3 ms·
I recently had to get a lot of electrical stuff in my house redone because of a kitchen fire, smoke mitigation, and a lot of stuff being opened up anyway. I to
by ghaff 1y ago
I recently had to get a lot of electrical stuff in my house redone because of a kitchen fire, smoke mitigation, and a lot of stuff being opened up anyway.
I told my electrician to redo lighting in a more sensible and modern way but basically nothing involving smart devices -- to which he wholeheartedly agreed. There are a couple things that aren't quite convenient related to how everything is positioned and because a couple of motion detectors weren't reconnected. And I'll deal with those with unconnected devices.
So I had an opportunity to make the house "smart" and basically passed.
(Will probably add some remote monitoring over time but nothing fancy and mostly Raspberry Pi-based.)
- devjab 1y agoI have smart lighting, but that's only because it means I can turn everything in the area living and eating room on/off with a single button/switch (not sure what the right English term is). In a typical Danish townhouse like mine that would be 4-8 buttons otherwise. If I had an electrician redo the wiring, I'd do the same thing without the "smart".
- sethhochberg 1y agoI don't know if they're available in other markets, but in the US I've been very happy with Lutron Caseta switches for that sort of "smart enough" use case. It generally all works like normal dumb switches if the hub is offline or doesn't exist, and you only need the hub to manage configuration or enable the remote control (outside home) features. The fact that the switches look like, act like, and install like traditional dimmers and control traditional light fixtures is really what sold me: I've never liked the idea of the smart parts being in something like a light bulb thats basically a replaceable wear item.
- ghaff 1y agoExactly. My electrician did a bunch of simplification--kitchen/dining had 3 different switches for historical/random reasons--and one room which never had a switch (originally an overhead pull-chain light) was redone for a variety of reasons given extensive down-to-the-studs work was needed anyway. Used a fair bit of X10 at one point and that one remaining room had an Alexa-controlled plug for a wall-mounted light. (He also took out a ton of knob and tube wiring which gives you some idea of when the original wiring dated to even if a lot had been incrementally upgraded over the years.)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nahuel0x 1y agoYou can wire a house in an smart way without relying on Wifi or Internet, using protocols like KNX-LP... maybe also with CAN-bus?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sjw987 1y agoI'll admit, despite hating the idea of most "smart" tech, I do still have the lights. The ability to change the colour (mostly warmness) through the day and turn on individual lights is pretty neat. I've been using an energized white light during early hours and work, and then warmer colours in the evening to help wind down. At the time it was an upgrade from halogen bulbs, so the lights themselves have seen me through 10 years so far, way more than the old lights would have. Sadly, they're all bound to go some point soon. It has been 10 years though! I would never enable the feature that lets you control them from out of the home though. I'm not completely sure what the purpose of that would be..
- chipsrafferty 1y agoI made a guest network called Light Bulb Zone just because I don't trust the tech on these devices to be very sound, and I want them to be sequestered to their own network.