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Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

gizmodo.com

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Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#111

Post by soylentcola »

So-called "smart home" devices are certainly new and imperfect but the story told at the beginning of the article is also not necessarily representative.

He describes months of setup, unlocking his phone, scrolling through apps, finding the right screen, drilling through menus, and then not having it work. In my limited experience with similar setups (a few Philips Hue bulbs, IP camera, and a Nest thermostat) I haven't really run into anything that obnoxious.

When I want to kick on the "mood lighting" for a movie or a party or whatever, I just wake my phone and tap one of several presets on the homescreen widget. Setting up those presets took maybe 10 minutes and I can always mess with the lamps manually or create more if I feel like it. Otherwise the handful of IFTTT recipes I set up and geofencing keeps the lights under control the majority of the time without any input from me.

Nest is similar. It's reasonably good at learning my patterns and if I want to tweak the temp or change something, I just open an app and the image on the screen matches the display of the physical thermostat.

These are certainly early implementations of connected/smart devices but compared to the state of "professional" integrated systems, they're just fine with me. Just read up on Crestron programming if you want to learn how complicated the enterprise solutions can be. And if you don't want to spend months learning their wacky programming tools and procedures you can spend thousands on hiring certified techs to do it for you.

The thing I'm most excited about is for more standardized and interoperable devices to start overtaking the pricey "pro" options for at least the lower level stuff in enterprise and education. As it stands now, a lot of the Crestron stuff is not much more than a glorified universal remote. The faster the consumer/DIY stuff improves, the sooner it will be able to replace the ridiculous "pro" stuff that's been the only option for years.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#112

Post by noobiemcfoob »

Am I the only confused by the crazy delay mentioned in the article from the "Robots"? The processing can't be all that intensive, and I can't imagine a setup where communicating simple on/off commands to specific devices should be so costly as tens of seconds. I would understand a general delay from sensing the triggering event (i.e. opening the door), but that hardly explains the delay in between all the lights as shown in the gif.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#113

Post by gsteinb88 »

x1798DE wrote: post #104
upofadown wrote: post #79

I've been into the home automation thing since before forever. There have been many periods of excitement over the years. They come and go. As a result I have to admit to a high level of skepticism about the current period. The companies that generate and are influenced by this excitement tend to make two main errors. 1. They don't understand that without an open standard for controls and sensors they are just foolin…

One of my biggest problems is the all-too-pervasive attitude that #2 means that users shouldn't be able to control things that "do the right thing", rather than that the device defaults to doing the right thing. I find myself all too often in "edge case" situations that would be very easy to fix manually if I could dig around in some settings panel, but modern design philosophy seems to consider including a setting l…

FYI, if you have an iPhone there's now a couple manual focus camera apps. Free: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manually-manual-focus-camera... and $2, but I've been happy with it: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camer...

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#114

Post by nitrogen »

noobiemcfoob wrote: post #112

Am I the only confused by the crazy delay mentioned in the article from the "Robots"? The processing can't be all that intensive, and I can't imagine a setup where communicating simple on/off commands to specific devices should be so costly as tens of seconds. I would understand a general delay from sensing the triggering event (i.e. opening the door), but that hardly explains the delay in between all the lights as s…

Any time there's a significant buzz around home automation, opportunists with marketing skills and no appreciation for latency and UX flock to the scene, drowning out the technically superior but underfunded and poorly represented.

This stuff doesn't have to be slow: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L7jeJSdJPpk

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#115

Post by dswiese »

One comparison to this is the big push to get in car navigation and smarts developed by the tech sector. There is a reason radios and stuff work year after year through heat and cold and the like. they may not be pretty, but it (usually) does what its suppose to even after years of use.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#116

Post by dangerlibrary »

click170 wrote: post #107
upofadown wrote: post #79

I've been into the home automation thing since before forever. There have been many periods of excitement over the years. They come and go. As a result I have to admit to a high level of skepticism about the current period. The companies that generate and are influenced by this excitement tend to make two main errors. 1. They don't understand that without an open standard for controls and sensors they are just foolin…

#3 Home automation devices that require communication with the vendor's servers in order to setup and or operate. Vendors come and go, but if I've bought a product, I expect it to work until the product dies. And I don't consider the vendor going out of business to be a valid product death. Not to mention if I'm paying a one-time-fee, and this thing requires communication with vendor servers, that's a service. Who's…

Offline products without subscriptions go against two base principles of the current tech investment boom (bubble?).

The first the that recurring revenue is strictly better than one-off sales. That means VCs aren't interested in business models that don't end in "aaS".

The second is the emphasis on iteration - making users connect back regularly allows for automatic updates that allow you to ship buggy software and fix it later.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#117

Post by joezydeco »

DanBC wrote: post #98
joezydeco wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching a water heater completely off (or below Vacation setpoint) is an invitation to grow nasty things in your tank, like Leigionaire's Disease.

To kill legionella you need to water at 140 F (60 C) or over, for more than 30 minutes. That temperature will cause a full thickness ("3rd degree") burn in less than a second in children and old people, and less than 5 seconds in adults. It's best to set the water temperature to no more than 50 C. This is still potentially harmful, but takes a bit longer. Or set the tank temperature high and have some safety feature…

We're talking about people that turn their water heaters down during inactive periods or completely off because of a "smart" system that tries to save electricity.

Legionellae grow from 68 to 122F (20 to 50C). If you're letting the temperature of the tank drop into that range for a period of time and then running a shower before it's fully heated, you run the risk of aerosolizing the bacteria and contracting the disease.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#118

Post by click170 »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #116
click170 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#3 Home automation devices that require communication with the vendor's servers in order to setup and or operate. Vendors come and go, but if I've bought a product, I expect it to work until the product dies. And I don't consider the vendor going out of business to be a valid product death. Not to mention if I'm paying a one-time-fee, and this thing requires communication with vendor servers, that's a service. Who's…

Offline products without subscriptions go against two base principles of the current tech investment boom (bubble?). The first the that recurring revenue is strictly better than one-off sales. That means VCs aren't interested in business models that don't end in "aaS". The second is the emphasis on iteration - making users connect back regularly allows for automatic updates that allow you to ship buggy software and f…

I would understand if they did offer a service that you could subscribe to, but I've seen devices that are one off purchases that require live server access. That just doesn't make sense to me aside from your point about updates.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#119

Post by Joeri »

x1798DE wrote: post #104
upofadown wrote: post #79

I've been into the home automation thing since before forever. There have been many periods of excitement over the years. They come and go. As a result I have to admit to a high level of skepticism about the current period. The companies that generate and are influenced by this excitement tend to make two main errors. 1. They don't understand that without an open standard for controls and sensors they are just foolin…

One of my biggest problems is the all-too-pervasive attitude that #2 means that users shouldn't be able to control things that "do the right thing", rather than that the device defaults to doing the right thing. I find myself all too often in "edge case" situations that would be very easy to fix manually if I could dig around in some settings panel, but modern design philosophy seems to consider including a setting l…

Lumia phones have manual focus buit into the standard camera app.

Re: Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb?

#120

Post by zippergz »

ssharp wrote: post #33
lentil_soup wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That smoke detector story makes me think it could even be dangerous, no?. Could opposite happen and the device fail to detect smoke?

Maybe I'm becoming more of a luddite or cranky old-man, approaching my mid-30's, but I don't see any benefit at all to using the Nest smoke alarm. I'm replacing tried and true, simple, technologies, with a new device that seems way more complicated than it needs to be.

There's a difference between "there's no benefit at all" and "the benefits don't outweigh the downsides." There are many benefits of the Nest smoke detector. Easier to test. Easier to silence a false alarm. Less likely to wake you up in the middle of the night with a battery warning. Built-in night light. Integration with the thermostat home/away features. Notifications of an alarm when you're not home. Easy identification of which room the alarm is from when you have multiple interconnected alarms. Etc., etc., etc. Now, are those benefits enough to justify the cost and to outweigh the problems? I dunno. Do you care about those benefits? It's up to you. But there are clearly benefits.
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