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For a fair part of the population, especially those using at home a crappy PC crashing twice a week, 'smart home stuff' means that some bug or backdoor may lead

For a fair part of the population, especially those using at home a crappy PC crashing twice a week, 'smart home stuff' means that some bug or backdoor may lead them into a mess: lock them out, let an intruder in, over/under-heat for weeks while they are out of town... They don't want any part of this.

xyzzy123 3y ago
I don't think I could bring myself to extensive home automation installed by a previous owner, especially if there are cameras in the system. I have no way to know they're not maintaining access somehow without re-installing / re-flashing everything and linking to "fresh" cloud accounts.
- phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
  Or sensors that register if you’re home or not. They could even install something that isn’t necessarily connected to the internet but can be remotely accessed from nearby.
Gigachad 3y ago
If I bought a house that had a bunch of IoT junk, my first step would be to rip it all out.
- j45 3y ago
  Agreed. At the same time any home automation needs to be able to be cloud and vendor independent. It begins with registering the property an independent email address for any accounts used during setups before taking them offline. Easy to manage for future tenant or sale. Gear is more able to be cloud independent or be made cloud independent, leaving a greater chance to leave at most a local wifi network and local appliance with touch screen (pi) that can peacefully operate without the internet, plugged in and hung on a wall like any other appliance in a mechanical room of the home. The more off the shelf parts can be, the greater the chance of it surviving.
  - jakupovic 3y ago
    You have a wishlist not something that you can buy. What's available now is a mix of random open and closed source hardware and software that requires a lot of time and HA to tie it all together
    - j45 3y ago
      I don’t disagree. With each iteration and replacement I’m discovering there’s more out there. For example instead of using a random computer or pi, installing a home assistant yellow presents to a future home owner as more of an appliance. https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/ https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/ This is a nice gateway for non technical but “I can find someone to help me with this system”. Same goes for particular groups of hardware. You’re night it’s a mix but the fact you can run most things on one platform fairly easily is pretty useful.
      - jakupovic 3y ago
        For myself HA has been the best thing since, like, forever. I personally love it, if not obvious. The hardware part is still complicated because of this pull-down stuff and just a mix of randomness as everyone is developing all kinds of things to do "stuff". HA ties it together enough to be useful and more. Just this morning I was thinking it's really cool I can try to correlate my waking with CO2/humidity levels and what happens when the furnace runs? For the curious, having furnace run helps everything
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bombcar 3y ago
  Exactly. What little smart home stuff I have that is still operating smartly will be ripped out when I sell, or just left to rot. It definitely changes my decisions on further purchases. No smart switches that don’t revert to being dumb if the smart stuff fails (as it always does).
pjerem 3y ago
Even as a tech-savvy person,'smart home stuff' does totally means bugs and backdoors everywhere if you just plug and play things. Of course there are available possibilities to take somehow full control of your automation with some Home Assistant or the likes but honestly, it’s really not that easy if you are not already a tinkerer. Great automation will also require more work and knowledge. As soon as you start playing with heating or venting, you are doing work that could require some background. It’s something to buy a nice smart thermostat, but it’s something else to understand where you may place it, how you may program it … It’s an interesting topic for those who like to tinker, but it’s very understandable that most people aren’t going to invest their time on it.

xyzzy123 3y ago

I don't think I could bring myself to extensive home automation installed by a previous owner, especially if there are cameras in the system. I have no way to know they're not maintaining access somehow without re-installing / re-flashing everything and linking to "fresh" cloud accounts.

phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
Or sensors that register if you’re home or not. They could even install something that isn’t necessarily connected to the internet but can be remotely accessed from nearby.

Gigachad 3y ago

If I bought a house that had a bunch of IoT junk, my first step would be to rip it all out.

j45 3y ago
Agreed. At the same time any home automation needs to be able to be cloud and vendor independent. It begins with registering the property an independent email address for any accounts used during setups before taking them offline. Easy to manage for future tenant or sale. Gear is more able to be cloud independent or be made cloud independent, leaving a greater chance to leave at most a local wifi network and local appliance with touch screen (pi) that can peacefully operate without the internet, plugged in and hung on a wall like any other appliance in a mechanical room of the home. The more off the shelf parts can be, the greater the chance of it surviving.
- jakupovic 3y ago
  You have a wishlist not something that you can buy. What's available now is a mix of random open and closed source hardware and software that requires a lot of time and HA to tie it all together
  - j45 3y ago
    I don’t disagree. With each iteration and replacement I’m discovering there’s more out there. For example instead of using a random computer or pi, installing a home assistant yellow presents to a future home owner as more of an appliance. https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/ https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/ This is a nice gateway for non technical but “I can find someone to help me with this system”. Same goes for particular groups of hardware. You’re night it’s a mix but the fact you can run most things on one platform fairly easily is pretty useful.
    - jakupovic 3y ago
      For myself HA has been the best thing since, like, forever. I personally love it, if not obvious. The hardware part is still complicated because of this pull-down stuff and just a mix of randomness as everyone is developing all kinds of things to do "stuff". HA ties it together enough to be useful and more. Just this morning I was thinking it's really cool I can try to correlate my waking with CO2/humidity levels and what happens when the furnace runs? For the curious, having furnace run helps everything
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bombcar 3y ago
Exactly. What little smart home stuff I have that is still operating smartly will be ripped out when I sell, or just left to rot. It definitely changes my decisions on further purchases. No smart switches that don’t revert to being dumb if the smart stuff fails (as it always does).

pjerem 3y ago

Even as a tech-savvy person,'smart home stuff' does totally means bugs and backdoors everywhere if you just plug and play things. Of course there are available possibilities to take somehow full control of your automation with some Home Assistant or the likes but honestly, it’s really not that easy if you are not already a tinkerer. Great automation will also require more work and knowledge. As soon as you start playing with heating or venting, you are doing work that could require some background. It’s something to buy a nice smart thermostat, but it’s something else to understand where you may place it, how you may program it … It’s an interesting topic for those who like to tinker, but it’s very understandable that most people aren’t going to invest their time on it.