5 ms·

Any home tech gadgets. Robot vacuums, smart lights, smart thermostats, internet connected TVs and appliances, most kitchen gadgets especially if they require po

Any home tech gadgets. Robot vacuums, smart lights, smart thermostats, internet connected TVs and appliances, most kitchen gadgets especially if they require power. None of it lives up to the hype and it's all e-waste in a couple of years if not sooner.

uhhhd 11mo ago
So true, why is that whole sector so bad?
- wisty 11mo ago
  People want to spend money to fix a problem that fundamentally requires effort on their part, not tech. Vacuuming is actually the easiest bit of cleaning a house IMO - getting the floor clear (if you have kids, or out of control hobbies, or are just lazy or a bit of a horder) is hard. People aren't stupid, they kind of know this. But just like buying expensive gym equipment they think that a new toy will incentivise them do the hard bits. "If I buy a new gizmo I'll finally start cooking healthy delicious food" is a great pitch.
  - mingus88 11mo ago
    Eh, our Roborock vac has been a net positive It was “easy” to vacuum before but we never did a thorough job. All too often we just vacuum what we can see, never under the couches, etc. Now that we have to move everything so it can complete the full map we have a much cleaner house. It encourages us to move all of the chairs, toys, etc.
- olowe 11mo ago
  Couple of anecdotes from the dev side. I worked on an IoT project at one of the big German car makers and it was a mess. More money than sense. They didn't really have any idea why they were putting software into stuff. Just some vague notion that some software systems needed to exist to then present its existence to the next boss up; presumably all the way up and out to investors. Discussing the actual functionality or how the product(s) would actually be experienced in the real world was essentially taboo. There was a podcast called garbage.fm [1] with one of the hosts working for General Electric at the time it was recorded. It sounded like GE were yet another one of those incumbent companies doing "smart" Internet of Things products just because they were worried about being left behind. [1]: https://garbage.jcs.org https://garbage.jcs.org
circuit10 11mo ago
I like my smart light, though I only use it to turn the light off without having to get out of bed
lesuorac 11mo ago
Can't speak to most of those but smart lights are pretty nice. I made sure to buy zigbee ones so that I'm just tied to home assistant which even if it goes out of business will still work with whatever binaries I've downloaded already (as well as it works locally so I can control them during internet outages). I'm sure somebody else can explain why you should get Thread or Matter nowendays but I never bothered to learn the differences. But yeah, the average life of a company is what 1 year? Don't get any product you want for more than 5 years from a company younger than 5 years if you need that company to exist for it to work.
- reaperducer 11mo ago
  smart lights are pretty nice… I made sure to buy zigbee ones The connectivity doesn't matter when it's the actual filaments/LEDs that burn out after only a year or two. Even buying a big name like Sylvania doesn't help. I had eight Sylvania smart bulbs burn out or go into endless flicker fits in under a year. They're all in a landfill now. Of course, that's better than when Feit Electric sent out a firmware update that deliberately bricked all of its smart bulb controller boxes with nothing more than an e-mail telling people it was done. (This was before Apple Home or Google Home existed.)
  - bradlys 11mo ago
    I haven’t had this issue at all and I’ve had some of my Philips Hue bulbs for close to ten years. Mind you, one would expect them to work for a long time considering they’re (probably) the most expensive on the market.
  - QuiEgo 11mo ago
    Smart switches > smart bulbs
    - lesuorac 11mo ago
      Isn't switches just more brittle and less control? I can set individual colors and intensity on the lights as well as with a dumb switch I can also have the lights just come on so if I were to sell the house or whatever the next person wouldn't need to have home assistant to work anything in the house.
bilsbie 11mo ago
Robot vacuums are the worst. I have to help it every thirty minutes. And anytime I close a door or move something it wants to create a new map. The old randomized ones were actually better.
- Waterluvian 11mo ago
  I was worried about this. Especially as a roboticist who deals with making tools to help people do this for fleets of robots. But I thought I’d try this $450 Eufy bot and the thing is pretty much foolproof. Just have to clean up the Lego first…
- registeredcorn 11mo ago
  What kind of Robot Vacuum did you have? I had mine map the house once downstairs, and once upstairs and it's been fine navigating around stuff ever since. It comes into the kitchen area while I'm cooking and will eventually just come around for a second pass after my feet are out of the way. I have the roborock Q5+. The only complaints that I have are: 1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all. 2) I have to clean the vacuum more frequently than I would like. That means: cutting out hairs from the "side brush" on the front of it, cutting hairs out of the "main brush" that sucks up most of the debris, and wiping the sensors clean. In fairness, I'd probably have to do the same sorts of thing with the rollers on a normal vacuum cleaner after a while too, though. 3) There's been a handful of times over a 2-ish year period where it'll go to the other room to start cleaning, and while a normal trip might take 15-20 minutes, it'll claim to be done in about 5 minutes. I suspect that blankets may have fallen on the ground or something, so it became too "blocked" to be able to clean properly, but it could be some kind of software error.
  - mentalfist 11mo ago
    > 1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all. Check your mobile's app settings/battery optimisation? Sounds like the app doesn't keep running properly in the background
illiac786 11mo ago
Agree with everything in that list (and made many of these mistakes myself) but actuators (e.g. Shelly) in the wall behind actual switches were the exception for me. Especially for things which were not light switches, like blinds, sky lights, pumps…
xthe 11mo ago
Same here. I tried a few smart home gadgets and the excitement faded fast. Apps broke, updates stopped, and they became more hassle than help. Simple non-smart devices have lasted way longer for me.
D13Fd 11mo ago
I agree except as to smart light switches, locks, and blinds. For me those have been set-it-and-forget-it devices that are really handy. I have various lights that come on from dusk until bedtime, doors that lock at night, lights that go off after 5 minutes (closets) or a couple of hours (kitchen). The blinds are blackout shades that go down at the kids’ nap times during the weekend. I also have a task light over a work bench that is controlled via my phone, since there is no wired switch there. I set all this up over the course of several years, as needed, and haven’t thought much about it since. It’s nice.

uhhhd 11mo ago

So true, why is that whole sector so bad?

wisty 11mo ago
People want to spend money to fix a problem that fundamentally requires effort on their part, not tech. Vacuuming is actually the easiest bit of cleaning a house IMO - getting the floor clear (if you have kids, or out of control hobbies, or are just lazy or a bit of a horder) is hard. People aren't stupid, they kind of know this. But just like buying expensive gym equipment they think that a new toy will incentivise them do the hard bits. "If I buy a new gizmo I'll finally start cooking healthy delicious food" is a great pitch.
- mingus88 11mo ago
  Eh, our Roborock vac has been a net positive It was “easy” to vacuum before but we never did a thorough job. All too often we just vacuum what we can see, never under the couches, etc. Now that we have to move everything so it can complete the full map we have a much cleaner house. It encourages us to move all of the chairs, toys, etc.
olowe 11mo ago
Couple of anecdotes from the dev side. I worked on an IoT project at one of the big German car makers and it was a mess. More money than sense. They didn't really have any idea why they were putting software into stuff. Just some vague notion that some software systems needed to exist to then present its existence to the next boss up; presumably all the way up and out to investors. Discussing the actual functionality or how the product(s) would actually be experienced in the real world was essentially taboo. There was a podcast called garbage.fm [1] with one of the hosts working for General Electric at the time it was recorded. It sounded like GE were yet another one of those incumbent companies doing "smart" Internet of Things products just because they were worried about being left behind. [1]: https://garbage.jcs.org https://garbage.jcs.org

circuit10 11mo ago

I like my smart light, though I only use it to turn the light off without having to get out of bed

lesuorac 11mo ago

Can't speak to most of those but smart lights are pretty nice. I made sure to buy zigbee ones so that I'm just tied to home assistant which even if it goes out of business will still work with whatever binaries I've downloaded already (as well as it works locally so I can control them during internet outages). I'm sure somebody else can explain why you should get Thread or Matter nowendays but I never bothered to learn the differences. But yeah, the average life of a company is what 1 year? Don't get any product you want for more than 5 years from a company younger than 5 years if you need that company to exist for it to work.

reaperducer 11mo ago
smart lights are pretty nice… I made sure to buy zigbee ones The connectivity doesn't matter when it's the actual filaments/LEDs that burn out after only a year or two. Even buying a big name like Sylvania doesn't help. I had eight Sylvania smart bulbs burn out or go into endless flicker fits in under a year. They're all in a landfill now. Of course, that's better than when Feit Electric sent out a firmware update that deliberately bricked all of its smart bulb controller boxes with nothing more than an e-mail telling people it was done. (This was before Apple Home or Google Home existed.)
- bradlys 11mo ago
  I haven’t had this issue at all and I’ve had some of my Philips Hue bulbs for close to ten years. Mind you, one would expect them to work for a long time considering they’re (probably) the most expensive on the market.
- QuiEgo 11mo ago
  Smart switches > smart bulbs
  - lesuorac 11mo ago
    Isn't switches just more brittle and less control? I can set individual colors and intensity on the lights as well as with a dumb switch I can also have the lights just come on so if I were to sell the house or whatever the next person wouldn't need to have home assistant to work anything in the house.

bilsbie 11mo ago

Robot vacuums are the worst. I have to help it every thirty minutes. And anytime I close a door or move something it wants to create a new map. The old randomized ones were actually better.

Waterluvian 11mo ago
I was worried about this. Especially as a roboticist who deals with making tools to help people do this for fleets of robots. But I thought I’d try this $450 Eufy bot and the thing is pretty much foolproof. Just have to clean up the Lego first…
registeredcorn 11mo ago
What kind of Robot Vacuum did you have? I had mine map the house once downstairs, and once upstairs and it's been fine navigating around stuff ever since. It comes into the kitchen area while I'm cooking and will eventually just come around for a second pass after my feet are out of the way. I have the roborock Q5+. The only complaints that I have are: 1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all. 2) I have to clean the vacuum more frequently than I would like. That means: cutting out hairs from the "side brush" on the front of it, cutting hairs out of the "main brush" that sucks up most of the debris, and wiping the sensors clean. In fairness, I'd probably have to do the same sorts of thing with the rollers on a normal vacuum cleaner after a while too, though. 3) There's been a handful of times over a 2-ish year period where it'll go to the other room to start cleaning, and while a normal trip might take 15-20 minutes, it'll claim to be done in about 5 minutes. I suspect that blankets may have fallen on the ground or something, so it became too "blocked" to be able to clean properly, but it could be some kind of software error.
- mentalfist 11mo ago
  > 1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all. Check your mobile's app settings/battery optimisation? Sounds like the app doesn't keep running properly in the background

illiac786 11mo ago

Agree with everything in that list (and made many of these mistakes myself) but actuators (e.g. Shelly) in the wall behind actual switches were the exception for me. Especially for things which were not light switches, like blinds, sky lights, pumps…

xthe 11mo ago

Same here. I tried a few smart home gadgets and the excitement faded fast. Apps broke, updates stopped, and they became more hassle than help. Simple non-smart devices have lasted way longer for me.

D13Fd 11mo ago

I agree except as to smart light switches, locks, and blinds. For me those have been set-it-and-forget-it devices that are really handy. I have various lights that come on from dusk until bedtime, doors that lock at night, lights that go off after 5 minutes (closets) or a couple of hours (kitchen). The blinds are blackout shades that go down at the kids’ nap times during the weekend. I also have a task light over a work bench that is controlled via my phone, since there is no wired switch there. I set all this up over the course of several years, as needed, and haven’t thought much about it since. It’s nice.