My Nanoleaf works without even connecting it to the wifi. I just turn it on and off by unplugging it and plugging it in again. I dunno why I would want anything else.
The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
31–40 of 375 posts
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#32I've had a lot of success with z-wave devices in my home, hooked into Home Assistant. They seem more resilient than zigbee (and much more reliable than any of the bespoke wifi stuff) and are largely all interoperable. I've got a bunch of z-wave devices like plugs and thermostats, but it comes at a high cost.
For lights I do use zigbee ones just because they're cheaper, but my Hue and IKEA mix do have communication issues sometimes (I have them both on a Deconz stick attached to my server).
But all of this relies on Home Assistant. I honestly can't imagine trying to use smart home devices as a "normal" consumer, relying on the software of specific companies. They're all largely terrible walled gardens, and I'm constantly surprised by how bad they actually are.
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#33The only two things in my smart home that require Internet access are my Ring doorbell and Nest thermostat. Everything else is either using non-WiFi RF (Z-wave or Zigbee) or uses WiFi but is fully controllable over the LAN and any optional cloud connectivity is disabled. Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi automated and ties it all together.
Obviously that is a far cry from "plug it in, download an app, go through the setup, and it works" but it actually works and is rock solid.
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#34In that same time period, my "plant light" timer, a $15 mechanical item of a design unmodified since the 1970s, has worked flawlessly, requiring attention only when the clocks change or my schedule does. It has not informed Google, Amazon, or anyone else about its job or anything else in my home. It has generated no royalties nor invoked any support or ongoing maintenance costs. It has never needed a software upgrade…
> In that same time period, my "plant light" timer, a $15 mechanical item of a design unmodified since the 1970s, has worked flawlessly, requiring attention only when the clocks change or my schedule does. This could just be survivorship bias. If 99% of these plant timers broke and were sent to the scrap heap, you would still feel like they were 'built better back then' because you're only seeing the ones that made i…
Totally different comparison. The design of a mechanical timer is such that if placed in the appropriate environment will last a long time.
Quality may vary between manufacturers, but they are fundamentally more reliable. They are simple devices.
Contrast that to my HomeKit switch. It’s operation requires that a pki based system incorporating WiFi, Bluetooth and some cheap SoC work correctly. It’s controlled by an Apple framework tied to a cloud identity. When it works, it is marvelous. I get power metering, switching, timers, etc.
My lights didn’t turn on this morning. The only telemetry is a red blinking light. I checked my WiFi management app and the switch dropped off WiFi around 3 am. Solution: unplug/replug. Not good for something that is supposed to control security cameras and door locks.
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about a "standard" light switch that is also controllable via Z-wave, which doesn't require Internet access or Wi-Fi or anything like that? Which is what most of the switches in my house are, and really what a proper smart home should be using.
The "Z-wave" function would never be used in my house so it would just be adding cost. Considerable cost at that - a plain white plastic light switch is £1.99, and the "Z-wave" ones I can see on Amazon are all around £20-£40!
I was providing a smart home alternative to your example of having to use an app to turn something on and off. I don't think you're going to find a smart switch, Z-wave or not, for £1.99
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "Z-wave" function would never be used in my house so it would just be adding cost. Considerable cost at that - a plain white plastic light switch is £1.99, and the "Z-wave" ones I can see on Amazon are all around £20-£40!
I was providing a smart home alternative to your example of having to use an app to turn something on and off. I don't think you're going to find a smart switch, Z-wave or not, for £1.99
Sure. I'm not opposed to people spending large amounts of money on smart devices, I just don't choose to do it myself because in all honesty I don't understand what the point is.
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#37I invested in Z-wave light switches that are marked as GE but in reality manufactured by Jasco. The problem is that for an earlier generation of these devices a power surge / dip could fry the electronics, causing me to replace several of these switches over the years. This more speaks to the idea of long term reliability of electronics for devices that you want to replace very infrequently.
On the software end I used Smartthings. Samsung went through a big redo a year ago that caused me to redo all of the automation. That sucked. I've considered going open source but at this point smartthings is stable and the mobile app is not horrible.
Recently someone at either Amazon or smarthings thought it would be good to update the terms of service and break the integrations between the two services. I had to re-enable the integration by logging into and clicking an idiot button saying "I approve" of all the blah-blah-blah legalese. This was the worst part of my home automation story as clearly this didn't need to break.
I live in the US burbs and have a fairly large house at 3K+ square feet. There are a bunch of light switches that logically are one room. Using automation makes this much easier to control. Also kids - they don't turn shit off. I have an automation that turns off everything at 11AM on weeknights. Great reminder to go to bed but also causes my wife to be unhappy with me when the movie turns off unexpectedly, lol.
We have a smart lock on the front door. The kids have a door code and you can give contractors / cleaners their own code. That's nice. And one of the little f**kers doesn't lock the door on the way out I can create a rule that automatically locks the door after its been unlocked for 15 minutes.
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In that same time period, my "plant light" timer, a $15 mechanical item of a design unmodified since the 1970s, has worked flawlessly, requiring attention only when the clocks change or my schedule does. This could just be survivorship bias. If 99% of these plant timers broke and were sent to the scrap heap, you would still feel like they were 'built better back then' because you're only seeing the ones that made i…
Sure, the standard cheap mechanical timer has DOA's and failures because its a cheaply made machanism; but the basic electro-mechanical switch on a clock design has been around since the 70s. I find the timers are best replaced after say 5-8yr because they're cheap and i dont trust the plastic once it brittles up.If you've been running one over say 50% of its rated load it might be entertaining to crack it open and s…
The key point here is complexity. It's hard to argue mechanical timers are more complex than digital ones: in the sense of number of key components vs their reliability vs their average lifespan.
Good software is simple.
Nothing in the smart home category, as implemented today in retail products, is simple.
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#39I share the neo-luddist perspective of many of the other commenters, but it's also clear that there are basic product quality issues at hand. Switching something on and off on a schedule is not a hard problem to solve, in theory, so why doesn't it work? Is there something about the ecosystem and interfaces between devices and hubs that is lacking? Did the company just not test their product sufficiently?
Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
#40About 10 seconds into reading this I got a 'cute' drop-down box that greyed out what I was half-way through reading, and insisted that I attend to a 'Get my weekly IoT newsletter' that demanded from me an email address, name, and company details. The unbearable demands of advertising. EDIT (ADD) I've installed a couple of ESP32's with humidity / temperature gauges, in two of my abodes, that feed into a prometheus ->…
Those infernal newsletter nags are fucking insufferable. I haven't even read the damn article yet and now you're trying to get my email address? I generally subscribe with "postmaster@nameofsite". I imagine they break accessibility helpers too.
As for smart homes, my toe dipping into them so far has been largely negative. Biggest mistake I've made is probably mixing brands.
If I did it all from scratch I'd:
1) find a single brand that does everything reliably and stick with it. This saves having to have a dozen different apps on my phone and somehow tie them all together, not to mention keep track of half a dozen different passwords, as the apps tend to randomly log me out every so often.
2) choose a decent brand. I know pretty much everything is made in China these days but my experiences with my Yeelink light has been much more painful than my experience with Kasa-related appliances that seem to just work (most of the time) and don't need messing with periodically.
3) ask tech people I trust on what to buy and how to set it up. I don't trust advertising/marketing and many review sites have a vested interest in peddling and recommending shit products.
and possibly
4) wait until it's a more mature market