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I built an offline smart home

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Re: I built an offline smart home

#101

Post by glial »

efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL

This is the Mitch Hedberg Rule.

"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

Re: I built an offline smart home

#102

Post by laserlight »

Johnny555 wrote: post #67
tharne wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always amazed that everyone seems okay with this, and will even say so when pressed on it. But those same people will get a look in their eyes as if they're going to shit their pants, if someone else picks up their unlocked iPhone and starts scrolling.

I'm amazed that people are afraid of a home assistant in their living room, yet carry a cloud connected microphone+camera around with them all the time (with the added feature of sending GPS tracking data back to the manufacturer, carrier, and apps that you granted location permission to, like a weather app). If you trust that your phone isn't listening when it's not supposed to, why don't you trust the home assistan…

> If you trust that your phone isn't listening when it's not supposed to, why don't you trust the home assistant

Do home assistants claim they are not listening when they are not supposed to?

Re: I built an offline smart home

#103

Post by faeriechangling »

kccqzy wrote: post #93
faeriechangling wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have any faith in Alexa OR Google home, despite Amazon on paper being a juggernaut of market share and Google being a juggernaut of AI. How they are fundamentally architected is bad. Cloud-based services that run over a single WAN connection? That basically guarantees Google Home and Alexa are bound to be only ever used for frivolous things you don't really need because the smart assistants are fundamentally…

Before Google bought Nest, I even remember Nest made sure their products could all communicate with each other on the local network without the Internet. Nest devices set up a local network for themselves in the IPv6 ULA range. IPv6 addresses are so plentiful that a made-up ULA network won't cause any problems. I thought that was a pretty clever technique to ensure falling back to offline use. It did generate some qu…

Besides what you mentioned there’s the local home SDK. Google is still using the actual Nest app and I’m pretty sure what you mentioned works through that app. There’s also matter now for local control. The thing is that there’s this mishmash because unlike Apple they weren’t local first across the board from the get go.

In any case, I’m holding out for a HomePod mini refresh because if they throw a s9 chip in there it’s going to be able to do basic voice recognition offline

Maybe matter can save Alexa/Google home and I’m too pessimistic but I don’t like how they work now.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#104

Post by tass »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #51
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

> I avoided things [..] where you had to cycle power or disconnect the device to reset it I totally agree with your principle about fail normal, but how is this a violation to that?

I’m not who you’re replying to, but in my case the hub being unavailable should mean everything can still work as normal. For a lot of smart bulbs, a busted hub means you can only control them by switching them off then back on since you were relying on the hub to control them.

Some switches allow for direct control of zigbee or zwave smart bulbs so even if the hub is non functional, a press of the switch will still toggle or even dim them.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#105

Post by happymellon »

cameldrv wrote: post #77
moandcompany wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL This is a solid principle. Another rule I include with this is that the "Smart Home" should still be able to operate and be controlled like a non "Smart Home" by a regular person. (e.g. light switches, thermostat, door locks)

Yep, I remember staying over at a friends's apartment that had just installed hue lightbulbs everywhere, and then put tape over their normal light switches. As he's putting the sheets on the pull-out couch, he says "if you get up in the middle of the night, you'll need this app to turn on the light..."

Such a horrible design.

I've got dumb bulbs and smart dimmers/switches so everything can be smart, and also can be used by normal people.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#106

Post by happymellon »

sh1mmer wrote: post #53
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

> after bedtime, the lights still come on when someone goes in the bathroom, but very dim, etc. I’d be curious to hear more about this. Most of the “smart” light solutions I’ve tried struggle to go directly to a specific lighting level without some bright flash as they activate. What brand switches/lights are you using to do this with?

None of my Candeo dimmers flash.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#107

Post by happymellon »

efitz wrote: post #22
blagie wrote: post #2

Tuya devices are available in Zigbee for about $5, and the Zigbee versions have no way to phone home. The nice thing is you can: 1) Buy eight random Tuya Zigbee outlets ($40) 2) Three PIR presence sensors ($10) 3) Fancy Sonoff Zigbee USB device ($20) 4) Three RGB-CCCW lightbulbs ($15) 5) Three or four temperature/humidity monitors ($15) And you're at the $100 mark with a basic smart home without breaking the bank, wi…

I am less than impressed with Tuya. They want to be an ecosystem, just like HomeKit or SmartThings, so you either have to go all in on them or use some bridging solution. And they charge (a lot) for their cloud development platform (used to have a free tier), and they change apps from time to time requiring new accounts and reconfiguration, etc. Not a fan.

If they are Zigbee, then it doesn't matter what they want to be?

Just get a Zigbee dongle for a Pi and pair them if you want a hub.

Admittedly I do not use Tuya, I'm only going off the parent comment about it being Zigbee but Zigbees ad-hoc mesh hasn't failed me.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#108

Post by jhot »

hasoleju wrote: post #99
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

Can you explain the steps you have to take if you want to move through your house without the lights? Is the switch always "on" and the sensor then turns on the light and you just have to turn the switch "off"? And then if the switch is turned "off" will you need to first turn it "on" again in order to make the automation work properly again?

All the switches I've bought are different from normal ones. They are always in a central position and you push on the top for on and bottom for off. Some are also just a single button and pressing it toggles the light.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#109

Post by FriedPickles »

efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

I so badly want an old school flippy light switch that physically flips when toggled by the smart home.

IMO that would be the first smart home product strictly superior to its analog counterpart.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#110

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

WWLink wrote: post #79
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently bought some Philips wiz switches. I could have bought cheaper for literally 1/4 cost but they are internet first with zero local support or like tuya which is offline but still needs internet to work. Most of the stuff either looks to be subsidized to keep online access which will earn data or offline capability is charged more because they dont get data

Interestingly, you can control wiz lights with OpenRGB. It doesn't really surprise me lol. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenRGB/comments/jptv2a/philips_wiz... There's also a home assistant thing for them.

yeah. i plan to use it exclusively for home assistant completely off grid
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