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The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

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Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#171

Post by jimpudar »

todd8 wrote: post #151

I have an EE degree and a CS degree. I waste an incomprehensible portion of my life fussing with the technology that runs in my home. Why is it so hard to configure VLANs for my security cameras using the fancy Unifi switches I have? Why isn't there just some documented JSON file somewhere that I can edit? (The key word in the previous sentence is documented -- I'm sure there is an XML or JSON file somewhere they jus…

Sounds like you would probably like the EdgeSwitch line of products better than Unifi. Cheaper, faster, and easier to manage if you are trying to do something specific.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#172

Post by whafro »

Quick story:

On the day we were closing on our 1920s house here in Massachusetts, we noticed that the oven wouldn't turn on. Then we noticed that it was shut off at the breaker.

We asked the owner why, and he said "oh, the mainboard in the oven (a Thermidor) has some issue where it beeps incessantly in the middle of the night and wakes us all up – but not a big deal: you can just turn it off and on at the breaker and it works just fine!" He'd apparently sent the mainboard in multiple times to have it serviced, but the problem persisted.

That wasn't a really satisfying answer at the closing table, so we pressed to get compensated for the oven we were rather sure we'd have to replace.

A few weeks later, as we were pricing out $2000-3000 replacement units, I had an idea to look for a smart relay to control the oven's dedicated circuit. I managed to find a 40-amp smart switch for $90 that I could control with SmartThings.

Now we can use the app or say "Alexa, turn on the oven," the switch is activated in the basement, and the oven turns on. At midnight, SmartThings turns it off if we haven't already, preventing the beeping.

$90 got us where we needed to be, and it's been working great for almost five years now.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#173

Post by shepherdjerred »

jeroenhd wrote: post #157

I firmly believe that at this moment, Home Assistant is the best smart home system out there. No cloud, no vendor lock-in, no data, no profiling, no lock-in with licenses and companies needing to make deals. And honestly, that's terrible. Because let's be honest, Home Assistant still kind of sucks. Not because of all the hard work the developers put into it, but because all of the hacks they need to get devices to wo…

Home Assistant is much better than the big alternatives.

But, yeah, it does suck as a consumer product.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#174

Post by Chris2048 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #159

What I'd really like to see is proper, cheap(ish) PoE IoT devices. I don't need everything to be wifi, I'd like to just run standard cable to everything, all on a secure common network, with power over the same cable. But PoE negotiation (chips) are apparently expensive, and eth chips more expensive than an esp.

Actually, maybe here's a (custom) solution:

Run mains wires to an enclosure with one of these:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/AVR/Development/AVR-IO-M16/

And controlled & powered (the mcu, not the relays) via this:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/IoT/ESP32/ESP32-POE-ISO/open...

Hence avoiding a separate esp board/mcu for every switch/device, and just using a single relay board for 4 at a time.

Still a bit of a pain to drag mains to one location, might be better if this was individual relay boards with equipment wire running to each..

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#175

Post by freen »

lima wrote: post #123
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?)

It did…

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#176

Post by at_a_remove »

If anything, all of the smart home business I read suggests that the products on the market are the triumph of project managers and "visioneers" over actual engineers. The designs seem especially flaking and almost all of the features product an instinctive cringe in me.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#177

Post by jaclaz »

dionidium wrote: post #54

What some people call “fussiness” I call “doesn’t work.” When I was younger I enjoyed playing with the new tech, so I was willing to overlook a lot of problems. But now I look around at the state of technology and I’m sort of flabbergasted at what we’ve let it become. Most stuff sold to consumers simply doesn’t work for a very simple and obvious definition of “doesn’t work.” Even my Wi-Fi “doesn’t work” by any normal…

Additionally, I think there is a perception problem.

If you have a normal wall thermostat switch you expect that it switches heating on when its sensor(s) believe it is too cold, and switches heating off when it becomes too hot.

The device is very basic, does one thing (and does it correctly 99.99% of times, with the only rare cases when the switch actually breaks or wires get loose or contacts get oxidated, or batteries - if any - needs to be replaced).

If you replace that with something else (that does "more" things) the basic expectation should be for it to work the SAME (with the same reliability) for the same basic scope AND add some other feature.

Yet most people I know that tried (and still try) to have this or that kind of home automation are more tolerant when the thingy doesn't work (as expected and as it should) and insist on those crappy devices, hoping that an OTA will fix0 the issue or buying a new (WHY?) "version 2.0" as that is said to solve problems.

Why you (average user) accept that your stupid net connected thermostat does whatever it feels like doing, including NOT switching heat on and off when needed?

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#178

Post by todd8 »

jimpudar wrote: post #171
todd8 wrote: post #151

I have an EE degree and a CS degree. I waste an incomprehensible portion of my life fussing with the technology that runs in my home. Why is it so hard to configure VLANs for my security cameras using the fancy Unifi switches I have? Why isn't there just some documented JSON file somewhere that I can edit? (The key word in the previous sentence is documented -- I'm sure there is an XML or JSON file somewhere they jus…

Sounds like you would probably like the EdgeSwitch line of products better than Unifi. Cheaper, faster, and easier to manage if you are trying to do something specific.

I was thinking about trying EnGenius or even Cisco next, but I'd like to stay within the Unifi universe because of my investment in wifi access points and video cameras. I should definitely investigate the edgeswitch line! I sort of ignored them thinking that they were last generation, but I'm going to take a look.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#179

Post by [deleted] »

rwmj wrote: post #27
jaywalk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a "standard" light switch that is also controllable via Z-wave, which doesn't require Internet access or Wi-Fi or anything like that? Which is what most of the switches in my house are, and really what a proper smart home should be using.

The "Z-wave" function would never be used in my house so it would just be adding cost. Considerable cost at that - a plain white plastic light switch is £1.99, and the "Z-wave" ones I can see on Amazon are all around £20-£40!

[deleted]

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#180

Post by volkl48 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #155
ninkendo wrote: post #9

I did my whole house in Lutron’s smart switches (close to 50 of them), and I think it’s good? It’s been about 2 years now and I really haven’t had any issues. The switches aren’t Wi-Fi connected, because Wi-Fi would be an awful choice for 50 devices that you only communicate with a few times a day. They use their own wireless frequency and communicate in a really simple/reliable way to the bridge, which is wired to m…

Not familiar with Lutron, maybe not so common in Europe? How do they compare with IKEAs "TRÅDFRI" offerings?

Not really the same tier of seriousness.

While they've always sold dimmer switches at the store for the average homeowner, they're better "known" for commercial installations. Think the lighting controls and software to manage the lighting for an entire office building, corporate campus, museum, etc. The expectation in terms of reliability and scalability is a bit different.

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