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The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

staceyoniot.com

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Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#121

Post by maccard »

ghaff wrote: post #67
maccard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 commands to a speaker and that’s one of the few things this tech is supposed to be good at Pre-covid we used to leave the dog at home during the day (I now WFH so not an issue), but it gets dark at 3:30 here during the winter, meaning the dog is stuck sitting in the dark for 2 hours.…

The flip side with the heat is that I can’t help but feel I’m introducing another failure mode into my heating system with an internet connected smart thermostat which is a whole lot more of a problem in a sub freezing area than forgetting to turn the thermostat down.

You're not wrong - you are introducing complexity here, and you need to be aware of the failure modes (and the fallback paths available to you).

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#122

Post by zrobotics »

beardedwizard wrote: post #93
dralley wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or buy them online for $15 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12708 Following hobbyist-directed instructions that are, also, readily available online https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/embeddedlab786/real-tim...

So, order electronics from the internet for my non smart, non internet connected devices. Got it.

Or go to an electronics store, if we need to be snarky about it.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#123

Post by lima »

markbnj wrote: post #86

Yeah over the last few weeks Alexa has grown annoyingly chatty. Pretty much every ask, like "Alexa, what's the outside temperature?" is followed by the answer and then "Did you know..." which is itself followed by me saying "Alexa stop" in an irritated voice. "Computer, lay in a course to intercept the Romulan cruiser." "Intercept course calculated. Did you know, I can automatically reorder toilet paper for the bridg…

Google Assistant never does that, thankfully.

(...yet?)

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#124

Post by AndyMcConachie »

I will never understand why computer geeks buy IoT crap and then complain about it. It's like buying rotten food and complaining about it. What's the point?

I know so many computer knowledgeable folks and a fair number of them have 'smart' crap in their homes. These are the same people who then tell me that the IoT is garbage and a security risk and all that. No one forced them to buy that Alexa. Why do these people buy this garbage and then just complain about it?

Why does this author of this article own any of this garbage? Just throw it all away.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#125

Post by gwbas1c »

quickthrowman wrote: post #99
gwbas1c wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that I like about the Lutron system is that you can try it, with just a single switch or lamp module. Then, if you like it, you can buy more. I previously used a different brand to control my aquarium lights and HATED it. When the app randomly made me enter my password to turn the lights on, I 1-starred it with a very frank, "my old-fashioned light switch doesn't randomly ask me to enter my password" in the…

> One complaint that I have about the Lutron system is that they don't offer relay-based modules. Yes they do, here is the cutsheet: https://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/369-549b_Eng... This one can switch 5A using a Pico input device. Just to be clear, every commercial lighting controls line has relay modules, it’s necessary for occupancy sensing.

I came across that a few years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't use it. I suspect it's because I wasn't sure if it'd work with the hub, or if it was pico-only.

At least as far as controlling the outlet for holiday lighting: It is a 15-amp circuit, and I could easily anticipate plugging in a power-hungry tool at some time.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#126

Post by zrail »

jaywalk wrote: post #63
bluGill wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? The normal switches should be the normal way. But sometimes I've realized I left a basement light on and didn't want to walk downstairs to flip the switch. There are also odd niches. I have an air compressor in a far corner of my shop (for noise reasons) with pipes running to where I need air. I want to control that without having to walk across the shop. (So far I don't have this because finding a swit…

I have no idea if it'll meet your requirements or not, but have you looked at something like this GE direct-wire smart switch? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YTCZZF0

I have two use cases for this specific switch that I haven't acted on yet:

* schedule my non-smart EVSE to charge our car when power is cheaper at night

* monitor (but not control) the energy usage of our electric hot water heater. It's the second biggest electricity user in the house but I have to infer how much power it's using based on the other separately metered components.

Cost is the thing holding me back. Will it have positive ROI in a reasonable time for our PHEV minivan that only has a 30KWh battery? Seems somewhat unlikely. Would monitoring the power usage of the hot water heater have positive ROI ever? Also seems unlikely.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#127

Post by [deleted] »

beardedwizard wrote: post #85
moffkalast wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the tiktok pokerface simple solution meme guy, but that's a solvable issue by just adding a RTC module, no complex internet garbage required.

Ah yes, the trivial to build, ultra simple crystal oscillator real time clock. Every hobbyist can just fab them right up, or just dig around in the garden to find a few.

[deleted]

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#128

Post by na85 »

tga wrote: post #84
arcticbull wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to say the same thing. I set up all my non-standard lighting fixtures with Lutron Caseta switches, and replaced all the standard bulbs with Philips Hue bulbs. They've both been working flawlessly, together, with my 3 HomePod Minis for about a year and a half now. It really is a brand thing. Most are bad. [edit] > My favorite aspect is that the pico switches can be programmed to switch whole rooms of light…

Philips Hue lights are sadly not on the same seriousness level as the Lutron hardware. After a time away, I tried to turn on lights with my phone -- only to be greeted by a message like "There is a mandatory update available for your bridge. You can use your system again after 10 minutes". I found not being able to turn on the lights for 10 minutes because they were installing unprompted updates completely unacceptab…

Hahaha, oh my gosh, the future is here and it's awful.

I'm going to stick with my regular old legacy light switches and bulbs as long as I possibly can.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#129

Post by zrail »

mavhc wrote: post #117
jaywalk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was providing a smart home alternative to your example of having to use an app to turn something on and off. I don't think you're going to find a smart switch, Z-wave or not, for £1.99

Connect a switch to a £1 esp32, now it's smart

Making that arrangement safe probably costs more than £1.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#130

Post by quickthrowman »

gwbas1c wrote: post #125
quickthrowman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One complaint that I have about the Lutron system is that they don't offer relay-based modules. Yes they do, here is the cutsheet: https://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/369-549b_Eng... This one can switch 5A using a Pico input device. Just to be clear, every commercial lighting controls line has relay modules, it’s necessary for occupancy sensing.

I came across that a few years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't use it. I suspect it's because I wasn't sure if it'd work with the hub, or if it was pico-only. At least as far as controlling the outlet for holiday lighting: It is a 15-amp circuit, and I could easily anticipate plugging in a power-hungry tool at some time.

In that case, there’s also a 16A version! (16A is 80% of 20A) It’s only rated for up to 1/2 HP motors. If your 120v power tool is over ~10A, you’d want to have the power pack trigger a motor-rated line-voltage contactor, and that contactor would turn the power on and off.

https://www.lutron.com/ExternalTechnicalDocumentLibrary/AL-1...

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