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How do you move out of a smarthome?

shkspr.mobi

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Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#151

Post by crankylinuxuser »

Well, you make it a stupidhome.

Switch outlets with $1.80 switches. Yank out pretty lights and put in simple cheap hanger cans. Keep your dumb honeywell thermostat and reinstall the 4 wires. Buy dumb smoke alarms and litter them everywhere (they're cheap). Yank out special outlets and put in el-cheapo outlets.

In other words, yank out and substitute the smart stuff back to cheap dumb stuff that just works.

This isn't hard. It's a few hours to do this swap. And most of the mains stuff can be picked up at Walmart or similar for cheap.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#152

Post by sumitgt »

titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

I sympathize with you. But you seem to be making the classic mistake of assuming that everyone's use-case and needs are same as yours.

Just an example:

> I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on.

What if you are someone who has trouble walking or has mobility issues. Can you imagine how convenient getting things done with voice could be? These sort of things can be life changing for some people.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#153

Post by mikeash »

khedoros1 wrote: post #126
mikeash wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The garage door opener works when you push a button. The furnace works when you change the little numbers on the thermostat. If it doesn't work, you call a garage door or HVAC company and they fix it. I think most people are barely aware that these things even have manuals, let alone actually sit down and read them.

> The garage door opener works when you push a button. What button? I've got a detached garage, so it doesn't make sense to have a button inside. And when the previous residents were (apparently) evicted, they took various keys, remotes, etc with them. I most certainly had to buy a remote and find my garage door opener's manual to get it working. Damned if I was going to pay a garage door repairman to come out and hi…

This scenario is covered under "If it doesn't work, you call a garage door or HVAC company and they fix it."

Your typical HN reader is probably willing and able to reprogram the thing on their own, but this is not normal.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#154

Post by mikeash »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #122
mikeash wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The garage door opener works when you push a button. The furnace works when you change the little numbers on the thermostat. If it doesn't work, you call a garage door or HVAC company and they fix it. I think most people are barely aware that these things even have manuals, let alone actually sit down and read them.

No, that's how you use them. We I moved into my house I spent a good week or more tracing out where vents, pipes, and wires went. I spent time learning the parts of the furnace and built in humidifier and the different switches and knobs on them and what they do and how they do what they do. I'm no expert, buts it's helped several times already to have such an understanding.

Most people don't do this at all. Using them is all they know how to do. If it breaks, they'll have someone fix it.

The fact that you do this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. You and I are not representative for this.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#155

Post by aldanor »

tradersam wrote: post #145
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

Y'know, after a decade on Internet forums, I've found saying "I know I'm going to get downvoted, but—" usually leads to downvotes, while simply stating your position gets judged on actual merit rather than self pity. Just my ฿ 0.0002.

You surely meant 0.000002 :)

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#156

Post by patorjk »

tradersam wrote: post #145
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

Y'know, after a decade on Internet forums, I've found saying "I know I'm going to get downvoted, but—" usually leads to downvotes, while simply stating your position gets judged on actual merit rather than self pity. Just my ฿ 0.0002.

I would actually speculate that it's the opposite. Though not exactly the same, 2 of my 3 most upvoted comments on reddit (465 and 510 votes) contain edits where I ask about why I'm getting downvoted. As soon as I added that question in, the voting seemed to switch directions. It's like people took a second more to think about the comment rather than just acting on emotion. I think that's why the saying has survived and you see it so often. Obviously this is just anecdotal, but I think there's some neat psychology happening when someone brings up upvotes/downvotes. It'd be interesting to do an analysis to see how those words effect a comment's score.

Edit: Just realized that the parent of the comment I'm replying to is the top comment on this post, so that's another piece of anecdotal evidence.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#157

Post by npongratz »

sumitgt wrote: post #152
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

I sympathize with you. But you seem to be making the classic mistake of assuming that everyone's use-case and needs are same as yours. Just an example: > I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. What if you are someone who has trouble walking or has mobility issues. Can you imagine how convenient getting things done with voice could be? These sort of things can be life changing for some people.

The Clapper never needed to phone home to the mothership.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#158

Post by sowbug »

WorldMaker wrote: post #134
sowbug wrote: post #120

Another modern-technology problem: how do you pass on your cryptocurrency wealth when you die? Wills, trusts, estate law, and legal force are meaningless if you've forgotten to provide your private keys to next of kin.

You can print out private keys (and passwords, etc) and put them in Trust. If you are feeling paranoid that you can't trust your Trustees, you can use something like Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm [1] to give individual Trustees only a portion of the private keys (or passwords, etc). I explored at one point if there was a market for an app to automate that last part, but so far such noodling keeps winding up at a…

Trust is only part of the problem. It's also competence on the part of the recipients to combine the Shamir parts, correctly pick Segwit vs Legacy chains, not send BCH to a BTC address, not email their private keys to the Geek Squad, and then not get it all swiped on their malware-infested PC.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#159

Post by [deleted] »

sumitgt wrote: post #152
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

I sympathize with you. But you seem to be making the classic mistake of assuming that everyone's use-case and needs are same as yours. Just an example: > I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. What if you are someone who has trouble walking or has mobility issues. Can you imagine how convenient getting things done with voice could be? These sort of things can be life changing for some people.

[deleted]

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#160

Post by bdod6 »

titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

I can see some use of things like Nest which keeps your electric usage efficient and low. Agree that other things are way over-hyped though.

Look at how hard Amazon has been pushing Alexa for years now, and the shopping experience on it is still terrible. For very specific use cases, it works kinda well (i.e. order more household supplies that I've ordered 100x before). For anything else, it's much easier and faster to use a phone or computer. Amazon is devoting hundreds of millions to solve a problem that literally doesn't exist.

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