we are the product?

by zeisch 3y ago

brainzap 3y ago

companies are profit first, not trust first

amelius 3y ago
Yes, we need more regulation. Or a better system to begin with.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  Do you think its a coincidence this came right after the ban on incandescent bulbs? Regulation got us here. It won't help when government is captured.
  - timeon 3y ago
    > Do you think its a coincidence this came right after the ban on incandescent bulbs? Not really. I do not use incandescent bulbs nor bulbs that require account. You've chosen 216 and you'll find it everywhere in nature.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Yes. This is idiotic theory, Regulation is only about power efficiency
    - friend_and_foe 3y ago
      You must be European.
solarkraft 3y ago
Right: It's not the companies' fault they're engaging in deceptive and unfair business practices; they're profit-maximizing machines. They don't care about trust or know what it is. It's our fault we're letting them do that. Bad behavior should be affecting profits. Probably through regulation.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  It is absolutely their fault and not that of the public at large. Companies are not sentient “profit-maximizing machines, they’re a collection of people. And it’s people making the decisions.
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    But that's not how it effectively works at scale. It only takes a single person not bound by morals to mess it up for everyone. Those people naturally float to the top and are loved by shareholders (hence who's in charge at most places). Individually the organisation is made up of people, but at large it's a big anonymous machine because those people are rewarded super-duper one-dimensionally: Help profits and you're rewarded or hurt them and you're out. It makes about as much sense to anthropomorphise corporations as it does to anthropomorphise lawnmowers. They can not feel empathy.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      > But that's not how it effectively works at scale. It only takes a single person not bound by morals to mess it up for everyone. The onus might be on us as the public to change the laws to outlaw bad behaviour, but this does not absolve the companies, and especially the people within them who conduct, condone, or reward deceptive and unfair business practices.
- bananapub 3y ago
  > Right: It's not the companies' fault they're engaging in deceptive and unfair business practices; they're profit-maximizing machines. They don't care about trust or know what it is. this is an extremely dumb take, of course the people working at companies are responsible for bad dumb decisions that make their products worse.

jorvi 3y ago

There is a somewhat strangely named German brand that sells private IoT door / security cams. Forgot the name, sadly. They’re quite expensive though. My guess is they might sell private lightbulbs. For home audio, Sonos is great. Their voice assistant is completely locally processed.

leononame 3y ago
You might be thinking of the Homematic IP line, great products for home automation, they also have door locks etc. They are also compatible with just Homematic which doesn't use the internet (so no IoT), but rather a local gateway for controlling the devices. I don't think they have lightbulbs though. The company name is eQ-3
- solarkraft 3y ago
  Homematic has a pretty good reputation. Their stuff is reliable and they're quite open to DIYers. In turn the products are a bit on the expensive side, but not wildly so. Fun fact: eQ-3 is a subsidiary of the DIY electronics store ELV: https://www.eq-3.com/about-eq-3.html https://www.eq-3.com/about-eq-3.html
lotsofpulp 3y ago
This one is French, but I thought it might be what you are referring to. https://www.netatmo.com/ https://www.netatmo.com/
- drcongo 3y ago
  Word of warning about Netatmo cameras - even if you buy the HomeKit Secure Video ones, they stop working if the memory card dies. And it dies a LOT on their cameras. I've got 3 of their outdoor security cameras, and two of them stopped working while I was away on holiday. I had a very long conversation with them about this massive flaw in their system, they kept just saying "it needs the memory card to save the video" - I pointed out that a) it doesn't, it's streaming to HSV, and b) with every other camera I own the memory card is optional. The quality of the video on them is also considerably worse than any of my other cameras.

imp0cat 3y ago

Unfortunately the IKEA bulbs and switches are of much lower quality than Philips. From my experience, they don't dim quite as smoothly. :(

LeafItAlone 3y ago
I haven’t used Hue bulbs since their first products, so I can’t really compare, but I have had no problems with IKEA bulbs or switches in terms of quality and features. My only issue is that their Tradfri outlets are too big and poorly shaped. I can only fit small plugs next to them (in US outlets).

cassianoleal 3y ago

Shelly [0] seems trustworthy enough. In any case, if they ever go full-on enshittified, as long as you don't update the firmware you should be able to keep using your stuff. Anything you can flash Tasmota [1] on should be good to go as well. I believe that includes all or most Shelly devices as well. IKEA so far seems like a decent bet as well. [0] https://shellystore.co.uk/ https://shellystore.co.uk/ [1] https://tasmota.github.io/docs/ https://tasmota.github.io/docs/

ender341341 3y ago
my ikea stuff is pretty reliable, they seem conservative on adding features, but if you don't care about those specific features (which you probably don't) they've been pretty great, if not always the nicest design for the buttons/controllers.

LinAGKar 3y ago

Shelly seems very good so far. No need to connect it to the cloud at all, or use their app, since you can configure the via an onboard web UI (well, they'll still check for firmware updates when you connect them to Wi-Fi, but that's it). They can be controlled from Home Assistant completely without internet. Of course, there's no guarantee for future products, but once they're set up they're not gonna change unless you go in and update their firmware.

vidarh 3y ago
From what I can see most of their products (all?) are z-wave, so even if they try to change as long as they don't break the z-wave support, you can buy a z-wave USB dongle and drop whatever wants to be directly connected to your network anyway.
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  None of the Shelly devices I have are z-wave, they are all Wi-Fi entirely. This includes several of the Shelly 1 power management in-wall relays, several of the Shelly external power management plugs of the kind that you plug into an outlet, a few of the Shelly in-wall dimmers/fan controllers and a couple Shelly bulbs. I think if these had Z-Wave they would have cost a few dollars more each, due to licensing. It would be nice because I do have a Z-Wave mesh up and running alongside a zigbee mesh and a few oddball Wi-Fi only devices like these shellies, but they work well enough with home assistant that I don't consider to be a drawback yet. The only thing I wish they could do better is expose more of their configurable options via whatever API they present to home assistant. A couple of these devices speak mqtt which opens up a few more capabilities, but there are still many fine-tuning aspects like controlling the way a switch attached to the device functions, i.e. whether it behaves as if it is detached or functional - useful with toddlers around) are invisible unless you are using the built-in web configuration page.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Thanks. Looking at their site again now, I have no idea what made me assume z-wave, and no recollection of what I was thinking.

_nalply 3y ago

Trust stuff running on generic embedded open-sourced hardware running on open-sourced software. Raspberry, Arduino and others: Release some awesome open-sourced hardware standard for the smart home: lighting, measuring, interfacing! Or does something already exist?

omnibrain 3y ago

Have a look at Shelly.

Angostura 3y ago

I'm sure the right answer is open source stuff, self-hosted. But as an alternative, the Apple Homekit architecture does seem serious about keepig as much info as possible on the devices themselves and not throwing stuff into the cloud.

mrweasel 3y ago
Maybe that's why the number of smart devices that work with Homekit is so limited? I really don't understand many of the "smart" device manufacturers. They clearly aren't capable of running the services required to manage their devices, so why do they keep insisting on doing so? My parents have a smart radiator that couldn't be managed for over a month because a server in Norway was down. Why not just have it be manageable by Homekit and skip the infrastructure cost?
- squigz 3y ago
  I really don't understand consumers who, despite companies clearly demonstrating this, will just buy the next IoT thing anyway. Why don't companies offer better, longer-lasting products that can be community-driven after EOL? Because money.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Money for one but there is little actual standarization that have enough clout for it to happen. 99% of IoT devices would be fine with just "here is MQTT address" and a way to push updates (preferably with gateway downloading updates and devices updating only from gateway)

vidarh 3y ago

Buy based on protocols, and then focus on whether the bridges are trustworthy. That is, be cautious about anything that will directly link to your wifi (and so doesn't need a bridge) unless you can confirm you can isolate them on their own wifi network or firewall them off should you feel the need to now or in the future, or anything that uses proprietary protocols where you can't rip out the bridge if the provider goes rogue. Hue bulbs uses zigbee, so the bulbs themselves are not a problem. The bridge is. There are "dumb" zigbee bridges/interfaces, including USB controllers you can use with open source options like Home Assistant. If you can't avoid a proprietary bridge, only buy what you can afford to replace, or where the device is still serviceable to a sufficient degree if you turn off/remove the bridge (e.g. Lightwave switches go "dumb" if you turn off the bridge, but still work), or if you firewall it (e.g. if you can still control it via wifi even if the bridge can't reach the internet).

gumballindie 3y ago

There’s no such thing as trusting a brand - trust community effort only. That’s my rule where possible. If stuff doesnt work end to end with open solutions i am not buying it. I mean these companies take our money and then treat us as if we are the product?