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GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

theregister.co.uk

111–120 of 235 posts

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#111
I have a story on point. My brother is a manager at a company which installs electrical and HVAC systems, working mostly with very high-end private homes. They had this couple as clients, both very fancy architects, who designed their new home to be completely computer-controlled, from window shutters to air conditioners to lights, without any physical switches (I guess there was a remote and sensors or something). The architects had this theory that physical switches completely ruin the aesthetics of a room, and wouldn't abide having those horrible things in their dwelling. My brother says that he practically begged them to let him install backup physical switches - his proposal was that they would have a large panel in a closet somewhere with switches for everything in the house, which would still leave the switches hidden, but would at least make the house usable, if not very convenient, if the computer failed. But the clients insisted on no switches at all and the vendor of the computer system was willing to work with that, so that's what got built.

Anyway, about a month after the project got handed over, my brother gets a call: the computer had somehow worked itself into the state of "beyond fucked", the new computer brought by the vendor was refusing to talk to the controllers, parts were backordered, long story short, the house had been unlivable for a week with no end in sight, and could my brother come over and save it somehow. I think he was able to turn on a few of the most critical things on in manual mode, but obviously he couldn't wire up the hundreds of electrical devices in the house. Not sure what happened later.

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#112
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big con is working 40 hours a week to afford to rent/own/buy a place to live so you can continue working said 40 hours a week. Cut it to 15, move to cheaper residence and cut out gadgets, buying useless shit and owning lots of things. This frees up huge chunks of time and creativity and freedom. The freedom you thought you were working towards toiling 40 hours of your life per week.

yeah, see what happens to the economy if half of the people take this way. Let me call bs on that.

You mean the economy which produces all of the useless things that the parent just said we should stop consuming mindlessly? Slowing economic development is a benefit.

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#113
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and no, sending a reset command via apps is not feasible (what if you've lost the account password and you've accidentally paired it to your neighbours wifi?) Hubs save all the pain with smart lighting system. No need for an account, system works locally. If you wanna control them remotely, you can (but you don't have to). Connected to the wrong wifi? Reset a hub instead of individual bulbs. You pair bulbs with hub…

I have a few problems with hubs; you need to store the physical thing somewhere, and as a house with difficulties in getting a wifi connection to corners, I can't guarantee that the coverage will be good enough before committing to a whole system. Then there's interoperability - I don't really want to be locked in to Phillips bulbs (though I'm sure some are a little more interoperable than others) So I'm left thinkin…

Note that the Philips system is a mesh network, so you communicate with the bulbs via WiFi/LAN to hit the hub, but the hub communicates via the mesh network, which lets it reliably reach distant bulbs out of WiFi range so long as there's a bulb chain it can bounce the signal along.

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#114
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightbulbs don’t get handled in operation. So you can have a huge reset button and no need for a paperclip. As to firmware, cosmic rays for example randomly flip bits. Which means for any large scale deployments you want a reset option.

Let me think - the reset button can only work when the light is powered up (and maybe too hot to touch) - you can't mount it on the metal base because that's live when it's on, and so the light fitting is designed so you can't touch the base. you could mount it in the glass but it would cast a shadow ... any solution has to cost less than a penny ...

[deleted]

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#115
post #35

Could people remind me why they need these "smart" bulbs in the first place?

Because smart bulbs are the cheapest and best option for making the following possible: * Wake timers. I can wake up with light shining in my face even with the curtains drawn, which makes it easier for my body to sense that it's time to wake up and harder for it to fall back to sleep. Bonus points if it's green or blue on a grey day, which the more expensive bulbs allow you to choose. * Security and timing. Lights c…

> * Dimmers. In apartments and other living arrangements where you can't do electrical work, and that don't already have dimmers, this is the only way to have lights with variable brightness.

For me that's the only "smart" feature I wanted and I discovered that there are some light bulbs with an integrated dimmer like Philips SceneSwitch or Osram Duo Click Dim.

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#117
This is why I don't buy the "IoT smart home" future. There's no such thing as a "smart" device that doesn't typically break within 4-5 years. Dozens of such devices in a house means you'd be dealing with a broken device every few months, which is my nightmare.

I want the LEAST amount of complexity possible to control all my critical living functions, from fridges to windows to lights to cars.

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#118
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightbulbs don’t get handled in operation. So you can have a huge reset button and no need for a paperclip. As to firmware, cosmic rays for example randomly flip bits. Which means for any large scale deployments you want a reset option.

Let me think - the reset button can only work when the light is powered up (and maybe too hot to touch) - you can't mount it on the metal base because that's live when it's on, and so the light fitting is designed so you can't touch the base. you could mount it in the glass but it would cast a shadow ... any solution has to cost less than a penny ...

Most LED’s have a wide bit between the electric bit and the glass. Having that live would be a significant safety risk which I doubt major companies would risk. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-75-Watt-Equivalent-A19-N...

It’s a heat sink that gets hot to to the touch, though not that quickly as your talking ~10w of waste heat. Sill several ways to do a reset switch just after power is off.

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#119
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was way more than just the lights. He had originally something like 50 NT-servers managing his mansion. You could wear a pin that indicated your location. Light, sound system, climate would adjust to your preferences as you moved.

Some of that automation might have needed servers to control, I was referring primarily to the "automatically adjusting lights", which hasn't been a luxury feature for a long time, even in Gates' house. > 50 NT-servers That was mostly Gates "eating his own dog food"[1]. Using anything other than NT could have been bad optics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

You should read Bill Gates' "The Road Ahead"[1] from 1995 before dismissing things so readily out of hand. It's been a few years since I read it but he describes the setup in detail. It was incredibly complex even by today's standards - and this was 30 years ago!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_%28Bill_Gates_b...

Re: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece of modern techno-insanity

#120

This is why I don't buy the "IoT smart home" future. There's no such thing as a "smart" device that doesn't typically break within 4-5 years. Dozens of such devices in a house means you'd be dealing with a broken device every few months, which is my nightmare. I want the LEAST amount of complexity possible to control all my critical living functions, from fridges to windows to lights to cars.

I decided to give away my "smart" door lock and test setup of "smart" light bulbs. I have better things to do than pretending to be tech helpdesk for mye house/family for things that aren't really giving me much benefit. The door lock had some nice features, but I had no secondary way of entering the house without breaking something so I decided it was too high risc. The Philips HUE lightbulbs are not capable of remembering their last state so they default to full throttle, making them painful to live with.
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