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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

#131

Post by wkat4242 »

IronHerald wrote: post #123
hattmall wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>n from bloated batteries within the year. Is this from the battery being on the charger constantly? I remember having a similar problem years ago. I thought most devices now would manage charging by letting it drain a bit automatically. At the time though they didn't so I for my continually connected devices I just used simple plug timers that cut it off for a few hours a couple times a day.

There's also the possibility of using Advanced Charging Controller - though it requires root. Essentially you can set it up so when the battery reaches eg. 100% it stops charging, and resumes only once it reaches eg. 15%. Surprisingly the Android devices that I have still don't ever stop charging on their own, constantly keeping 100%. [Advanced Charging Controller (ACC)]( https://github.com/VR-25/acc ) [BU-808: How t…

You can do that, but you still have a battery that will eventually become a problem. I prefer my wired devices not having a potential bomb on board :) As I generally use old devices with worn batteries this is likely to become a problem much sooner, and much less of an issue to stick a screwdriver in and start tearing parts out of the device. Of course you're not going to do this to your brand new tablet under warranty.

However, doing that you do have the benefit of having "UPS" protection of course (how much depends on the charge cycle). In my case this isn't really a problem because if my power is down there is not much in my home left to control that still works.

My method has some drawbacks too - it looks bad (though it can be mitigated with a 3D printed enclosure) and sometimes stability may suffer, because tablets and phones use their battery to absorb performance peaks which require high power drain. The DC-DC converter will not live up to the same peak capacity. But generally I have not really seen many issues in practice. The converters stay cool and the tablets don't crash. I think it's because the workloads as a control tablet is not super heavy either. One of the main things that really peaks a lot in phones is the mobile (4G/5G) radio when it transmits and of course I keep them in airplane mode in this usecase.

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

#132

Post by azinman2 »

epistemer wrote: post #109
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…

All this to me is pure technological kitsch and bullshit. My coffee maker has had automation built in for years, it makes a ton of sense for it to automatically make coffee in the morning yet even for free I have never used it even once. The light switch? Give me a break.

I love being able to hit one button at night and have every light turn off and set the alarm.

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

#133

Post by wil421 »

kragen wrote: post #105
count wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the requirements for HomeKit branding is that you work without internet connectivity.

that's a good start, but if you have 100% local control over a device that is refusing to work (because it doesn't have internet connectivity or for any other reason), you can fix the bug (or apply someone else's fix you downloaded from gitlab) that doesn't work if you've ceded that control to apple, because they are not local

I can put HomeKit devices on a VLAN and not have them phone home. My Apple TV or HomePod will act as a bridge and will carry out my automations while I’m gone. Apple devices don’t bother me they aren’t an Ad company and have products I’ll buy into.

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

#134

Post by wil421 »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #124
wil421 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was over a year ago. Wyze and HA were having spats over API access. Unifi did not have a plug-in and I ended up having to install Homebridge.

Can't speak for Unifi but the Wyze support is pretty dreadful. That's entirely on Wyze though and the price you pay for buying the cheapest option. Personally I'm going to replace all my Wyze hardware over time and kick them to the curb. I'm starting with my Garage Door opener: I built one myself and connected it to Home Assistant which is connected to Google. Now I can open the door using Google Assistant, something…

Wyze refused to reconnect to my new WiFi access points with the same SSID but a different password. All kinds of resets did nothing and I ate the costs and switched my smart plugs to Kasa from TP Link. It’s been better but not without faults.

Philips hue has very rarely caused me troubles except the adhesive on their cabinet lights was garbage.

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

#135

Post by tuananh »

bretto13 wrote: post #118
tuananh wrote: post #36

sensors is the key to an "actual" smart home. sensors along with lots of automation rules will make the home works for you, instead of requiring you to shout at the assistant.

Motion and door sensors tied to lights that come on and adjust with light intensity and time of day is the best automation I've setup. It's so nice to walk into a dark room and have the lights turn on (without blinding you), then turn off when you're gone. Much better than fiddling with dimmers.

you can even group sensors together to have better detection. i love those new presence sensors. it's a lot better than the motion sensors from prev gen.

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

#136

Post by joshspankit »

Side track: For those who have the skills and desire to simply remove the battery from a tablet and leave it connected to power 24/7, maybe we need a resource for how to do that for each one.

For example: Some can have the battery wires cut no problem, some need a capacitor, some need something more complex.

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

#137

Post by count »

kragen wrote: post #105
count wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the requirements for HomeKit branding is that you work without internet connectivity.

that's a good start, but if you have 100% local control over a device that is refusing to work (because it doesn't have internet connectivity or for any other reason), you can fix the bug (or apply someone else's fix you downloaded from gitlab) that doesn't work if you've ceded that control to apple, because they are not local

You..you do have control over the devices without internet access. That's the point.

You don't have '100% control' over things like code because they're embedded, certified devices, generally.

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

#139

Post by alkonaut »

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.

You do a dimming switch (so add a spring to the button). Replacing a dumb switch with a non-dimming smart switch is indeed not a good idea.

The color change though won't be possible - but it might still be possible through whatever secondary interface you have, e.g. in an app. Given the choice between physical switches for dimming and color of the lights, I pick physical switches every time.

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

#140

Post by alkonaut »

ClikeX wrote: post #48
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 like the Shelly switches. They're just WiFi relays, so you can control them remotely, but also use a normal wall switch to control them.

I like shelly for their openness, but I still find them a bit less reliable than some more premium things like Plejd. Unfortunately Plejd isn't very open. It's doable (e.g. using with HA) but not pleasant yet. Hopefully that might change though
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