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Can someone explain to me what this ecosystem is and the appeal of it? I have nothing automated in my life, that I know of? I don't have a garage; the door to

Can someone explain to me what this ecosystem is and the appeal of it? I have nothing automated in my life, that I know of? I don't have a garage; the door to the house has a key; the lights I turn on with a switch; no Alexa, don't use Siri... I am not exactly opposed to automation, but I am hesitant to share even more demographic data to cloud services.

catiopatio 3y ago
I like the idea of local home automation. “Siri, make the bathroom lights dark blue” Problem is, it comes with a ton of headaches. The cloud is a problem, as you noted, but also a bunch of fiddily, unreliable software, firmware updates that go haywire, and apps that are tied to iOS and will stop working with my physically installed home hardware if the manufacturer ever stops treading water and fails to update for the latest breaking iOS update. Home automation could be simple, reliable, and future-proof. It’s really not, though.
- bdamm 3y ago
  I'm not so sure it can be simple, reliable, and future proof, at least not in the consumer space. Everyone is chasing the lowest price, and it has to compete with existing solutions that are cheap, like just putting a filter on a white bulb, or installing a dimmer switch. What these products are offering is convenience, but not fundamentally new life experiences. So they can't charge a lot. Meanwhile, they have to interact with an absolutely enourmous range of interfaces. The wi-fi router, the phone, the electric service itself, etc. And the user has high expectations for ease of use (after all, it is a light bulb, it should be simple!) while needing good security (it is your home after all, if you can't be safe in your home then where can you be safe?) A simple experience with a wide range of interfaces at low cost has almost never been successfully done. Even Apple can't do it; they offer ease of use, but in a limited ecosystem and at a premium price. So these products are fundamentally flawed and they probably can never be fixed. This industry is fundamentally not viable until someone comes along and solves the interface issue or until people accept paying a lot of money for these kinds of things, and even in that case it would probably be a reseller performing a home install then providing API access to these services, which is only one step away from home-as-a-service. And I personally do not think I could tolerate a home-as-a-service. But many young people or students might like that just fine.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    > I'm not so sure it can be simple, reliable, and future proof, at least not in the consumer space. Depending on your definition of future it's very possible. Find some devices classified as "Local Push" or "Local Polling" https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-the-internet-of-things/#classifiers https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th.... Make a VLAN with no internet access in your router and put them (and HA) on it. Never update the firmware (why would you, they work don't they?), connect them to HA and pin the version of it and your plug-ins. Don't let the devices talk directly to HA if you're extra paranoid. Update at your leisure or never.
    - XorNot 3y ago
      I've bought a bunch of stuff from these guys: https://athom.tech/ https://athom.tech/ Their model is shipping ESP devices flashed with open source firmwares. They still go on their own firewalled wifi network, but this is about as future-proof as I can imagine: the software is open source, the updates can be run locally, the parts they're made of are actually pretty simple PCBs you could get a fab run of your own done if you wanted to. In terms of "future" proofing, everything I've installed I've been putting in accessible junction boxes well labelled - electricity isn't going to change, so as long as it fits in a box, I'll always have the option to replace the hardware (if you have light switches with a neutral wire then you're basically set). I wouldn't say "simple" per se but that's really more on the "you need a box running some type of home automation stuff". I suspect simple enough for the consumer would be something which came with it's own wifi AP and pre-configured mesh routers so the IoT network would start out intrinsically separated.
    - bdamm 3y ago
      Right, and then have local services interacting with no cloud support, or phone integration. But this is absolutely not "consumer" by any means. If my grandmother can't do it, you failed the simplicity test. This is exactly why we end up with cloud services for everything. Because real-world integration with the entire fleet of possibilities for consumer interaction is by definition an open-ended problem that can never be finished.
lozenge 3y ago
If you don't like having "the big light" on then colour changing and dimmable lights are great. A lot of people don't feel qualified to install actual dimmer switches. I only set mine to warm, cold and purple/blue but I don't have room for three lamps. Stuff like the sunrise timer, switching lights on when you're on holiday, and out of home control are just gimmicks though.
op00to 3y ago
The lights in my house turn on and off with the rhythm of our lives. We don’t think about turning a light on or off. They do that by themselves. My home knows when the dishwasher is done. My home can silence alerts if I’m on a zoom call. My home knows if the air quality is low and doesn’t turn on the ventilator fan. Automation is not about having an app for your lights, it’s about not having to think of trivial stuff like turning on a light.
- jrockway 3y ago
  I like having an app for my lights. Getting a little dark during a video call? Just turn the lights on without missing a beat. Better than the awkward "I'll be riiight back" that wastes 10 people's time. (As for automatically turning on lights, that is also good. I have two receptacles outdoors that aren't on a switched circuit. Thanks to the magic of smart lights, they are now off during the day.)
  - owlninja 3y ago
    And in my house the primary lights we use are lamps, so I can just shutdown or adjust the house/each room/lamp easily.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Maybe this is what I'm missing—opening an app is far more fiddly to me than standing up, flipping a switch, and sitting back down. I have to get my phone out, open it, hope face ID works (you mentioned it was dark), enter my code if not, find the app, click the app, wait for it to load, find the right button... Do other people not struggle with apps the way I do?
    - nerdbert 3y ago
      I don't generally find those interactions to be a struggle, but it's still 10x easier and faster to get up and turn on the light using the old-fashioned switch.
    - smileysteve 3y ago
skywhopper 3y ago
One of the big benefits of Hue, as alluded to in this article, is that you didn’t need to use their cloud services or share any data. But that seems to be what is changing. Before, you could just run everything locally on your home network, or really on an isolated subnet since most of the communication happens over Zigbee. It is nice to have automation capabilities for some scenarios to avoid rewiring or to customize lighting for different purposes in the same space with one controller. But if you don’t personally need it, you also don’t really need to drop in and bash the concept. It is useful for lots of folks and it’s just a fun game for lots of other folks. And most people can just ignore it.
- triyambakam 3y ago
  I'm not bashing it, I just want to understand it better
  - robomc 3y ago
    But if you were, you were right, because it's mostly ridiculous.
dylan604 3y ago
Changing the color of white during the day is amazing. Having daylight temp bulbs at night is just "rude". Having the warm temp color during the day is much less "rude". Having the best of both worlds with one light and not having to think about it is pretty amazing. Other than that, I just enjoy having the remote ability of turning lights on/off from my couch. I don't even have mine accessible via WAN, so it's not like "oh I forgot to turn off the lights" after leaving the house. they're LEDs, so I don't care!
- Spivak 3y ago
  Once you have the hue changing bulbs you can't go back so be warned for anyone reading. It's like learning about keming.
  - sib 3y ago
    >> It's like learning about keming. I see what you did there
- dbetteridge 3y ago
  > Having daylight temp bulbs at night is just "rude" Wut, explain this to me?
  - dylan604 3y ago
    there's lots of theories on this, to the point of having "blue light glasses". however, mine is much more caveman like. during the day, the sun is up. at night, it is not, so it is dark and cold. man made fire. fire is good. fire is warm. light from fire is orange. man evolve using warm light at night. industry brings us blue light at night. blue light strange. makes things look harsh, unpleasant. caveman pushes button on magic rock that makes light back to warm color. caveman happy again.
    - corrigible 3y ago
      grug feng shui
ethanbond 3y ago
I don't care much about the automation itself, but in general having control over your lights is ludicrously nice. It helps me a lot with maintaining my sleep schedule, which in retrospect I suppose my favorite part does rely on automation which is a light alarm. But we'll generally have very very dim lights on throughout the early evening into bed time which makes it much easier for me to fall asleep. Waking up to office-white-lights will also really wake you up. Also: parties. It's fun to be able to do nice pink and blue lights or a low-lit candle-like scenario, depending on the vibe.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Yep same. Wall switches work fine. Manual thermostats work fine. Fuck spending all that money on such trivia and time keeping it programmed and updated and dealing with stuff like the subject of TFA. I walk into a room, I turn the lights on. I leave the room, I turn the lights off. I have no need to operate lights in rooms that I'm not in.
- exodust 3y ago
  > Wall switches work fine Yes but it's nice to have extra functionality. I use the wireless Hue dimmer switches, the batteries last a long time. I have one on my coffee table... it's nice to dim lights for multiple lamps from the couch, or adjust the colour temperature. My wall switches have no dimming dial, nor do my lamps. I can't go back to non-dimmable lamps.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
    Dimmers can be fitted where existing light switches are, and lamps can be fitted with dimmers, either mounted in or on the lamp, or online with the power cable. It's just a different type of consumer luxury or hobby, unnecessary but also fun and rewarding. I do hardware modifications and small electrical upgrades / changes myself, it's cheaper and I find it enjoyable and rewarding. Most recently I fit a dimmer to a high velocity ducted workshop fan, so now it has full variable speed control, as it's quite powerful and all the CFM isn't always required or desirable.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  Writing that blog post probably took more time than I spend on light switches in a year. Now buying, installing, configuring, fixing and tweaking takes probably 100x times more. Not to mention time spent on a shrink coach after these things drive you mad.
- neurostimulant 3y ago
  This thing is basically a hobby, so I understand if you have no interest with home automation. That being said, I prefer using smart wall switches than smart light bulbs. I think smart light bulbs are wasteful (more expensive than standard light bulbs, and you will be throwing out a perfectly good zigbee unit just because the LED died). The only benefits seems to be dimming and color changing, but I don't have the need for them because I can just use some night lights for that purpose (also with ZigBee switches). With smart wall switches, everything still behave exactly like before (heck, you can even still use your old switches, just wire them into the small ZigBee switch module), but now they're accessible for tinkering via Home Assistant.
rhinoceraptor 3y ago
My two favorite automations are dead simple, but would be tricky to solve any other way. I have them set up with Home Assistant running on my local network, so there's no data going to anyone else, and no dependency on a cloud service. The first is, my mailbox is across the street, and I'd like to know when the mail comes. So I have a Z-wave door sensor in the mailbox to send me a notification to my phone when the mailbox is opened. The other is to nag us to move laundry to the dryer. I have a Z-wave power meter that my washing machine plugs in to, and another Z-wave door sensor on the door. When the power meter detects the washing machine stop using power, it waits a few minutes and sends a notification to unload every few minutes, until the door is opened.
- triyambakam 3y ago
  Really neat, thanks for sharing!
  - TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
    My sprinkler system is automated and internet connected. It’s on a schedule but I can override it when I’m not home. So if it’s raining, I can turn it off when away. It also knows the forecast and is quite good about skipping watering. Water is expensive where I live so I appreciate this.
    - martin8412 3y ago
      You could add humidity sensors in the mix so plants only are watered when below a certain humidity.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- postcynical 3y ago
  My i initial reaction was that i could DOS ur phone through ur mailbox. I guess i spent too much time in tech…
Barrin92 3y ago
>appeal of it the appeal is technology as hedonistic consumption. People just love spending money on 'tech', even if it actually costs them more time and money, which is fundamentally the opposite of what technology is supposed to accomplish. So in this sense it isn't even automation, it's anti-automation because just about every person I've met who is into home automation spends significant amounts of resources on things like flipping a light switch on.
function_seven 3y ago
Warning: my comment only addresses my use case for automation. I don't use cloud services either. I also kinda just kept writing, so this is a bit of a text wall. I live in an old house. 80% of the lights in my house are operated by walking up to them and twisting the stem. The remaining 20% are switched. To properly turn the lights on in my living room, I have to visit four separate lamps and turn each one on. The dining room has three lamps, bedroom has three, office has three, etc. When it's time for bed, I have to walk around the house turning each lamp off. If I want them dim, no luck. To do that would require either all new lamp fixtures, or rewiring the house with new dimmer switches. Or, that was how it was before I did the Zigbee/HomeAssistant thing. Now I just hit that master switch on my nightstand and all the lights turn off. My whole house changes into "Night Mode". The thermostat will widen the setpoints. The doors lock if they weren't already. If I happen to get up at 3AM to take a piss or get a glass of water, the lights all know to come on at minimum brightness, and to turn off shortly thereafter. My front door lock used to be a pain in the ass when I had my hands full of groceries. Or my coffee and the mail. Now my door unlocks automatically when I walk up to it. It's a small joy, but it reliably makes me smile each time. (And I don't have an ugly keypad, and still have a standard key slot if I need it). I have an ancient stove and oven. No electronics at all. So I wrote a simple automation to alert me if the kitchen motion sensor's temperature rises 10°F more than the rest of the house, for longer than 30 minutes. This has saved me a couple of times now when I forgot to turn the oven off. (It takes a good hour for that temp sensor to reach the threshold as well. I wrote that automation after discovering that my oven had been on for hours. When I looked through the temp logs, I saw a clear signal I could use in the future.) I also put a remote temp sensor in one of my HVAC registers. Comparing its reading to the ambient reading gives me a ΔT on my air conditioner, and a couple years ago the steadily-declining value of that delta alerted me to a refrigerant leak weeks before it would have been large enough to notice otherwise. I was able to get that repaired in the spring rather than in the heat of summer. This isn't something I would have done with a regular thermometer; having to remember to check it every so often and do the math taking into account the humidity and the elapsed time since the start of the cycle. But seeing all that temp data logged over many weeks makes the pattern easy to spot. In the den I sometimes want it to be bright enough to read or do detailed work, and other times I want it dim so there's no glare while watching TV. Before, that meant I would have to buy lamps with a dimmer on them, then dim each one and go flip the ceiling fan light off. Now when I click the switch[1] to turn the TV/stereo combo on, it automatically dims the lights at either end of the couch, and turns the overhead light off. Color temperature! That's another thing that isn't possible without some smartness in the bulbs. At night my whole house is as close to 2200K as possible. I really like that kind of light. But in the middle of the day, my kitchen lights are closer to 3300K. My porch light turns on 30 minutes after sunset and off before sunrise. It's under a roof so I would have needed to either replace the switch with one of those fancy ones, or installed a photocell somewhere else. But it was just a couple automations added to the config file to get that functionality. [1] I originally put a Tasmota wall relay in to save the 20W (!) of idle power my old stereo receiver was constantly drawing. When I realized I always fiddled with the lights whenever I turn the TV/stereo on, I just automated that away.
tzs 3y ago
I long ago realized that I sleep as well on a couch as I do on a bed, and got rid of my bed next time I moved. However, there is no good place to put a light near the couch such that the switch would be easily reachable while on the couch. Solution: Hue lights that I can control from Alexa. If I'm dozing off while reading on the couch before bed, I can turn the lights off without having to wake up enough to actually go reach a switch. All my locks are normal locks that use normal keys (although they are actually called "SmartKey" locks, but that just refers to the clever way they can be rekeyed [1], which is entirely mechanical). I have considered getting one smart lock that has voice and app control because I live alone. The idea there is that if I have a medical emergency that incapacitates me so that I cannot unlock a door but doesn't incapacitate me so much that I can't call 911, I can unlock a door so when the ambulance arrives they don't have to break in to get me. [1] The way you rekey them is you put in your current key, turn 90 degrees clockwise, insert a tool they provide into a hole that is next to the keyway to press a release in the back of the hole, remove that tool, and you can then remove the current key (carefully leaving the cylinder rotated 90 degrees). At that point you can put a different key in, and then turn the cylinder 180 degrees counterclockwise. The lock is now keyed to that key instead of the key you started with.
jabroni_salad 3y ago
For most people it's just consumer luxury but my grandmother's place has some neat tricks that really improve her independence. Using anything fiddly like lamps and keys is actually a serious challenge for her. 10 years ago her TV was too complicated but now she has a voice remote and it works pretty well. Anything that makes life a little easier is good for anyone with marginal capabilities, which is like millions of people and eventually everyone if they manage to live long enough.
vagab0nd 3y ago
My car charger turns on and adjusts the charging amp based on how much solar energy I'm getting from the sun. I know this will eventually be replaced by some 3rd party solution, but when I did it there were none.
- callalex 3y ago
  I wouldn’t be shocked if third party solutions become mandatory for this use case in the near future, similar to how smart thermostats controlled by the utility company are a thing already. I know some areas have incentive programs to have utility controlled car charging plugs already as well.
kumarvvr 3y ago
There are several advantages. I use a connected smart bulb, that has color changing. During bed time, I use it for reading books, and before sleeping, change it to a night light. I use it as a soft light when watching movies on my laptop. This is a convenience for me. I also use smart lights to automatically turn on and off inside my home, and outside, in the portico. I use automated socket outlets to turn on / off the water heater in my bath, on a schedule. A lot of advantages in these things is in the option to schedule them, or make them act on the input of a sensor (movement, light, etc)
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
If you have lots of windows and lots of shades, you can open and close them all at once, making life easier if you and your spouse disagree if they should be mostly open or mostly closed, possibly saving your marriage if that applies. Lights follow the same trend: it isn’t that turning on and off the lights is a pain, but being able to turn on or off all the lights with just one command is useful. We’ve only bothered with our open kitchen living room, but we had 4 switches all around the 2nd floor to manipulate before (and we went Lutron for our shades anyways, so we can set scenes with both). I don’t get the mood lighting. And really, if I lived alone I would just keep the shades up all the time and forgo the electric shades as well (but given my wife they are indispensable).
sailfast 3y ago
I have normal lights, but the switches are on a Lutron hub. I like being able to set movie mode to dim lights from my couch on my watch or phone. I like being able to turn off my kids' bathroom light when it shines too brightly in my face at night when I'm trying to sleep. I like being able to turn the lights off across the whole house when I leave, and have smart away when I leave for awhile. Smart thermostats are nice when you want to adjust things from all over the house or keep a schedule relatively easily. I also like knowing if my basement sump pump isn't keeping up with rain water and flooding things. In general, it's nice to be able to monitor things and control them across the house, and the Lutron setup has been pretty painless.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
Some things I do, all running locally with Home Assistant so minimal cloud shenanigans: * Turn the light red in my laundry room when a load is done * Turn all my lights off when I set my alarm at night * Slowly turn light on before my alarm goes off in the morning * Turn off lights when I leave the house, then turn on the one by my front door if I get home after dark None of these are life changing, but they're all marginally useful. And for me, half the fun is the sense of accomplishment getting these automations to work
jjtheblunt 3y ago
if you live in an inhospitable climate (arizona for example) with pets or perhaps otherwise disabled individuals left at home (grandparents?), remote ability to control thermostat has proven useful. that said, useful in this case means saving a bit of money by adjusting its settings. a manual (non cloud) thermostat would work too.
laserbeam 3y ago
So am I, but I really wanted to control lighting (color ans temperature) in my living room and smart bulbs was the easiest way I could do it. I had some random cheap polish wifi lights but the delays on controlling then just drove me off. Decided to switch to hue at some point and just color quality and responsiveness was better. I only have them for that and I love to adjust the mood via lighting. I don't care about any further automation. I also don't care much if it was Philips or someone else that gave me light bulbs.
bpicolo 3y ago
I've been really enjoying voice controls for my lights. It's not always more convenient than my lights, but overall I like the experience. With Apple TV + a home pod I also get a fair bit of TV control with my voice which is nice.
themagician 3y ago
I have a bunch of things at the office set to automatically turn off at a certain time or on command. It's helpful in that I don't leave something running that really shouldn't be, like a laminator, overnight. After that I decided to put an Alexa plug on anything that could potentially be a fire hazard if left on, like the air purifiers and fans. It's hardly a bulletproof solution but it's better than the old solution of, "Oh shit, I think I left X running… welp, time to waste 40 minutes driving back and forth."
000ooo000 3y ago
Webcam with motion detection pointed directly down at our cat litters. Motion triggers a lamp switching on so I can hopefully get to and remove any poo before the stench of it bleeds into the house.
dzhiurgis 3y ago
Opening garage with phone (esp via voice if your hands are full) is killer app. I don’t have to carry any keys anymore (not that we need to lock up often)
system2 3y ago
I can dim my backyard lights, turn on and off my porch light depending on the sun's position, control my home thermostat to heat or cool via phone before I am home, control my washing machine and dryer or know if they are done, open garage remotely with my app or close it, turn on any lights of the house or turn them off if I am in bed with my phone, control my TV via phone if I lose the remote (likely somewhere in the couch), also I use a lot of smart plugs to control individual devices such as fans, manual electric devices that are always set to be on, etc...
tayo42 3y ago
I have auto changing hue color lights for when I'm doing exctacy at home to give it a rave feel. I like to dim and make the color warm at night too. But every already said that hundred times.
skygazer 3y ago
I have much automated, but my favorite is a $20 multicolored hexagon WiFi light with a long usb power cable I nestled along the door frame from power to the light above my wife’s office door. I wrote a swift daemon to monitor her work mac’s camera and microphone usage as well as idle time, and decide whether to set the little hexagon over the door to red, yellow, green, or off depending on camera use, mic-only use, idle under or over threshold, respectively. That way I know whether I can safely interrupt, and with what degree of caution. It’s been a champ, but I did need to modify the code when she upgraded from intel to m1, to listen to camera logging events rather than checking the hardware directly, but other than that it makes me happy every time I walk by it. Second is more common, but also makes me happy every time: I put a contact sensor on the interior door to the attached garage that when opened quickly turns on the light to the garage, and turns it off a few minutes after that door next closes. It sure beats walking into a dark garage to fumble for a switch.
nonameiguess 3y ago
A lot of these answers conflate remote control with automation. Some of these devices seem to offer remote control, some offer actual automation. I also love not having to get up and hit arrow keys on my television monitor to change the channel. Likewise, my ceiling fans have radio controllers. It would be nice if lights had those as well. On the other hand, I feel no need for motion detectors, voice control, or any kind of service running on a server somewhere trying to learn when I want the lights on or off. But a switch that can be flipped without having to walk to wherever the wall-mounted switch is would be nice. That can be a simple radio device or infrared or whatever they prefer, just like a television remote. Don't need an app that requires an account with a remote service. Same thing with a thermostat. When I first married and moved in with my wife a decade ago, she had Nest thermostats and those things annoyed the hell out of me, using eco settings by default, requiring access to WiFi, trying to learn my living patterns. Some of these answers are right. The longstanding automation offered by thermostats was great. I like being able to program when I want specific temperatures in specific rooms and then it just happens. But that was enough. I don't need a cloud-based service to learn when I'm home and in what rooms. I already know that.
runeks 3y ago
I bought a Philips Hue lightbulb because it was the easiest way to get a dimmable lamp in my living room.

catiopatio 3y ago

I like the idea of local home automation. “Siri, make the bathroom lights dark blue” Problem is, it comes with a ton of headaches. The cloud is a problem, as you noted, but also a bunch of fiddily, unreliable software, firmware updates that go haywire, and apps that are tied to iOS and will stop working with my physically installed home hardware if the manufacturer ever stops treading water and fails to update for the latest breaking iOS update. Home automation could be simple, reliable, and future-proof. It’s really not, though.

bdamm 3y ago
I'm not so sure it can be simple, reliable, and future proof, at least not in the consumer space. Everyone is chasing the lowest price, and it has to compete with existing solutions that are cheap, like just putting a filter on a white bulb, or installing a dimmer switch. What these products are offering is convenience, but not fundamentally new life experiences. So they can't charge a lot. Meanwhile, they have to interact with an absolutely enourmous range of interfaces. The wi-fi router, the phone, the electric service itself, etc. And the user has high expectations for ease of use (after all, it is a light bulb, it should be simple!) while needing good security (it is your home after all, if you can't be safe in your home then where can you be safe?) A simple experience with a wide range of interfaces at low cost has almost never been successfully done. Even Apple can't do it; they offer ease of use, but in a limited ecosystem and at a premium price. So these products are fundamentally flawed and they probably can never be fixed. This industry is fundamentally not viable until someone comes along and solves the interface issue or until people accept paying a lot of money for these kinds of things, and even in that case it would probably be a reseller performing a home install then providing API access to these services, which is only one step away from home-as-a-service. And I personally do not think I could tolerate a home-as-a-service. But many young people or students might like that just fine.
- Spivak 3y ago
  > I'm not so sure it can be simple, reliable, and future proof, at least not in the consumer space. Depending on your definition of future it's very possible. Find some devices classified as "Local Push" or "Local Polling" https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-the-internet-of-things/#classifiers https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th.... Make a VLAN with no internet access in your router and put them (and HA) on it. Never update the firmware (why would you, they work don't they?), connect them to HA and pin the version of it and your plug-ins. Don't let the devices talk directly to HA if you're extra paranoid. Update at your leisure or never.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    I've bought a bunch of stuff from these guys: https://athom.tech/ https://athom.tech/ Their model is shipping ESP devices flashed with open source firmwares. They still go on their own firewalled wifi network, but this is about as future-proof as I can imagine: the software is open source, the updates can be run locally, the parts they're made of are actually pretty simple PCBs you could get a fab run of your own done if you wanted to. In terms of "future" proofing, everything I've installed I've been putting in accessible junction boxes well labelled - electricity isn't going to change, so as long as it fits in a box, I'll always have the option to replace the hardware (if you have light switches with a neutral wire then you're basically set). I wouldn't say "simple" per se but that's really more on the "you need a box running some type of home automation stuff". I suspect simple enough for the consumer would be something which came with it's own wifi AP and pre-configured mesh routers so the IoT network would start out intrinsically separated.
  - bdamm 3y ago
    Right, and then have local services interacting with no cloud support, or phone integration. But this is absolutely not "consumer" by any means. If my grandmother can't do it, you failed the simplicity test. This is exactly why we end up with cloud services for everything. Because real-world integration with the entire fleet of possibilities for consumer interaction is by definition an open-ended problem that can never be finished.

lozenge 3y ago

If you don't like having "the big light" on then colour changing and dimmable lights are great. A lot of people don't feel qualified to install actual dimmer switches. I only set mine to warm, cold and purple/blue but I don't have room for three lamps. Stuff like the sunrise timer, switching lights on when you're on holiday, and out of home control are just gimmicks though.

op00to 3y ago

The lights in my house turn on and off with the rhythm of our lives. We don’t think about turning a light on or off. They do that by themselves. My home knows when the dishwasher is done. My home can silence alerts if I’m on a zoom call. My home knows if the air quality is low and doesn’t turn on the ventilator fan. Automation is not about having an app for your lights, it’s about not having to think of trivial stuff like turning on a light.

jrockway 3y ago
I like having an app for my lights. Getting a little dark during a video call? Just turn the lights on without missing a beat. Better than the awkward "I'll be riiight back" that wastes 10 people's time. (As for automatically turning on lights, that is also good. I have two receptacles outdoors that aren't on a switched circuit. Thanks to the magic of smart lights, they are now off during the day.)
- owlninja 3y ago
  And in my house the primary lights we use are lamps, so I can just shutdown or adjust the house/each room/lamp easily.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Maybe this is what I'm missing—opening an app is far more fiddly to me than standing up, flipping a switch, and sitting back down. I have to get my phone out, open it, hope face ID works (you mentioned it was dark), enter my code if not, find the app, click the app, wait for it to load, find the right button... Do other people not struggle with apps the way I do?
  - nerdbert 3y ago
    I don't generally find those interactions to be a struggle, but it's still 10x easier and faster to get up and turn on the light using the old-fashioned switch.
  - smileysteve 3y ago

skywhopper 3y ago

One of the big benefits of Hue, as alluded to in this article, is that you didn’t need to use their cloud services or share any data. But that seems to be what is changing. Before, you could just run everything locally on your home network, or really on an isolated subnet since most of the communication happens over Zigbee. It is nice to have automation capabilities for some scenarios to avoid rewiring or to customize lighting for different purposes in the same space with one controller. But if you don’t personally need it, you also don’t really need to drop in and bash the concept. It is useful for lots of folks and it’s just a fun game for lots of other folks. And most people can just ignore it.

triyambakam 3y ago
I'm not bashing it, I just want to understand it better
- robomc 3y ago
  But if you were, you were right, because it's mostly ridiculous.

dylan604 3y ago

Changing the color of white during the day is amazing. Having daylight temp bulbs at night is just "rude". Having the warm temp color during the day is much less "rude". Having the best of both worlds with one light and not having to think about it is pretty amazing. Other than that, I just enjoy having the remote ability of turning lights on/off from my couch. I don't even have mine accessible via WAN, so it's not like "oh I forgot to turn off the lights" after leaving the house. they're LEDs, so I don't care!

Spivak 3y ago
Once you have the hue changing bulbs you can't go back so be warned for anyone reading. It's like learning about keming.
- sib 3y ago
  >> It's like learning about keming. I see what you did there
dbetteridge 3y ago
> Having daylight temp bulbs at night is just "rude" Wut, explain this to me?
- dylan604 3y ago
  there's lots of theories on this, to the point of having "blue light glasses". however, mine is much more caveman like. during the day, the sun is up. at night, it is not, so it is dark and cold. man made fire. fire is good. fire is warm. light from fire is orange. man evolve using warm light at night. industry brings us blue light at night. blue light strange. makes things look harsh, unpleasant. caveman pushes button on magic rock that makes light back to warm color. caveman happy again.
  - corrigible 3y ago
    grug feng shui

ethanbond 3y ago

I don't care much about the automation itself, but in general having control over your lights is ludicrously nice. It helps me a lot with maintaining my sleep schedule, which in retrospect I suppose my favorite part does rely on automation which is a light alarm. But we'll generally have very very dim lights on throughout the early evening into bed time which makes it much easier for me to fall asleep. Waking up to office-white-lights will also really wake you up. Also: parties. It's fun to be able to do nice pink and blue lights or a low-lit candle-like scenario, depending on the vibe.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Yep same. Wall switches work fine. Manual thermostats work fine. Fuck spending all that money on such trivia and time keeping it programmed and updated and dealing with stuff like the subject of TFA. I walk into a room, I turn the lights on. I leave the room, I turn the lights off. I have no need to operate lights in rooms that I'm not in.

exodust 3y ago
> Wall switches work fine Yes but it's nice to have extra functionality. I use the wireless Hue dimmer switches, the batteries last a long time. I have one on my coffee table... it's nice to dim lights for multiple lamps from the couch, or adjust the colour temperature. My wall switches have no dimming dial, nor do my lamps. I can't go back to non-dimmable lamps.
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
  Dimmers can be fitted where existing light switches are, and lamps can be fitted with dimmers, either mounted in or on the lamp, or online with the power cable. It's just a different type of consumer luxury or hobby, unnecessary but also fun and rewarding. I do hardware modifications and small electrical upgrades / changes myself, it's cheaper and I find it enjoyable and rewarding. Most recently I fit a dimmer to a high velocity ducted workshop fan, so now it has full variable speed control, as it's quite powerful and all the CFM isn't always required or desirable.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
Writing that blog post probably took more time than I spend on light switches in a year. Now buying, installing, configuring, fixing and tweaking takes probably 100x times more. Not to mention time spent on a shrink coach after these things drive you mad.
neurostimulant 3y ago
This thing is basically a hobby, so I understand if you have no interest with home automation. That being said, I prefer using smart wall switches than smart light bulbs. I think smart light bulbs are wasteful (more expensive than standard light bulbs, and you will be throwing out a perfectly good zigbee unit just because the LED died). The only benefits seems to be dimming and color changing, but I don't have the need for them because I can just use some night lights for that purpose (also with ZigBee switches). With smart wall switches, everything still behave exactly like before (heck, you can even still use your old switches, just wire them into the small ZigBee switch module), but now they're accessible for tinkering via Home Assistant.

rhinoceraptor 3y ago

My two favorite automations are dead simple, but would be tricky to solve any other way. I have them set up with Home Assistant running on my local network, so there's no data going to anyone else, and no dependency on a cloud service. The first is, my mailbox is across the street, and I'd like to know when the mail comes. So I have a Z-wave door sensor in the mailbox to send me a notification to my phone when the mailbox is opened. The other is to nag us to move laundry to the dryer. I have a Z-wave power meter that my washing machine plugs in to, and another Z-wave door sensor on the door. When the power meter detects the washing machine stop using power, it waits a few minutes and sends a notification to unload every few minutes, until the door is opened.

triyambakam 3y ago
Really neat, thanks for sharing!
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  My sprinkler system is automated and internet connected. It’s on a schedule but I can override it when I’m not home. So if it’s raining, I can turn it off when away. It also knows the forecast and is quite good about skipping watering. Water is expensive where I live so I appreciate this.
  - martin8412 3y ago
    You could add humidity sensors in the mix so plants only are watered when below a certain humidity.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
postcynical 3y ago
My i initial reaction was that i could DOS ur phone through ur mailbox. I guess i spent too much time in tech…

Barrin92 3y ago

>appeal of it the appeal is technology as hedonistic consumption. People just love spending money on 'tech', even if it actually costs them more time and money, which is fundamentally the opposite of what technology is supposed to accomplish. So in this sense it isn't even automation, it's anti-automation because just about every person I've met who is into home automation spends significant amounts of resources on things like flipping a light switch on.

function_seven 3y ago

Warning: my comment only addresses my use case for automation. I don't use cloud services either. I also kinda just kept writing, so this is a bit of a text wall. I live in an old house. 80% of the lights in my house are operated by walking up to them and twisting the stem. The remaining 20% are switched. To properly turn the lights on in my living room, I have to visit four separate lamps and turn each one on. The dining room has three lamps, bedroom has three, office has three, etc. When it's time for bed, I have to walk around the house turning each lamp off. If I want them dim, no luck. To do that would require either all new lamp fixtures, or rewiring the house with new dimmer switches. Or, that was how it was before I did the Zigbee/HomeAssistant thing. Now I just hit that master switch on my nightstand and all the lights turn off. My whole house changes into "Night Mode". The thermostat will widen the setpoints. The doors lock if they weren't already. If I happen to get up at 3AM to take a piss or get a glass of water, the lights all know to come on at minimum brightness, and to turn off shortly thereafter. My front door lock used to be a pain in the ass when I had my hands full of groceries. Or my coffee and the mail. Now my door unlocks automatically when I walk up to it. It's a small joy, but it reliably makes me smile each time. (And I don't have an ugly keypad, and still have a standard key slot if I need it). I have an ancient stove and oven. No electronics at all. So I wrote a simple automation to alert me if the kitchen motion sensor's temperature rises 10°F more than the rest of the house, for longer than 30 minutes. This has saved me a couple of times now when I forgot to turn the oven off. (It takes a good hour for that temp sensor to reach the threshold as well. I wrote that automation after discovering that my oven had been on for hours. When I looked through the temp logs, I saw a clear signal I could use in the future.) I also put a remote temp sensor in one of my HVAC registers. Comparing its reading to the ambient reading gives me a ΔT on my air conditioner, and a couple years ago the steadily-declining value of that delta alerted me to a refrigerant leak weeks before it would have been large enough to notice otherwise. I was able to get that repaired in the spring rather than in the heat of summer. This isn't something I would have done with a regular thermometer; having to remember to check it every so often and do the math taking into account the humidity and the elapsed time since the start of the cycle. But seeing all that temp data logged over many weeks makes the pattern easy to spot. In the den I sometimes want it to be bright enough to read or do detailed work, and other times I want it dim so there's no glare while watching TV. Before, that meant I would have to buy lamps with a dimmer on them, then dim each one and go flip the ceiling fan light off. Now when I click the switch[1] to turn the TV/stereo combo on, it automatically dims the lights at either end of the couch, and turns the overhead light off. Color temperature! That's another thing that isn't possible without some smartness in the bulbs. At night my whole house is as close to 2200K as possible. I really like that kind of light. But in the middle of the day, my kitchen lights are closer to 3300K. My porch light turns on 30 minutes after sunset and off before sunrise. It's under a roof so I would have needed to either replace the switch with one of those fancy ones, or installed a photocell somewhere else. But it was just a couple automations added to the config file to get that functionality. [1] I originally put a Tasmota wall relay in to save the 20W (!) of idle power my old stereo receiver was constantly drawing. When I realized I always fiddled with the lights whenever I turn the TV/stereo on, I just automated that away.

tzs 3y ago

I long ago realized that I sleep as well on a couch as I do on a bed, and got rid of my bed next time I moved. However, there is no good place to put a light near the couch such that the switch would be easily reachable while on the couch. Solution: Hue lights that I can control from Alexa. If I'm dozing off while reading on the couch before bed, I can turn the lights off without having to wake up enough to actually go reach a switch. All my locks are normal locks that use normal keys (although they are actually called "SmartKey" locks, but that just refers to the clever way they can be rekeyed [1], which is entirely mechanical). I have considered getting one smart lock that has voice and app control because I live alone. The idea there is that if I have a medical emergency that incapacitates me so that I cannot unlock a door but doesn't incapacitate me so much that I can't call 911, I can unlock a door so when the ambulance arrives they don't have to break in to get me. [1] The way you rekey them is you put in your current key, turn 90 degrees clockwise, insert a tool they provide into a hole that is next to the keyway to press a release in the back of the hole, remove that tool, and you can then remove the current key (carefully leaving the cylinder rotated 90 degrees). At that point you can put a different key in, and then turn the cylinder 180 degrees counterclockwise. The lock is now keyed to that key instead of the key you started with.

jabroni_salad 3y ago

For most people it's just consumer luxury but my grandmother's place has some neat tricks that really improve her independence. Using anything fiddly like lamps and keys is actually a serious challenge for her. 10 years ago her TV was too complicated but now she has a voice remote and it works pretty well. Anything that makes life a little easier is good for anyone with marginal capabilities, which is like millions of people and eventually everyone if they manage to live long enough.

vagab0nd 3y ago

My car charger turns on and adjusts the charging amp based on how much solar energy I'm getting from the sun. I know this will eventually be replaced by some 3rd party solution, but when I did it there were none.

callalex 3y ago
I wouldn’t be shocked if third party solutions become mandatory for this use case in the near future, similar to how smart thermostats controlled by the utility company are a thing already. I know some areas have incentive programs to have utility controlled car charging plugs already as well.

kumarvvr 3y ago

There are several advantages. I use a connected smart bulb, that has color changing. During bed time, I use it for reading books, and before sleeping, change it to a night light. I use it as a soft light when watching movies on my laptop. This is a convenience for me. I also use smart lights to automatically turn on and off inside my home, and outside, in the portico. I use automated socket outlets to turn on / off the water heater in my bath, on a schedule. A lot of advantages in these things is in the option to schedule them, or make them act on the input of a sensor (movement, light, etc)

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

If you have lots of windows and lots of shades, you can open and close them all at once, making life easier if you and your spouse disagree if they should be mostly open or mostly closed, possibly saving your marriage if that applies. Lights follow the same trend: it isn’t that turning on and off the lights is a pain, but being able to turn on or off all the lights with just one command is useful. We’ve only bothered with our open kitchen living room, but we had 4 switches all around the 2nd floor to manipulate before (and we went Lutron for our shades anyways, so we can set scenes with both). I don’t get the mood lighting. And really, if I lived alone I would just keep the shades up all the time and forgo the electric shades as well (but given my wife they are indispensable).

sailfast 3y ago

I have normal lights, but the switches are on a Lutron hub. I like being able to set movie mode to dim lights from my couch on my watch or phone. I like being able to turn off my kids' bathroom light when it shines too brightly in my face at night when I'm trying to sleep. I like being able to turn the lights off across the whole house when I leave, and have smart away when I leave for awhile. Smart thermostats are nice when you want to adjust things from all over the house or keep a schedule relatively easily. I also like knowing if my basement sump pump isn't keeping up with rain water and flooding things. In general, it's nice to be able to monitor things and control them across the house, and the Lutron setup has been pretty painless.

Rebelgecko 3y ago

Some things I do, all running locally with Home Assistant so minimal cloud shenanigans: * Turn the light red in my laundry room when a load is done * Turn all my lights off when I set my alarm at night * Slowly turn light on before my alarm goes off in the morning * Turn off lights when I leave the house, then turn on the one by my front door if I get home after dark None of these are life changing, but they're all marginally useful. And for me, half the fun is the sense of accomplishment getting these automations to work

jjtheblunt 3y ago

if you live in an inhospitable climate (arizona for example) with pets or perhaps otherwise disabled individuals left at home (grandparents?), remote ability to control thermostat has proven useful. that said, useful in this case means saving a bit of money by adjusting its settings. a manual (non cloud) thermostat would work too.

laserbeam 3y ago

So am I, but I really wanted to control lighting (color ans temperature) in my living room and smart bulbs was the easiest way I could do it. I had some random cheap polish wifi lights but the delays on controlling then just drove me off. Decided to switch to hue at some point and just color quality and responsiveness was better. I only have them for that and I love to adjust the mood via lighting. I don't care about any further automation. I also don't care much if it was Philips or someone else that gave me light bulbs.

bpicolo 3y ago

I've been really enjoying voice controls for my lights. It's not always more convenient than my lights, but overall I like the experience. With Apple TV + a home pod I also get a fair bit of TV control with my voice which is nice.

themagician 3y ago

I have a bunch of things at the office set to automatically turn off at a certain time or on command. It's helpful in that I don't leave something running that really shouldn't be, like a laminator, overnight. After that I decided to put an Alexa plug on anything that could potentially be a fire hazard if left on, like the air purifiers and fans. It's hardly a bulletproof solution but it's better than the old solution of, "Oh shit, I think I left X running… welp, time to waste 40 minutes driving back and forth."

000ooo000 3y ago

Webcam with motion detection pointed directly down at our cat litters. Motion triggers a lamp switching on so I can hopefully get to and remove any poo before the stench of it bleeds into the house.

dzhiurgis 3y ago

Opening garage with phone (esp via voice if your hands are full) is killer app. I don’t have to carry any keys anymore (not that we need to lock up often)

system2 3y ago

I can dim my backyard lights, turn on and off my porch light depending on the sun's position, control my home thermostat to heat or cool via phone before I am home, control my washing machine and dryer or know if they are done, open garage remotely with my app or close it, turn on any lights of the house or turn them off if I am in bed with my phone, control my TV via phone if I lose the remote (likely somewhere in the couch), also I use a lot of smart plugs to control individual devices such as fans, manual electric devices that are always set to be on, etc...

tayo42 3y ago

I have auto changing hue color lights for when I'm doing exctacy at home to give it a rave feel. I like to dim and make the color warm at night too. But every already said that hundred times.

skygazer 3y ago

I have much automated, but my favorite is a $20 multicolored hexagon WiFi light with a long usb power cable I nestled along the door frame from power to the light above my wife’s office door. I wrote a swift daemon to monitor her work mac’s camera and microphone usage as well as idle time, and decide whether to set the little hexagon over the door to red, yellow, green, or off depending on camera use, mic-only use, idle under or over threshold, respectively. That way I know whether I can safely interrupt, and with what degree of caution. It’s been a champ, but I did need to modify the code when she upgraded from intel to m1, to listen to camera logging events rather than checking the hardware directly, but other than that it makes me happy every time I walk by it. Second is more common, but also makes me happy every time: I put a contact sensor on the interior door to the attached garage that when opened quickly turns on the light to the garage, and turns it off a few minutes after that door next closes. It sure beats walking into a dark garage to fumble for a switch.

nonameiguess 3y ago

A lot of these answers conflate remote control with automation. Some of these devices seem to offer remote control, some offer actual automation. I also love not having to get up and hit arrow keys on my television monitor to change the channel. Likewise, my ceiling fans have radio controllers. It would be nice if lights had those as well. On the other hand, I feel no need for motion detectors, voice control, or any kind of service running on a server somewhere trying to learn when I want the lights on or off. But a switch that can be flipped without having to walk to wherever the wall-mounted switch is would be nice. That can be a simple radio device or infrared or whatever they prefer, just like a television remote. Don't need an app that requires an account with a remote service. Same thing with a thermostat. When I first married and moved in with my wife a decade ago, she had Nest thermostats and those things annoyed the hell out of me, using eco settings by default, requiring access to WiFi, trying to learn my living patterns. Some of these answers are right. The longstanding automation offered by thermostats was great. I like being able to program when I want specific temperatures in specific rooms and then it just happens. But that was enough. I don't need a cloud-based service to learn when I'm home and in what rooms. I already know that.

runeks 3y ago

I bought a Philips Hue lightbulb because it was the easiest way to get a dimmable lamp in my living room.