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Smartphone ≠ smart home

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Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#21

Post by twald »

bbcbasic wrote: post #20

I have a really great UX for controlling lighting in my home. So simple my 2 year old understood it when she was just 12 months. Maybe it's top secret, worthy of some serious VC. But you can probably guess what it is :-) Now smart phones - she gets those too but she finds it so annoying. Adverts on youtube serve to cause confusion. That action bar on the Android is annoying. She says 'waaah' when the screen is locked…

You can't be possibly talking about a light switch, right? :) That's exactly what I'm talking about. I want something as simple as a light switch to control the colors of my lifx, Hue or control my sonos speakers.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#22

Post by bbcbasic »

compumike wrote: post #13

The connected lightbulb example is great. That's IoT as a novelty; it adds few/trivial new capabilities, and it adds a lot of inconvenience. The flipside of this is IoT as a superpower: finding applications where you can truly use technology to give people a new ability that they didn't have before. From the personal side, this IoT novelty versus superpower discrepancy is something we thought a lot about as we brough…

IoT idea that I would buy:

I have solar panels. I need to regulate energy use to be as much during the day as possible (on sunny days) but keep the total load below 3kw at any time (otherwise I need to go to the grid for extra power).

Make me a system that can turn on the dishwasher, washing machine, pool pump etc at the right time to minimize my electricity bill.

Bonus cred for checking the weather in my exact location, and taking into account coming cloud cover.

I'd pay up to $500 for such a device IF it also generated stats and told me how much solar energy I used as well as my export to the grid.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#23

Post by bbcbasic »

twald wrote: post #21
bbcbasic wrote: post #20

I have a really great UX for controlling lighting in my home. So simple my 2 year old understood it when she was just 12 months. Maybe it's top secret, worthy of some serious VC. But you can probably guess what it is :-) Now smart phones - she gets those too but she finds it so annoying. Adverts on youtube serve to cause confusion. That action bar on the Android is annoying. She says 'waaah' when the screen is locked…

You can't be possibly talking about a light switch, right? :) That's exactly what I'm talking about. I want something as simple as a light switch to control the colors of my lifx, Hue or control my sonos speakers.

You need a light bulb that listens to you. "LIFX BLUE PLEASE!!" you yell, and so it is.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#24

Post by krohling »

I noticed a lot of these comments ended up referencing challenges with lighting so I figured it would be good to chime in here (caveat: co-founder @ emberlight.co).

Interaction models are something we've been thinking about quite a bit and we've been exploring a number of options. New products like Senic that explore new opportunities are especially exciting for us. Here are 3 rough tenants we've been following when thinking about how people will interact with our product:

   1) The smartphone is not the solution, it's a stop on the way to something much better.  This is basically the point of OP's article and we completely agree.
   2) If it's not broken, don't fix it.  In other words, if there's an existing interaction model in the home that everyone is already used to (i.e. light switch, tv remote, wall thermostat) seriously ask yourself if that really (really) needs to change before inventing something new.
   3) In slight opposition to #2 there are obviously huge opportunities to innovate the way we interact with our home.  Some of the models that I'm quite excited about:

         -The "dashboard" model that Sentri is building (http://sentri.me)
         -The "voice" model: (i.e. Echo, API.ai, etc.)
         -The "gesture" model which is what Senic and a few others are building
We're actively researching many of these and building some very cool partnerships in this space for exactly this reason. I think the end result will end up being some combination of these models and perhaps others that I've missed.

Btw, feel free to reach out directly for thoughts/questions/coffee: kevinr@emberlight.co

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#25

Post by pbreit »

untog wrote: post #12

Smartphone controlled anything never feels great to me. If I have to type in code to unlock my keypad, then wait for an app to launch, just to change the temperature on the thermostat, it's already over. On a similar note, I wanted to love the Chromecast, but I found the phone to be a terrible controller. Now I use a Roku, which has a great remote. Instead of my girlfriend and I crowding ourselves around a tiny smart…

I think actually you need both. The Amazon fire tv's remote is critical but I miss not being able to cast from a phone.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#27

Post by pbreit »

I found myself in agreement with the post but then when I saw the flow it looked far too general purpose. And as a computer input device it looks like a nonstarter (sorta like leap). I was envisioning some very specific tasks.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#28

Post by seivan »

untog wrote: post #12

Smartphone controlled anything never feels great to me. If I have to type in code to unlock my keypad, then wait for an app to launch, just to change the temperature on the thermostat, it's already over. On a similar note, I wanted to love the Chromecast, but I found the phone to be a terrible controller. Now I use a Roku, which has a great remote. Instead of my girlfriend and I crowding ourselves around a tiny smart…

So much wrong with your statement...

Unlock with fingerprint. App launches aren't that slow on iPhones :/

How about an extension to do it from the notification center? Or even Siri? Neither requires unlocking.

You could technically have an iPhone plugged into a power source and activate Siri with "Hey Siri" and then do your thing.

Then.... we have the Watch :)

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#30

Post by omnibrain »

untog wrote: post #12

Smartphone controlled anything never feels great to me. If I have to type in code to unlock my keypad, then wait for an app to launch, just to change the temperature on the thermostat, it's already over. On a similar note, I wanted to love the Chromecast, but I found the phone to be a terrible controller. Now I use a Roku, which has a great remote. Instead of my girlfriend and I crowding ourselves around a tiny smart…

With Android you can put the control apps on the lock screen. I have the control widgets for my Sonos on the lock screen of my Nexus 7 and it works like a charm. On the other hand I always have to unlock my iPhone if I want to controle my Sonos from it.
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