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I like the very thought of home automation and the principle of 'automate everything' and as such "kudos to the developers". For my own part I have occasionally

I like the very thought of home automation and the principle of 'automate everything' and as such "kudos to the developers". For my own part I have occasionally thought about what I would like to automate in my environment and came up with ... nothing. Once I read an article about a guy who used a Kinect to determine where he is located in his room and then let the system switch the lights accordingly. Quite nice, but not really essential or saving time. And my appartment is different so I'd need at least three Kinects (living room, hall, kitchen), which is too much of an effort just for light switching. Maybe I am simply uninspired. I thought 'well, where are the things I do repeatedly where automating would save me a little time and effort?'. I came up with errands where stuff has to be done. physically. cleaning, laundry, dishes, trash. I purchased a Deebot D76 vacuum cleaner and it was quite nice for a while. But the bearings get dirty pretty soon and the batteries wore out very fast. The second set of batteries is done with again and I'm not sure whether I'll replace them. This thing never got to the point of 'fire and forget'. Other than switching the lights I can't imagine anything that would be of utility for my beyond gadgetery and 'wow teh awesome!'. My home does not have any automatable security systems, no electric shades, nothing that would follow a simple logic of 'if this then that'. Please help. I'd love to live in the future, but I don't know how.

jamesbritt 13y ago
I feel your pain :) This is somewhat like what I face with things like the Leap Motion or the Kinect. There are clever things you can do with them but rarely are they better than what you would do without them; truly practical use cases that justify the time and expense to implement and maintain are hard to come by. For the IoT, if you have a garage then you might want to turn on/off house lights or adjust the thermostat when a car enters or leaves. Or have a way to detect if a room has been empty for X minutes (I'm thinking sonar to tell if extra mass is in the space; Kinects are overkill) and automatically turn off lights. I'd like to be told when I'm running low on milk and eggs.

jamesbritt 13y ago

I feel your pain :) This is somewhat like what I face with things like the Leap Motion or the Kinect. There are clever things you can do with them but rarely are they better than what you would do without them; truly practical use cases that justify the time and expense to implement and maintain are hard to come by. For the IoT, if you have a garage then you might want to turn on/off house lights or adjust the thermostat when a car enters or leaves. Or have a way to detect if a room has been empty for X minutes (I'm thinking sonar to tell if extra mass is in the space; Kinects are overkill) and automatically turn off lights. I'd like to be told when I'm running low on milk and eggs.