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Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

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Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#161

Post by jchw »

yencabulator wrote: post #145
jchw wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart equipment is fine as long as the "smart" part is just synchronization built on top. I have ZigBee and Zwave (yes both for now unfortunately) switches and dimmers, these work completely fine manually in absense of home assistant. I do also use some smart bulbs (also ZigBee/Zwave) and when paired with a smart switch, they can work in absense of the controller still, allowing you to still control the lights as lon…

> Smart equipment is fine as long as the "smart" part is just synchronization built on top. ... until you hit that bug that tells all the lights in the school to turn off about 100 times a second.

You can unplug the controller if need be, but truth is that if we're talking about ZigBee or Zwave, I don't think there's nearly enough bandwidth to do that :)

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#162

Post by iLoveOncall »

shapefrog wrote: post #154
KptMarchewa wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he's not then pretty no one is; and the solutions are overcomplicated.

My grandmother, at the grand age of 95, shows better understanding of tech than is demonstrated in those videos.

Care to highlight any specific example?

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#163

Post by Nextgrid »

derenge wrote: post #119
cameronh90 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every light in my house is Hue, and all rooms have those Hue dimmer switches mounted over the normal light switch. I absolutely love it. It's never been anything other than instantly responsive, works without the internet and I can turn all the house's lights off from my bed. Additionally, the utility rooms, hallways and bathroom lights are just fully automated so you never think about it. The regular switches are st…

Could you elaborate more on how the dimmer switch covers your normal light switch? From the product page it looks like the dimmer has a flat back. Did you remove the actual switch?

If you’re happy with your smart setup it’s trivial to remove the existing switch, connect the wires directly and put a cover on top, then attach the wireless switch to it using adhesive/Velcro.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#164

Post by Nextgrid »

Symbiote wrote: post #73
woile wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of my sister installing an Alexa controlled light in the living room with no switch. My dad, who doesn't speak english, couldn't turn them on when he stayed there. I keep thinking turning on lights with a switch takes even less time than interacting with Alexa.

I have wireless light switches in my rented apartment, and I don't like them. 1. I can't see from the position of the switch the state of the light, so I still after 5 years press the wrong switch sometimes. 2. Sometimes, maybe 5% of the time, the light doesn't change instantly, but up to 2 seconds after I pressed the button. 3. About 5% of the time, the light doesn't change at all. Then I either think I've pressed t…

That’s why I swear by Shelly modules. They’re small relays meant to be installed behind the original light switch and accept an input from it - this means you still retain the functionality of the switch, but get network-based control as a bonus. Should the network go down, the physical switch still works and it’s acceptable for rentals because you don’t even have to remove them as they still behave like a normal switch if the controller is unavailable.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#165

Post by Nextgrid »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #141
gwd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn't this used to be solved by the simple and incredibly efficient method of having a bathroom heater? Bathroom heaters don't heat instantaneously; so you either have to remember to turn it on manually (introducing your own fudge factor, as described above), or start your bathing process with a colder-than-you-want room. > One thing I don't understand about Nest et al is - virtually no houses have actual zone coo…

Is 17C considered reasonable temperature in home in UK?

Depending on your budget, a lot of houses/flats in the UK can barely get above that even with heating on full blast. So I’d say yes unfortunately.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#166

Post by Nextgrid »

yencabulator wrote: post #152
acidburnNSA wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old proprietary software, everyone's favorite. Next time they should just use Home Assistant or some other open system so they don't have to rely on the continued existence of the maintainer.

In the Home Assistant world, the thing that is inaccessible here would likely be a proprietary box controlling a bunch of relays and LED dimmers, that stopped responding to its network API.

It would be very easy to replace a relay box though. It would probably cost less to use a bunch of off-the-shelf relay boxes and Home Assistant than pay the new company for whatever they’re trying to do.

Better yet, it’s something the school’s technology-focused classes can do as a project.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#167

Post by throwaway4aday »

roxgib wrote: post #159
throwaway4aday wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to reveal that the problem with automated lights, etc. is that we no longer have a single source of truth for the state of the light or other device. I think the problem is that we are updating the state of the light but not updating the state of the UI i.e. the switch. The solution would seem to be that the automated system should be moving the switch in order to turn the light on or off instead of adding…

But that adds yet another point of failure, and something with mechanical parts is probably going to wear out much quicker. And if it fails can I still flick the switch, or do I need to replace it?

The manual override switch I mentioned should disable the smart control completely. The switch would have to be designed to work without the smart control in the first place which would mean it would still work when the smart control was disabled or malfunctioning.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#168

Post by gwd »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #141
gwd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn't this used to be solved by the simple and incredibly efficient method of having a bathroom heater? Bathroom heaters don't heat instantaneously; so you either have to remember to turn it on manually (introducing your own fudge factor, as described above), or start your bathing process with a colder-than-you-want room. > One thing I don't understand about Nest et al is - virtually no houses have actual zone coo…

Is 17C considered reasonable temperature in home in UK?

Overnight when you're under your blankets? I grew up in the US, and my mom always turned the temperature down to 60F (~15C) overnight.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#169

Post by gwd »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #131
gwd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn't this used to be solved by the simple and incredibly efficient method of having a bathroom heater? Bathroom heaters don't heat instantaneously; so you either have to remember to turn it on manually (introducing your own fudge factor, as described above), or start your bathing process with a colder-than-you-want room. > One thing I don't understand about Nest et al is - virtually no houses have actual zone coo…

Right; I was born in Europe and per-room heating was the norm; but I've lived in North America for last 30 years, and this is apparently still not something we have figured out - in Canada, vast majority of houses have central furnace with central fan. I've had several HVAC professionals come and despite my "Shut up and take my money!!!" attitude, basically none of them wanted to even bother giving me a quote to inst…

Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a place in the US where you could control individual rooms. With forced-air heating, it seems like all it would take would be a way for the room thermostat to open and close the vent.

Re: Lights have been on at this school for a year because no one can turn them off

#170

Post by jholman »

tbran wrote: post #124
willcipriano wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does any government agency claim to be funded correctly?

There was an article here on HN some time ago about some enormous project in California (a bridge? a tunnel?). IIRC the state's engineering department was quite small and underfunded, and so they depended on the contracted company for their engineering expertise. This did not go well. As I recall, the problems were that the state engineers were not experienced enough (because private pays better and seniors leave) an…

I think you're looking for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZxqVC_tBdc

Note, however, that the state, in this story, that has underfunding problems and cannot figure out how to adequately supervise the civil engineering contracts is not California, it's Texas. Y'know, for all those who like to take sides on California vs Texas.

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