21 ms·

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smar

by efitz 3y ago

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart device. I avoided things where you had to configure power-on default behaviors, and where you had to cycle power or disconnect the device to reset it. For this reasons I have no smart light bulbs in my house. I replaced every light switch with a smart light switch, and if anything goes wrong, walking over and using the switch will turn the light on or off. Most of my automation is "zero touch" flavored - I want the house to do what I want without me triggering anything. For instance, I have luminance sensors in several rooms and during the day if it gets gloomy or overcast, or near dusk, it turns lights on. I also use occupancy sensors to turn lights on and off, and have multiple rules to set lights to the appropriate brightness based on time of day (after bedtime, the lights still come on when someone goes in the bathroom, but very dim, etc.). All this happens locally via HomeKit or HomeAssistant. And, if automation fails, then the switches still work.

zzo38computer 3y ago
> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart device. I do not need smart home, but if you do, then I think that you are right. This is a good idea and is the most important idea.
moandcompany 3y ago
> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL This is a solid principle. Another rule I include with this is that the "Smart Home" should still be able to operate and be controlled like a non "Smart Home" by a regular person. (e.g. light switches, thermostat, door locks)
- efitz 3y ago
  Yes, this was the natural consequence of my rule. I have to travel on business from time to time and didn’t want a tech support call in the middle of the night when I’m halfway around the world because my family couldn’t turn the lights on :-)
- cameldrv 3y ago
  Yep, I remember staying over at a friends's apartment that had just installed hue lightbulbs everywhere, and then put tape over their normal light switches. As he's putting the sheets on the pull-out couch, he says "if you get up in the middle of the night, you'll need this app to turn on the light..."
  - happymellon 3y ago
    Such a horrible design. I've got dumb bulbs and smart dimmers/switches so everything can be smart, and also can be used by normal people.
  - mdekkers 3y ago
    Thats not Hue’s fault though, your friend should be better at planning and implementing their Hue implementation. Hue bulbs default to “normal on” when power is restored, and also work with sensors, dimmers, and switches.
    - cameldrv 3y ago
      No, it's fundamentally impossible. He wants to be able to control his lights from his phone, and that's impossible if the lights have no power. The only way for his lights to have power at all times is for the light switch to be on, but I don't want that when I'm sleeping. Therefore, the switch must be on but the light off, so to turn the light on, I need an app.
      - mdekkers 3y ago
        Sorry, you are incorrect. I have a house full of Hue devices, for many years now. I also have many houseguests. Not once did I ask any of them (or my wife, for that matter) to use an app to do anything in my home. To turn the light on or off, everyone here either uses Hue switches, or just walk into the space, if it is a common space, where the motion sensors takes care of things.
m463 3y ago
> For this reasons I have no smart light bulbs in my house. hmm... wonder why bulbs can't fail normal. maybe they should make bulbs with a deadman switch. If they don't get a "ping" from a controller in a certain amount of time, they revert to normal light bulbs? or yeah... smart switches.
- moandcompany 3y ago
  In my experience, unless you have a strong need for something like dynamic color temperature control over your light bulbs/fixtures, it's more practical and economical over time to use a "smart" light switch, rather than a "smart" light bulb. The smart bulbs may have appeal for people that are unable or not allowed to modify their light switches. By keeping the "smarts" at the switch level, you have a lot more choice in what bulbs you use (e.g. along color temperature, color rendition, light output, power consumption/efficiency, etc) versus the smart bulb. The Lutron Caseta series of lighting products are basically the gold standard for being "fail normal" functional without network connectivity to the system control bridge, and the system also uses different RF frequencies than 2.4GHz Wifi based "smart" switches, so it doesn't rely on or potentially create congestion issues on your home Wifi network(s).
  - wincy 3y ago
    We use the hue lights as night lights, and have them turn red, then off on a schedule. I have to turn them on and off again to reset them to white but my 6 year old knows how to do it, so that feels simple enough to me.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    We have a fan/light in our bedroom that has a single switch and two chain pulls. We use smart bulbs for that light (I think it was $30 for two, so that the fan can function independently. Also avoids the need to install a custom light switch. I suppose if the bulbs burn out faster than other LED bulbs, it might be worth it to do something else. But if the bulbs last a decent amount of time, and assuming prices keep going down, I imagine we'll get smart bulbs again to replace them.
- 3y ago
thrdbndndn 3y ago
> I avoided things [..] where you had to cycle power or disconnect the device to reset it I totally agree with your principle about fail normal, but how is this a violation to that?
- tass 3y ago
  I’m not who you’re replying to, but in my case the hub being unavailable should mean everything can still work as normal. For a lot of smart bulbs, a busted hub means you can only control them by switching them off then back on since you were relying on the hub to control them. Some switches allow for direct control of zigbee or zwave smart bulbs so even if the hub is non functional, a press of the switch will still toggle or even dim them.
sh1mmer 3y ago
> after bedtime, the lights still come on when someone goes in the bathroom, but very dim, etc. I’d be curious to hear more about this. Most of the “smart” light solutions I’ve tried struggle to go directly to a specific lighting level without some bright flash as they activate. What brand switches/lights are you using to do this with?
- tass 3y ago
  I have a similar setup, and use a mix of Leviton, Inovelli and Lutron switches. No flashes from any of them.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  (Not the parent poster) I have Phillips Hue lights and they can turn onto a dim setting without a bright flash. They also can fail-normal if you change the default settings. They've added a popup to the app recently saying that soon Hue will require an account to work though, so I don't recommend them anymore. I've been meaning to move them to a separate offline network before they force update them to require an account. I originally purchased them because of how well they functioned locally without needing any Phillips cloud stuff. But sometimes I still use the official app instead of my homebrew setup. If you own your own home, smart switches with dumb dimming capable lights are the way to go IMO. I'm still renting though.
- basch 3y ago
  I’ve had wemo switches on a nighttime schedule. Dim at night, bright during the day, no flashing.
- happymellon 3y ago
  None of my Candeo dimmers flash.
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  Most commercial lighting controls allow you to preset the initial dimming level. Acuity, Lutron, Leviton, Wattstopper, Hubbell, etc. I’d stay away from consumer grade stuff, it’s pretty much all garbage. Commercial controls will come with a 5 year warranty. Most commercial lighting controls have 0-10v dimming, but you can get forward or reverse phase line voltage dimmers to use with consumer grade LED lamps (bulbs).
2Gkashmiri 3y ago
I recently bought some Philips wiz switches. I could have bought cheaper for literally 1/4 cost but they are internet first with zero local support or like tuya which is offline but still needs internet to work. Most of the stuff either looks to be subsidized to keep online access which will earn data or offline capability is charged more because they dont get data
- WWLink 3y ago
  Interestingly, you can control wiz lights with OpenRGB. It doesn't really surprise me lol. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenRGB/comments/jptv2a/philips_wiz_support/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenRGB/comments/jptv2a/philips_wiz... There's also a home assistant thing for them.
  - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
    yeah. i plan to use it exclusively for home assistant completely off grid
godelski 3y ago
> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. I'm often surprised how little discussion I see of failure analysis and especially failure design is in software engineering. It is one of the most important concepts in engineering, but I guess we still operate like software can't kill you. For those unfamiliar with this type of analysis I'll give you 3 examples. 1) Imagine you are building skyscrapers in city with a bunch of other skyscrapers. You don't expect them to fall but you question what happens if they do. You will explicitly design them to fall in on themselves (say after... idk... a plane hits them?) so that they do not fall on their side and take out other buildings around them. An important aspect of security design is explicitly around this whole idea. When your systems fail do you want them to "fail open" or "fail closed"? 2) Fail open would be like TSA, where if you start firing off rounds in the queue the system fails and you get "access" to the rest of the airport. 3) Failing closed is typical of safes, where you accept the fact that you will need to take a blowtorch and drill into the safe. (the TSA thing did happen, just not in America) While these examples are a bit extreme the ideas are incredibly important for many products. I'll give a good example of this by looking at Android Auto. If a user gets frustrated with the system and is not able to accomplish their task in the way __they want to__, they will disconnect their phone, look down at it, do the thing, and reconnect. No matter how much you want to push voice operations, if the person doesn't like that, they fail over to a more dangerous set of actions than if you had just let them use the console a little longer or let them do a specific task. At least their eyes would be closer towards the road. I'm often amazed that there are lack of consideration for these type of things in home and auto platforms where there are often high stakes. How things fail is one of the most important things when designing systems (I'd argue it even matters for things like law and medicine).
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  > I'm often surprised how little discussion I see of failure analysis and especially failure design is in software engineering. It is one of the most important concepts in engineering, but I guess we still operate like software can't kill you. This is a major reason why many "traditional" engineers do not consider programmers to be true engineers.
  - 3y ago
j45 3y ago
I started with Lutron Caseta switches specifically for the fail normal feature. They even had wireless remotes for their switches that require no software or cloud at all.
rkagerer 3y ago
What's your favored smart switch brand? I went Leviton as they looked the most like low-key, plain-old On/Off lightswitches. But the reliability has been terrible - constantly dropping off the network or requiring a reset (at least the early models I have). It's disappointing considering I thought it was a well-established brand; after dealing with some of their tech support / engineers I'm of the solid opinion they should stick to non-smart appliances.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  The feature I want doesn't seem to exist. I'd like what looks like a conventional switch, but with a solenoid that flips it up and down to reflect the status of the light. It'd be even cooler in two-ways, where using the switch on the one side of the room causes the other switch to match. Not sure why this isn't available either.
  - sdflhasjd 3y ago
    A British company called Den had a product that was exactly this. Sadly it was very expensive and also locked down to their private cloud. The company went bust and took everyone's 'smart' homes with them.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    The next best thing I've seen are the smart switches that are just two buttons, up and down for on and off. I just want to be able to hit up for on, the actual switch state is less of a concern. That's been my annoyance with two-ways. I've ordered some Inovelli switches which do this and have an RGB LED if I need a state status indicator.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      Grew up when they were always switches... not sure I can change. I can't feel around in the dark for two buttons, and know what the hell they are.
gnicholas 3y ago
Do your luminance sensors trigger lights to go on automatically, or just in conjunction with motion? Also, how do you set up HomeKit rules to make this happen?
hasoleju 3y ago
Can you explain the steps you have to take if you want to move through your house without the lights? Is the switch always "on" and the sensor then turns on the light and you just have to turn the switch "off"? And then if the switch is turned "off" will you need to first turn it "on" again in order to make the automation work properly again?
- jhot 3y ago
  All the switches I've bought are different from normal ones. They are always in a central position and you push on the top for on and bottom for off. Some are also just a single button and pressing it toggles the light.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Smart switches are always on to the switch, which then switches the light on/off either via buttons or the network. So it doesn't matter if you manually turn them on/off - they remain network accessible. This is why they're strictly nicer to use than smart bulbs. Even if you want smart bulbs, you'll probably want smart switches too, but if you have smart switches you only really get a benefit from smart bulbs if you want to control the colour of the light.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    > you only really get a benefit from smart bulbs if you want to control the colour of the light You can control brightness of a smart bulb. Not all dumb bulbs are dimmer-friendly. That said, you can always replace those with dimmable dumb ones.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      That's true, I guess I should have expressed that slightly differently - my point was that the only capability you can't get from "just" a smart switch irrespective of your choice of bulbs is changing colour. But also, smart bulbs with a dumb dimmer is the worst combination, so if upgrading somewhere, if it has dimmer switches that's an extra reason to replace the switch too, irrespective of whether you also replace the bulbs...
glial 3y ago
> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL This is the Mitch Hedberg Rule. "An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience."
- indrora 3y ago
  Aside: The reason that escalators cannot be stairs in much of the US, despite looking like stairs, is actually a human ergonomics and code violation problem: inconsistent rise/run and pitch in stairs causes people to trip, then cascade down. Bad times.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    Yeah, generally escalators are pretty bad stairs. Steps are too high and narrow for their height, which can be dangerous on the way down and quite tiring on the way up! In most places that have both, stairs tend to have about twice as many steps as the equivalent escalator.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  I hate that quote, because it's dangerously false. Even if the power is off, that doesn't mean it's safe to stand on it. One example would be if the gearing breaks so that the segments move freely: Congratulations, you and the crowd--given false confidence by a comedian's joke--just piled onto the top of a downhill treadmill... It will now accelerate until you crash into a smothering crunchy heap at the bottom.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
FriedPickles 3y ago
I so badly want an old school flippy light switch that physically flips when toggled by the smart home. IMO that would be the first smart home product strictly superior to its analog counterpart.
- Larrikin 3y ago
  A pressable button that toggles the light state achieves the same thing without the need for a motor.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    Yeah this. Shelly relays can work that way.
  - FriedPickles 3y ago
    But they don't physically show their state, don't persist across power outages, and are much less satisfying to operate.
    - Larrikin 3y ago
      I usually look at the lights instead of the switch to determine if the lights are on. I haven't experienced many outages recently, but I'm fine with lights off until I turn them back on as a default. Its also possible to just have the lights revert back to their previous state as an automation in HA, although it seems like a waste of time to program instead of turning lights back on as you need them.
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  fingerbot. yes, a real thing
jjav 3y ago
> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL Yes, this, you get it. I can't believe how many people I talk to are happy to install permanent things in their home that have a strong dependency on (a) the internet being up, (b) the company still existing, (c) the app still being supported. Things installed in a house have a lifetime measured in decades. IoT companies and apps have lifetimes measured in months. This is not compatible.
Moldoteck 3y ago
i wouldn't be so against 'smart lights'. There must be a brand that could still satisfy your needs. One advantage of 'smart lights' is the option to dim the light closer to the night when you prepare to sleep, you kinda adapt the light to be weaker for your body to be prepared for sleep in 1-2hrs
avryhof 3y ago
Do you have a list of devices you use? It would be very helpful, since HomeAssistant has hundreds of integrations, and it's a lot of work to track down devices that - - FAIL NORMAL - WORK OFFLINE - YOU CAN STILL BUY I really want my smart home devices to meet these criteria, but at the same time I have a bunch of other stuff I do.... so it would be awesome to have a starting point from people who have done it already. Mozilla used to have such a database, but seems to have forgotten it.
- dns_snek 3y ago
  "Work offline" and "You can still buy" are satisfied by looking for Zigbee, Zwave, or Thread/Matter based devices. These don't connect to the internet by design and require an inexpensive dongle to form a mesh network. In very few cases WiFi devices with local HTTP API or MQTT are perfectly fine as well, a good criteria to look at is whether Tasmota or ESPhome (alt firmware) list support for them. "Fail normal" would be trickier, I don't think there's one size fits all. For lights, prefer switch relays over smart bulbs. Look out for customizable "default" state when power comes back on.

by efitz 3y ago

zzo38computer 3y ago

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart device. I do not need smart home, but if you do, then I think that you are right. This is a good idea and is the most important idea.

moandcompany 3y ago

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL This is a solid principle. Another rule I include with this is that the "Smart Home" should still be able to operate and be controlled like a non "Smart Home" by a regular person. (e.g. light switches, thermostat, door locks)

efitz 3y ago
Yes, this was the natural consequence of my rule. I have to travel on business from time to time and didn’t want a tech support call in the middle of the night when I’m halfway around the world because my family couldn’t turn the lights on :-)
cameldrv 3y ago
Yep, I remember staying over at a friends's apartment that had just installed hue lightbulbs everywhere, and then put tape over their normal light switches. As he's putting the sheets on the pull-out couch, he says "if you get up in the middle of the night, you'll need this app to turn on the light..."
- happymellon 3y ago
  Such a horrible design. I've got dumb bulbs and smart dimmers/switches so everything can be smart, and also can be used by normal people.
- mdekkers 3y ago
  Thats not Hue’s fault though, your friend should be better at planning and implementing their Hue implementation. Hue bulbs default to “normal on” when power is restored, and also work with sensors, dimmers, and switches.
  - cameldrv 3y ago
    No, it's fundamentally impossible. He wants to be able to control his lights from his phone, and that's impossible if the lights have no power. The only way for his lights to have power at all times is for the light switch to be on, but I don't want that when I'm sleeping. Therefore, the switch must be on but the light off, so to turn the light on, I need an app.
    - mdekkers 3y ago
      Sorry, you are incorrect. I have a house full of Hue devices, for many years now. I also have many houseguests. Not once did I ask any of them (or my wife, for that matter) to use an app to do anything in my home. To turn the light on or off, everyone here either uses Hue switches, or just walk into the space, if it is a common space, where the motion sensors takes care of things.

m463 3y ago

> For this reasons I have no smart light bulbs in my house. hmm... wonder why bulbs can't fail normal. maybe they should make bulbs with a deadman switch. If they don't get a "ping" from a controller in a certain amount of time, they revert to normal light bulbs? or yeah... smart switches.

moandcompany 3y ago
In my experience, unless you have a strong need for something like dynamic color temperature control over your light bulbs/fixtures, it's more practical and economical over time to use a "smart" light switch, rather than a "smart" light bulb. The smart bulbs may have appeal for people that are unable or not allowed to modify their light switches. By keeping the "smarts" at the switch level, you have a lot more choice in what bulbs you use (e.g. along color temperature, color rendition, light output, power consumption/efficiency, etc) versus the smart bulb. The Lutron Caseta series of lighting products are basically the gold standard for being "fail normal" functional without network connectivity to the system control bridge, and the system also uses different RF frequencies than 2.4GHz Wifi based "smart" switches, so it doesn't rely on or potentially create congestion issues on your home Wifi network(s).
- wincy 3y ago
  We use the hue lights as night lights, and have them turn red, then off on a schedule. I have to turn them on and off again to reset them to white but my 6 year old knows how to do it, so that feels simple enough to me.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  We have a fan/light in our bedroom that has a single switch and two chain pulls. We use smart bulbs for that light (I think it was $30 for two, so that the fan can function independently. Also avoids the need to install a custom light switch. I suppose if the bulbs burn out faster than other LED bulbs, it might be worth it to do something else. But if the bulbs last a decent amount of time, and assuming prices keep going down, I imagine we'll get smart bulbs again to replace them.
3y ago

thrdbndndn 3y ago

> I avoided things [..] where you had to cycle power or disconnect the device to reset it I totally agree with your principle about fail normal, but how is this a violation to that?

tass 3y ago
I’m not who you’re replying to, but in my case the hub being unavailable should mean everything can still work as normal. For a lot of smart bulbs, a busted hub means you can only control them by switching them off then back on since you were relying on the hub to control them. Some switches allow for direct control of zigbee or zwave smart bulbs so even if the hub is non functional, a press of the switch will still toggle or even dim them.

sh1mmer 3y ago

> after bedtime, the lights still come on when someone goes in the bathroom, but very dim, etc. I’d be curious to hear more about this. Most of the “smart” light solutions I’ve tried struggle to go directly to a specific lighting level without some bright flash as they activate. What brand switches/lights are you using to do this with?

tass 3y ago
I have a similar setup, and use a mix of Leviton, Inovelli and Lutron switches. No flashes from any of them.
squeaky-clean 3y ago
(Not the parent poster) I have Phillips Hue lights and they can turn onto a dim setting without a bright flash. They also can fail-normal if you change the default settings. They've added a popup to the app recently saying that soon Hue will require an account to work though, so I don't recommend them anymore. I've been meaning to move them to a separate offline network before they force update them to require an account. I originally purchased them because of how well they functioned locally without needing any Phillips cloud stuff. But sometimes I still use the official app instead of my homebrew setup. If you own your own home, smart switches with dumb dimming capable lights are the way to go IMO. I'm still renting though.
basch 3y ago
I’ve had wemo switches on a nighttime schedule. Dim at night, bright during the day, no flashing.
happymellon 3y ago
None of my Candeo dimmers flash.
quickthrowman 3y ago
Most commercial lighting controls allow you to preset the initial dimming level. Acuity, Lutron, Leviton, Wattstopper, Hubbell, etc. I’d stay away from consumer grade stuff, it’s pretty much all garbage. Commercial controls will come with a 5 year warranty. Most commercial lighting controls have 0-10v dimming, but you can get forward or reverse phase line voltage dimmers to use with consumer grade LED lamps (bulbs).

2Gkashmiri 3y ago

I recently bought some Philips wiz switches. I could have bought cheaper for literally 1/4 cost but they are internet first with zero local support or like tuya which is offline but still needs internet to work. Most of the stuff either looks to be subsidized to keep online access which will earn data or offline capability is charged more because they dont get data

WWLink 3y ago
Interestingly, you can control wiz lights with OpenRGB. It doesn't really surprise me lol. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenRGB/comments/jptv2a/philips_wiz_support/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenRGB/comments/jptv2a/philips_wiz... There's also a home assistant thing for them.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  yeah. i plan to use it exclusively for home assistant completely off grid

godelski 3y ago

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. I'm often surprised how little discussion I see of failure analysis and especially failure design is in software engineering. It is one of the most important concepts in engineering, but I guess we still operate like software can't kill you. For those unfamiliar with this type of analysis I'll give you 3 examples. 1) Imagine you are building skyscrapers in city with a bunch of other skyscrapers. You don't expect them to fall but you question what happens if they do. You will explicitly design them to fall in on themselves (say after... idk... a plane hits them?) so that they do not fall on their side and take out other buildings around them. An important aspect of security design is explicitly around this whole idea. When your systems fail do you want them to "fail open" or "fail closed"? 2) Fail open would be like TSA, where if you start firing off rounds in the queue the system fails and you get "access" to the rest of the airport. 3) Failing closed is typical of safes, where you accept the fact that you will need to take a blowtorch and drill into the safe. (the TSA thing did happen, just not in America) While these examples are a bit extreme the ideas are incredibly important for many products. I'll give a good example of this by looking at Android Auto. If a user gets frustrated with the system and is not able to accomplish their task in the way __they want to__, they will disconnect their phone, look down at it, do the thing, and reconnect. No matter how much you want to push voice operations, if the person doesn't like that, they fail over to a more dangerous set of actions than if you had just let them use the console a little longer or let them do a specific task. At least their eyes would be closer towards the road. I'm often amazed that there are lack of consideration for these type of things in home and auto platforms where there are often high stakes. How things fail is one of the most important things when designing systems (I'd argue it even matters for things like law and medicine).

syndicatedjelly 3y ago
> I'm often surprised how little discussion I see of failure analysis and especially failure design is in software engineering. It is one of the most important concepts in engineering, but I guess we still operate like software can't kill you. This is a major reason why many "traditional" engineers do not consider programmers to be true engineers.
- 3y ago

j45 3y ago

I started with Lutron Caseta switches specifically for the fail normal feature. They even had wireless remotes for their switches that require no software or cloud at all.

rkagerer 3y ago

What's your favored smart switch brand? I went Leviton as they looked the most like low-key, plain-old On/Off lightswitches. But the reliability has been terrible - constantly dropping off the network or requiring a reset (at least the early models I have). It's disappointing considering I thought it was a well-established brand; after dealing with some of their tech support / engineers I'm of the solid opinion they should stick to non-smart appliances.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
The feature I want doesn't seem to exist. I'd like what looks like a conventional switch, but with a solenoid that flips it up and down to reflect the status of the light. It'd be even cooler in two-ways, where using the switch on the one side of the room causes the other switch to match. Not sure why this isn't available either.
- sdflhasjd 3y ago
  A British company called Den had a product that was exactly this. Sadly it was very expensive and also locked down to their private cloud. The company went bust and took everyone's 'smart' homes with them.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  The next best thing I've seen are the smart switches that are just two buttons, up and down for on and off. I just want to be able to hit up for on, the actual switch state is less of a concern. That's been my annoyance with two-ways. I've ordered some Inovelli switches which do this and have an RGB LED if I need a state status indicator.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    Grew up when they were always switches... not sure I can change. I can't feel around in the dark for two buttons, and know what the hell they are.

gnicholas 3y ago

Do your luminance sensors trigger lights to go on automatically, or just in conjunction with motion? Also, how do you set up HomeKit rules to make this happen?

hasoleju 3y ago

Can you explain the steps you have to take if you want to move through your house without the lights? Is the switch always "on" and the sensor then turns on the light and you just have to turn the switch "off"? And then if the switch is turned "off" will you need to first turn it "on" again in order to make the automation work properly again?

jhot 3y ago
All the switches I've bought are different from normal ones. They are always in a central position and you push on the top for on and bottom for off. Some are also just a single button and pressing it toggles the light.
vidarh 3y ago
Smart switches are always on to the switch, which then switches the light on/off either via buttons or the network. So it doesn't matter if you manually turn them on/off - they remain network accessible. This is why they're strictly nicer to use than smart bulbs. Even if you want smart bulbs, you'll probably want smart switches too, but if you have smart switches you only really get a benefit from smart bulbs if you want to control the colour of the light.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  > you only really get a benefit from smart bulbs if you want to control the colour of the light You can control brightness of a smart bulb. Not all dumb bulbs are dimmer-friendly. That said, you can always replace those with dimmable dumb ones.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    That's true, I guess I should have expressed that slightly differently - my point was that the only capability you can't get from "just" a smart switch irrespective of your choice of bulbs is changing colour. But also, smart bulbs with a dumb dimmer is the worst combination, so if upgrading somewhere, if it has dimmer switches that's an extra reason to replace the switch too, irrespective of whether you also replace the bulbs...

glial 3y ago

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL This is the Mitch Hedberg Rule. "An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

indrora 3y ago
Aside: The reason that escalators cannot be stairs in much of the US, despite looking like stairs, is actually a human ergonomics and code violation problem: inconsistent rise/run and pitch in stairs causes people to trip, then cascade down. Bad times.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  Yeah, generally escalators are pretty bad stairs. Steps are too high and narrow for their height, which can be dangerous on the way down and quite tiring on the way up! In most places that have both, stairs tend to have about twice as many steps as the equivalent escalator.
Terr_ 3y ago
I hate that quote, because it's dangerously false. Even if the power is off, that doesn't mean it's safe to stand on it. One example would be if the gearing breaks so that the segments move freely: Congratulations, you and the crowd--given false confidence by a comedian's joke--just piled onto the top of a downhill treadmill... It will now accelerate until you crash into a smothering crunchy heap at the bottom.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

FriedPickles 3y ago

I so badly want an old school flippy light switch that physically flips when toggled by the smart home. IMO that would be the first smart home product strictly superior to its analog counterpart.

Larrikin 3y ago
A pressable button that toggles the light state achieves the same thing without the need for a motor.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  Yeah this. Shelly relays can work that way.
- FriedPickles 3y ago
  But they don't physically show their state, don't persist across power outages, and are much less satisfying to operate.
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    I usually look at the lights instead of the switch to determine if the lights are on. I haven't experienced many outages recently, but I'm fine with lights off until I turn them back on as a default. Its also possible to just have the lights revert back to their previous state as an automation in HA, although it seems like a waste of time to program instead of turning lights back on as you need them.
ChainOfFools 3y ago
fingerbot. yes, a real thing

jjav 3y ago

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL Yes, this, you get it. I can't believe how many people I talk to are happy to install permanent things in their home that have a strong dependency on (a) the internet being up, (b) the company still existing, (c) the app still being supported. Things installed in a house have a lifetime measured in decades. IoT companies and apps have lifetimes measured in months. This is not compatible.

Moldoteck 3y ago

i wouldn't be so against 'smart lights'. There must be a brand that could still satisfy your needs. One advantage of 'smart lights' is the option to dim the light closer to the night when you prepare to sleep, you kinda adapt the light to be weaker for your body to be prepared for sleep in 1-2hrs

avryhof 3y ago

Do you have a list of devices you use? It would be very helpful, since HomeAssistant has hundreds of integrations, and it's a lot of work to track down devices that - - FAIL NORMAL - WORK OFFLINE - YOU CAN STILL BUY I really want my smart home devices to meet these criteria, but at the same time I have a bunch of other stuff I do.... so it would be awesome to have a starting point from people who have done it already. Mozilla used to have such a database, but seems to have forgotten it.

dns_snek 3y ago
"Work offline" and "You can still buy" are satisfied by looking for Zigbee, Zwave, or Thread/Matter based devices. These don't connect to the internet by design and require an inexpensive dongle to form a mesh network. In very few cases WiFi devices with local HTTP API or MQTT are perfectly fine as well, a good criteria to look at is whether Tasmota or ESPhome (alt firmware) list support for them. "Fail normal" would be trickier, I don't think there's one size fits all. For lights, prefer switch relays over smart bulbs. Look out for customizable "default" state when power comes back on.