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My primary beef with smart home (having tried it) is that every person that visits your home ends up confused about some element of it. A light switch that goes

My primary beef with smart home (having tried it) is that every person that visits your home ends up confused about some element of it. A light switch that goes up and down is universally understood.

apexalpha 10d ago
My smarthome has regular switches and wifi. There's no reason to not do both. Also a quick NFC sticker in each room taking you to a small HTML site containing settings (temp, ventilation, lights, shutters, setting a alarm by the lights) has been golden. No one wants to: download Shelly app + AC app + look for ventilation IR controller + figure out how casting works for the TV + figure out how to use the Shelly app to turn lights into an alarm. It's too much friction for little gain. But a quick tap? Great. But tapping your phone on a NFC sticker bringing all those controls together per room in stead of per category (all lights in Shelly app. Person in room #1 has no interests in the lights in room #4 at the same time.). IF you tap it while not on Wifi yet it just tells you to connect to Wifi. :-) One "all house" sticker next to the front door allows any last person leaving or first person entering to put the entire house in active / idle mode. Works wonders. And as soon as local AI is quick enough the stickers will be a microphone!
- throwaway314155 10d ago
  That's clever and all - solid setup, good work. But I still think you either overestimate the average house guest or have particularly savvy/young house guests.
  - apexalpha 10d ago
    Most people think it's cool but use it once. The regular-ceiling-lights-as-alarm service gets positive feedback. Weird how smarthome companies never market that, seems easy win.
    - Atreiden 10d ago
      Not sure I totally understand what you mean by light alarms. Do you just flash ceiling lights to notify the user of something?
      - apexalpha 9d ago
        No they gradually turn on from 0% to 60% to simulate sunrise. Accompanied by the shutters slowly opening, if you want. Then after 20 min an actual alarm goes off, just in case.
shifto 10d ago
I have a hugely integrated smart home. 2 rules; 1. Everything can still be manually operated in the way people expect it to. 2. Local only.
rockostrich 9d ago
My primary beef with my home built in 1963 is that half of the switches aren’t wired to what you would expect and I have no attic or basement with access to make it easy to rewire. Home assistant and smart switches are a godsend because I can repurpose the existing switch boxes to actually do what I want them to do with the added bonus of being able to control them remotely from my phone.

My primary beef with smart home (having tried it) is that every person that visits your home ends up confused about some element of it. A light switch that goes up and down is universally understood.

apexalpha 10d ago

My smarthome has regular switches and wifi. There's no reason to not do both. Also a quick NFC sticker in each room taking you to a small HTML site containing settings (temp, ventilation, lights, shutters, setting a alarm by the lights) has been golden. No one wants to: download Shelly app + AC app + look for ventilation IR controller + figure out how casting works for the TV + figure out how to use the Shelly app to turn lights into an alarm. It's too much friction for little gain. But a quick tap? Great. But tapping your phone on a NFC sticker bringing all those controls together per room in stead of per category (all lights in Shelly app. Person in room #1 has no interests in the lights in room #4 at the same time.). IF you tap it while not on Wifi yet it just tells you to connect to Wifi. :-) One "all house" sticker next to the front door allows any last person leaving or first person entering to put the entire house in active / idle mode. Works wonders. And as soon as local AI is quick enough the stickers will be a microphone!

throwaway314155 10d ago
That's clever and all - solid setup, good work. But I still think you either overestimate the average house guest or have particularly savvy/young house guests.
- apexalpha 10d ago
  Most people think it's cool but use it once. The regular-ceiling-lights-as-alarm service gets positive feedback. Weird how smarthome companies never market that, seems easy win.
  - Atreiden 10d ago
    Not sure I totally understand what you mean by light alarms. Do you just flash ceiling lights to notify the user of something?
    - apexalpha 9d ago
      No they gradually turn on from 0% to 60% to simulate sunrise. Accompanied by the shutters slowly opening, if you want. Then after 20 min an actual alarm goes off, just in case.

shifto 10d ago

I have a hugely integrated smart home. 2 rules; 1. Everything can still be manually operated in the way people expect it to. 2. Local only.

rockostrich 9d ago

My primary beef with my home built in 1963 is that half of the switches aren’t wired to what you would expect and I have no attic or basement with access to make it easy to rewire. Home assistant and smart switches are a godsend because I can repurpose the existing switch boxes to actually do what I want them to do with the added bonus of being able to control them remotely from my phone.