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

theregister.co.uk

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

#201

Post by roland35 »

kakwa_ wrote: post #168
Junk_Collector wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do this today without any sort of "smart" appliance for about $1.00, $50 if you are being lazy. Just get a super simple micro-controller and radio on a board and throw it into your fridge. Have it record the temperature at a regular interval into a ring buffer and poll it periodically from a chron script. Get your power from the light switch in the fridge door. Alternatively, a Li-po or Li-ion battery can l…

Or even simpler, put a cheap analog thermometer which records the min and max temperature in your fridge. Maybe not exactly this one, but something like that: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61jmAUQ70pL...

I bought a digital thermometer with min/max from Walmart for $5, but the problem was the temperature would rise quite a bit (above 40F) if the door was left open even for ~10-30 seconds, so it was hard to use the "max" temperature reading.

It would have been more handy if the thermometer's min and max responded more slowly to reject these short fluctuations.

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

#202

Post by pdkl95 »

cptskippy wrote: post #175
pdkl95 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 90's Bill Gates had networked house and automatically adjusting lights and it was the peak of luxury. Nonsense. X10 devices cost a bit more than regular outlets/switches/fixtures, but not much more. I know many people that added dimmers/timers/remote-control to their lights for a few hundred dollars in the late-80s/90s. Home automation has been a solved problem with cheap and easy solutions for decades.

Except X10 devices are unsecure and can have issues with interference from neighboring homes. That's part of the reason why Insteon developed a new protocol, it mostly solves those two issues.

I'm only using X10 as an example with which I have personal experience. While it did have problems, it was a decent protocol considering it was developed in the 70s. I'm sure much better alternatives exist now (or could easily be developed).

The point is that lighting automation (and similar home automation features) is not a difficult problem, that doesn't need anything as powerful as a microcontroller or a dependency on the internet. A simple local-only control protocol is much more appropriate.

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

#203

Post by roland35 »

RogerL wrote: post #178
roland35 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I haven't thought of that ha! I'll have to check it out - hopefully I can get a zigbee signal through the fridge itself (I am not sure if it is a Faraday cage or not)

Why do you need a signal? You don't care about the temperature until you open your fridge to either consume to toss food, do you? Buy a digital thermometer for ten bucks, one that keeps a record of max/min, toss it in there, look at the max reading when you return from out of town. If your power goes out you'll need aux power for whatever is reading the signal, otherwise it also won't work. You are making a huge proj…

I mentioned it up earlier but I did try out a simple battery digital min/max thermometer, but every time you opened the door the air temperature would rise above 40F (highest recommended temp to store dairy), which made it hard to use for the intended purpose!

If the thermometer had more thermal mass attached to it (or simply had a low pass filter on the readout), it would have worked great.

I also had an analog thermometer at one point, but obviously the problem here is if the power goes out, then comes back on and returns to the proper temperature.

It should be a simple thing I agree!

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

#204

Post by roland35 »

ihuman wrote: post #164
roland35 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all for dumb appliances over the current crop of "smart" appliances, but one feature I would LOVE would be some kind of sensor log of my refrigerator! This would help to know if the power went off while I was gone - did the temperature rise too much? That is all I need... The same would apply to other appliances and HVAC, just simple data to know everything is working correctly.

If all you want is to check for power outages, you could use a Raspberry Pi Zero that has a program that notifies you when it starts, and constantly logs a heartbeat to a file. If you run the program at startup, you'll be notified when the power comes back on.

I have a smart things hub which is pretty good for this purpose - but the main problem is to make sure the baby's milk stays good so I would like confirmation at the end of a power outage that the temperature is still acceptable.

Luckily the power is reliable here, but as they say, winter is coming!

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

#205

Post by roland35 »

ndjskska wrote: post #199
Afton wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put a bottle water in the freezer until it's frozen. Turn it on it's side. If you notice the ice-air line isn't vertical, you had a warming event.

There are heat-sensitive stickers that change color if above some threshold. It's on packaged meat in Norway I believe.

that would be a good single use solution, we generally only a long power outage once every few years so that could work.

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

#206

Post by wlesieutre »

geerlingguy wrote: post #169
bhj wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Philips HUE lightbulbs are not capable of remembering their last state so they default to full throttle That is indeed the default behavior, but they can recall the previous state or another setting altogether after losing power. See “Power-on behavior” under Settings in the app.

TIL, thanks! Won’t have to wake up to practically full sunlight at night if there’s a power blip now.

It was a relatively recent addition, so if you were trying to do this before last December, that's why you didn't find it. https://huehomelighting.com/new-power-feature-to-retain-colo...

The two choices are:

• Philips Hue default – Warm white, full brightness

• Power loss recovery – Last used color and brightness

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

#207

Post by jpindar »

DJHenk wrote: post #156
sumedh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never been in bed and then remembered to turn off the light in some other room?

No? Well, maybe I have done that somewhere in the past ten years. If that's the case then I probably got out of bed, turned it off and went back to bed again. And immediately forgot that it happened, because it is only a very minor inconvenience. Really a lot less hassle than dealing with this IoT tech.

If pressing a widget on your phone is a hassle I don't know how you managed to post here.

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

#208

Post by neuralRiot »

roland35 wrote: post #143
Talyen42 wrote: post #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.

I am all for dumb appliances over the current crop of "smart" appliances, but one feature I would LOVE would be some kind of sensor log of my refrigerator! This would help to know if the power went off while I was gone - did the temperature rise too much? That is all I need... The same would apply to other appliances and HVAC, just simple data to know everything is working correctly.

There are non reversible temperature and moisture sensitive labels.

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

#209

Post by ses1984 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #102
ses1984 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solved for me, the expert, but not solved for thee, the lay person. Even if this was technically within financial reach, my personal experience was that the knowledge of how to do it was intentionally obfuscated because installers wanted to make money.

Solved for thee, the lay person. You find your local home automation company and ask them to set up a system for you. Extra benefit: the company performs a one-time service for you and you end up with products you can optionally get them (or someone else) to maintain. Contrast with IoT, where you subscribe to a service that's most likely ephemeral, will brick your devices when the service ends, and exposes you to sec…

I don't know where you found such service, but I had two quotes for over 6k and 10k to get automated lighting in my house in 2009.

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

#210

Post by 15155 »

alkonaut wrote: post #95

Smart bulbs are near useless tech behind dumb switches anyway. You have a light connected to an app but 50/50 chance that the last person left the switch in the right position for the bulb to get power at all. It might be possible to install return springs in the switches I’m not sure?

Smart switches are far, far better. Another bonus: constantly-powered wireless repeaters all throughout a property.
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