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

arstechnica.com

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

#71

Post by deanc »

srmarm wrote: post #47

Ikea Tradfri buttons/switches have been a gamechanger for me. They're zigbee, very well built, well supported and cheap. Have a nice solid feel with proper mounts that are magnetic, Have mounted them in place of regular switches around the house and they just work, no user training required (although I use with homeassistnat which is still very hobbish on the setup side) but my wife can use it all without needing to…

I have the opposite experience. I also run home assistant, and have added the Tradfri hub to my "Home" on iOS. I can count on one hand the amount of times I adjust the one Tradfri bulb I own in the Home app - and it has actually done anything. The only way I have consistently managed to change the bulb's brightness or on/off state is through the official Ikea app - which makes it entirely useless - as I can't automate it.

I do not have this issue with my Hue bulbs, which are running an out of date v1 hub.

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

#72

Post by terinjokes »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #59
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…

Smart switches don't make dumb lights as smart as smart lights. Most smart lights also feature dimming capability along with color tone switching. Smart switches can't add these features to a dumb light.

Smart dimmers definitely exist. I've been using the Insteon smart dimmer switches for years now.

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

#73

Post by kragen »

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.

100% local control rules out any android or especially apple devices

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

#74

Post by sneak »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #24
ga_to wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet it's not. Based on the same starting point (phone in pocket) how many steps are there actually? UI Option: - take out phone - unlock phone - leave current app - find and open control app - find icon to toggle action - lock phone - put phone back in pocket NFC option: - take phone out of pocket - bump phone against NFC sticker - find NFC sweet spot - put phone back in pocket

It is absurd. Get a button instead. Button option: - press button

Buttons are $20. NFC stickers are $0.20.

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

#75

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

terinjokes wrote: post #72
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart switches don't make dumb lights as smart as smart lights. Most smart lights also feature dimming capability along with color tone switching. Smart switches can't add these features to a dumb light.

Smart dimmers definitely exist. I've been using the Insteon smart dimmer switches for years now.

Not all dumb LED lights support dimmable switches though.

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

#76

Post by bsza »

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…

> Smart switches which fall back to regular switches if they malfunction is fantastic.

Not if they do so when you’re asleep. Fallback behavior should be always off, so it won’t wake you up in the middle of the night following a short blackout. (Sadly my yeelight bulbs don’t even allow such a setting, which forces me to use them as dumb light bulbs.)

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

#77

Post by terinjokes »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #75
terinjokes wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart dimmers definitely exist. I've been using the Insteon smart dimmer switches for years now.

Not all dumb LED lights support dimmable switches though.

If you want a dimmable light in a room, you're going to have to buy a light that supports dimming. That's true for a smart bulb or a dumb bulb.

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

#78

Post by shellfishgene »

jon-wood wrote: post #60

It appears we're doing "smart home" again, so its time for my regular plea to stop calling shitty light switches automation. Automation is when you don't have to think about what state devices are in, and while it takes some tinkering can be achieved using something like Home Assistant to bridge various different devices together. Each room in my house has Hue bulbs in all the light sockets, and sensors which can det…

Have you tried any of the 24 Ghz/mmWave presence sensors which supposedly don't have the lack of movement problem?

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

#79

Post by cheeko1234 »

jon-wood wrote: post #60

It appears we're doing "smart home" again, so its time for my regular plea to stop calling shitty light switches automation. Automation is when you don't have to think about what state devices are in, and while it takes some tinkering can be achieved using something like Home Assistant to bridge various different devices together. Each room in my house has Hue bulbs in all the light sockets, and sensors which can det…

I have home assistant running with quite a few esp32's running esphome with random sensors/bulbs scattered around the house.

My question is, what do you use the manage the automations? Do you use the native home assistant automation, or node-red, etc? I've even looked a bit into Room assistant[0]

[0] https://www.room-assistant.io/guide/#how-it-works

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

#80

Post by ryukafalz »

bsza wrote: post #76
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…

> Smart switches which fall back to regular switches if they malfunction is fantastic. Not if they do so when you’re asleep. Fallback behavior should be always off, so it won’t wake you up in the middle of the night following a short blackout. (Sadly my yeelight bulbs don’t even allow such a setting, which forces me to use them as dumb light bulbs.)

The fallback doesn't have to change the state of the switch. Just leave the state alone on disconnect/reconnect from the network/controller.

In the case of power outages where the whole device loses power... presumably these devices have some sort of nonvolatile memory and can afford to keep track of their last state. That's one bit for a basic on/off switch. :)

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