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How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

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Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#61

Post by vasco »

I really wonder what people that are interested in home automation are trying to solve. DIY I understand, as it's cool electronics tinkering, and home automation can be a fun project. But for people that just buy it and customize it, I have no clue what the end goal is.

Is the big issue to stop pushing the normal light switch button? Is that a huge chore? If I think home automation what I have wishes about is something putting my dishes or clothes in machines and then putting them back, cleaning floors, things like that.

Automating turning a light, playing music or whatever are just a 2 second thing, that's very down the list of my home tasks to automate.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#62

Post by lxn »

delusional wrote: post #53
alkonaut wrote: post #29

The best controller for lighting by far is the light switch. "Smart lightbulbs" behind dumb switches might seem like an easy solution, but it makes everything dumber (If you have a light switch you must not switch off because then you can't turn the "smart" light on, then you have a dumber house not a smarter one). Smart switches which fall back to regular switches if they malfunction is fantastic. Add some scenarios…

I personally don't understand why the "smart switches" don't run powerline (data over the electricity lines) instead of zigbee. Surely that'd be way more reliable.

The building I live in has this and it's not ideal. I consider it on par with other solutions, and I will not be my first choice for a new home due to complexity.

First it requires more hardware, it's more expensive and as far as I know you'll be stuck with one vendor. On top of that you need to isolate your home from outside signals (you don't want your switch to talk to you neighbor's devices). Second, it's pretty slow. This might be because our system is already 8 years old, but it's pretty noticeable (feels close to a second when you turn on the lights). And then you get into issues with your appliances that have cheap power supplies. I needed to buy a filter for my PC because the power supply unit was generating so much noise on the power line that the devices could not communicate anymore. Also I'm not sure how well this will work in older house, when the lines are not in best condition.

The system we have is made by DigitalStrom. They have a newer generation available, but since we rent I don't want to pay for the upgrade.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#63

Post by shellfishgene »

jpdb wrote: post #13

I currently have a SmartThings Hub and Homeassistant Yellow, but if I were starting over today, I'd be all in on Matter (mostly thread) and avoid ZWave and Zigbee outright. I'm mostly stuck to zwave because of my blinds, but I think I will slowly replace all my smart home related things with Matter. There's still a few sensors that there don't have a Matter equivalent yet, but I think that'll change soon.

Is the matter stuff more expensive, or about the same? There seem to be not that many products yet?

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#64

Post by mguerville »

vasco wrote: post #61

I really wonder what people that are interested in home automation are trying to solve. DIY I understand, as it's cool electronics tinkering, and home automation can be a fun project. But for people that just buy it and customize it, I have no clue what the end goal is. Is the big issue to stop pushing the normal light switch button? Is that a huge chore? If I think home automation what I have wishes about is somethi…

I got smart light switches for security reasons so I can have timed lights when on vacation and make it look like we’re home. A smart thermostat to save a bit on HVAC cost, and an alexa that is exclusively used as kitchen timer and weather quick checks. But i similarly couldn’t find rational reasons to go further into home automation outside of the itch to tinker with more tech.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#65

Post by subpixel »

vasco wrote: post #61

I really wonder what people that are interested in home automation are trying to solve. DIY I understand, as it's cool electronics tinkering, and home automation can be a fun project. But for people that just buy it and customize it, I have no clue what the end goal is. Is the big issue to stop pushing the normal light switch button? Is that a huge chore? If I think home automation what I have wishes about is somethi…

I’m old enough to remember the first iteration of this home control trend: multi-room wired speakers.

I can’t count the times when I was in high school and had to let some dad demo their multiple speaker setup.

It never worked all that well, volume levels were off, and there was often an echo of music coming from some empty room.

I’m reminded of this every time someone calls out to their home assistant in my presence to do something like change the music on their tinny bluetooth speaker that’s already being controlled from their phone, which is sitting in plain sight.

There’s an element of performance in it. Look at how far I’ve come, etc. I don’t care for it but it’s a general, atavistic trait we probably share as humans to one degree or another.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#67

Post by wil421 »

ontarionick wrote: post #58
autoexec wrote: post #52

The smartest house doesn't hand out the details of your life to 3rd parties or let contractors hear you having sex. We need more options for privacy respecting self-hosted systems that people don't have to design/create themselves. Some home automation tech is pretty nice, but its not worth paying for it forever with the data/privacy being given up, and in the inevitable consequences of having that data used against…

Setup Home Assistant, and only get devices that are 100% local control! There are fairly reasonable options for this. I have a couple devices/services where I haven't been able to find good local only or where I find utility in the cloud connectedness, but that's very much the exception than the rule.

Homebridge plus Apple Home in my opinion is much better than home assistant. If you’re android based or have really complicated automations I could see why home assistant would be better. Home assistant’s lack of compatibility with quite a few brands made me run Homebridge and home assistant together which defeats the purpose of HA.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#68

Post by jpdb »

shellfishgene wrote: post #63
jpdb wrote: post #13

I currently have a SmartThings Hub and Homeassistant Yellow, but if I were starting over today, I'd be all in on Matter (mostly thread) and avoid ZWave and Zigbee outright. I'm mostly stuck to zwave because of my blinds, but I think I will slowly replace all my smart home related things with Matter. There's still a few sensors that there don't have a Matter equivalent yet, but I think that'll change soon.

Is the matter stuff more expensive, or about the same? There seem to be not that many products yet?

Relatively the same price, I'd say. But there's definitely not they many products out yet so maybe that will change.

I think the biggest difference in price I saw was from my Z-Wave blinds versus Thread / Matter ones. However, the overwhelming majority of the cost for that is the blinds themselves so it's probably not the best comparison.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#69

Post by watwut »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #32
ocharles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think voice is a fine interface for a lot of smart home things. If I'm watching TV and want the lights on/off, I don't want: * To have to reach for my phone * To have a tablet mounted within reach (that's more clutter) * To have to get up to the light switch/nearest controller. This sounds lazy but that is literally the point of all this stuff - to make things convenient. Likewise, if I'm in the kitchen and want to…

Yes, I hear these arguments over and over. Yet, in cars, it is already increasingly recognized that touch screens (another interface) are worse than physical buttons. The examples you name are somewhat exceptions where I can imagine, if someone is really lazy, that a language control could be better than buttons, but in most cases I think the difference is minuscule. I have to walk 2 Meters from the couch to the butt…

I think that difference is that if you are watching TV from couch, you are not in life/death situation. Even if you fiddle with phone for full minute, I wont cause car crash. Plus, the couch is not moving under your finger.

Meanwhile, if you are driving the car, touch screen means not watching the road for crutial 2 seconds while you are trying to hit the damm screen while the car is moving.

Re: How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

#70

Post by noodlesUK »

wil421 wrote: post #67
ontarionick wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setup Home Assistant, and only get devices that are 100% local control! There are fairly reasonable options for this. I have a couple devices/services where I haven't been able to find good local only or where I find utility in the cloud connectedness, but that's very much the exception than the rule.

Homebridge plus Apple Home in my opinion is much better than home assistant. If you’re android based or have really complicated automations I could see why home assistant would be better. Home assistant’s lack of compatibility with quite a few brands made me run Homebridge and home assistant together which defeats the purpose of HA.

I'm curious which devices you have that are supported by home bridge but not home assistant. I've had nothing but success using home assistant.
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