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The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

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Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#71

Post by mabub24 »

Jedd wrote: post #17

About 10 seconds into reading this I got a 'cute' drop-down box that greyed out what I was half-way through reading, and insisted that I attend to a 'Get my weekly IoT newsletter' that demanded from me an email address, name, and company details. The unbearable demands of advertising. EDIT (ADD) I've installed a couple of ESP32's with humidity / temperature gauges, in two of my abodes, that feed into a prometheus ->…

If you are using uBlock Origin, you can turn on the filter for "annoyances" and as far as I can tell it blocks those newsletter popups.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#72

Post by thinkloop »

u10242 wrote: post #42
input_sh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to hear, or especially see, these devices make anybody’s life easier than doing the task manually. Let's fix that, shall we? I have a Philips Hue system and also a physical switch[0] that I can move around. In my hallway and my kitchen (high traffic rooms) lights turn on via motion detection, making it absolutely unnecessary to ever turn touch a physical plug (with my wet hands after washing the dishes f…

This setup really sounds great and very involved. But how do you turn the lights off again? Timeout? Not detecting any motion? Also, do you have any pets? As for dimming the lights, I'm sure it looks impressive and also dramatic. But I've been able to go to bed in time for more than 40 years just fine. Also, what if you do want to stay up later? Which, I think, is the gist of the first comment: You can do all these t…

Turning off the lights is a big problem. You need to introduce presence detection, which is more than motion - people are very still when watching a movie or reading a book or working at their desk. That's when you have to introduce phone detection or heat detection or other sensors that need to be processed and integrated exploding the complexity.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#73

Post by [deleted] »

yholio wrote: post #23

I think any software engineer with some industry experience will absolutely NOT install a device in his home that receives automatic updates over the internet and is critical for performing some task or using some basic functionality of the house; especially one that has a well known, highly stable and ergonomic traditional mode of interaction - controlling the lights and water, opening the windows and shades etc. We…

[deleted]

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#75

Post by xvector »

yholio wrote: post #23

I think any software engineer with some industry experience will absolutely NOT install a device in his home that receives automatic updates over the internet and is critical for performing some task or using some basic functionality of the house; especially one that has a well known, highly stable and ergonomic traditional mode of interaction - controlling the lights and water, opening the windows and shades etc. We…

Cybersecurity engineer here, have worked for FAANG, my entire home is automated to the teeth - every single little thing - and I'm not concerned about privacy or security because I've chosen my products and network firewall rules carefully.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#76

Post by omni »

yholio wrote: post #23

I think any software engineer with some industry experience will absolutely NOT install a device in his home that receives automatic updates over the internet and is critical for performing some task or using some basic functionality of the house; especially one that has a well known, highly stable and ergonomic traditional mode of interaction - controlling the lights and water, opening the windows and shades etc. We…

Plenty of software engineers know how to put devices on their home network without granting them access to the internet. I have some wi-fi bulbs that I do this for, and I can control them over the network internally.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#77

Post by WaitWaitWha »

I think one of the problems of DIY smart home implementation is ... the DIY part.

I think the DIY designs suffer from sedimentation, or buying something that works for very specific function, then forgetting about it and moving onto the next very specific function. Although individually these functions may work, together they multiply problems.

I think much of this can be reduced if DIY-er sticks to a fewer solution. Just on for communications, I have seen Bluetooth, ZigBee, LoRA, Wifi, Ethernet, and modbus in a single home...

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#78

Post by driverdan »

yholio wrote: post #23

I think any software engineer with some industry experience will absolutely NOT install a device in his home that receives automatic updates over the internet and is critical for performing some task or using some basic functionality of the house; especially one that has a well known, highly stable and ergonomic traditional mode of interaction - controlling the lights and water, opening the windows and shades etc. We…

> I think any software engineer with some industry experience will absolutely NOT install a device in his home that receives automatic updates

Have you ever talked to another SE? The majority I know don't even care about privacy and have all kinds of invasive auto update devices in their homes (Alexa, Nest, Ring, etc).

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#79

Post by ghaff »

vnxli wrote: post #6

This is entirely on the author. Sure these vendors make awful products and poorly maintain them - but nobody is forcing anyone to buy them or integrate them into their house. I have yet to hear, or especially see, these devices make anybody’s life easier than doing the task manually. I never think about light in my home, I flip the switch if I need it - lights seem like such a chore to my friends who have to issue co…

In fairness, the main living area light at my brother’s place are scattered across a bunch of switches in different places. I could see being tempted to have all on and all off voice commands or other central control.

My house is a lot simpler. I have voice command for one light that doesn’t have a switch. Used to use wireless X10.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#80

Post by coldpie »

mabub24 wrote: post #71
Jedd wrote: post #17

About 10 seconds into reading this I got a 'cute' drop-down box that greyed out what I was half-way through reading, and insisted that I attend to a 'Get my weekly IoT newsletter' that demanded from me an email address, name, and company details. The unbearable demands of advertising. EDIT (ADD) I've installed a couple of ESP32's with humidity / temperature gauges, in two of my abodes, that feed into a prometheus ->…

If you are using uBlock Origin, you can turn on the filter for "annoyances" and as far as I can tell it blocks those newsletter popups.

NoScript is also a godsend for making the Internet usable.
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