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The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

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Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#361

Post by arcticbull »

Spooky23 wrote: post #34
arcticbull wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

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 Ap…

Sure, there's a lot more pieces now - I won't argue that there's not more complexity. However simplicity doesn't imply reliability and without knowing how many of these timers didn't work or failed we can't really hypothesize on their relative reliability.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#362

Post by mavhc »

mavhc wrote: post #350
Chris2048 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and power negotiation is great. But things that can use it seem to be expensive. I checked, the chips are fairly cheap; but all the PoE stuff I might use aren't "one per light socket" prices. Plus I'd still like a decent mains relay board that is appropriate to put in a wall - the Shellys' are a good form for this, but I cannot see a similar wired solution (although some Sonos devices get close).

https://www.olimex.com/Products/IoT/ESP32/ESP32-POE/open-sou... is probably the best option

Although I ended up buying Lilygo ESP32 POE from China because Olimex and Brexit don't mix

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#363

Post by Chris2048 »

mavhc wrote: post #362
mavhc wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.olimex.com/Products/IoT/ESP32/ESP32-POE/open-sou... is probably the best option

Although I ended up buying Lilygo ESP32 POE from China because Olimex and Brexit don't mix

Hmm, I'm in the EU and still get hit with customs charges from Chinese items e.g. AliExpress stuff. Not sure if there would be British-made equivalent.

But I'd sooner order from a company that is liable e.g. if the IoT device burns down my house.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#364

Post by op00to »

arcticbull wrote: post #10
ninkendo wrote: post #9

I did my whole house in Lutron’s smart switches (close to 50 of them), and I think it’s good? It’s been about 2 years now and I really haven’t had any issues. The switches aren’t Wi-Fi connected, because Wi-Fi would be an awful choice for 50 devices that you only communicate with a few times a day. They use their own wireless frequency and communicate in a really simple/reliable way to the bridge, which is wired to m…

I was about to say the same thing. I set up all my non-standard lighting fixtures with Lutron Caseta switches, and replaced all the standard bulbs with Philips Hue bulbs. They've both been working flawlessly, together, with my 3 HomePod Minis for about a year and a half now. It really is a brand thing. Most are bad. [edit] > My favorite aspect is that the pico switches can be programmed to switch whole rooms of light…

> This is my only gripe with the Lutron hardware. The Picos can only be used to trigger Lutron devices. They don't integrate into HomeKit like the switches do.

They do if you use a “middleware” to tie together the systems like Home Assistant or HomeBridge. I raise and lower zwave blinds using a pico switch.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#365

Post by op00to »

whafro wrote: post #172

Quick story: On the day we were closing on our 1920s house here in Massachusetts, we noticed that the oven wouldn't turn on. Then we noticed that it was shut off at the breaker. We asked the owner why, and he said "oh, the mainboard in the oven (a Thermidor) has some issue where it beeps incessantly in the middle of the night and wakes us all up – but not a big deal: you can just turn it off and on at the breaker and…

Did it ever occur to you that a failure in a component in a machine specifically built to control fire might lead to uncontrolled fire in places you don’t want it?

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#366

Post by mehphp »

rwmj wrote: post #11

Has to be said I don't understand "smart devices" one bit. I simply don't understand how pulling out a phone and launching an app is preferable to an ordinary light switch. In fact I would say it's in every respect worse. And I don't want something that sits in the room listening to everything I say and uploading some unknown part of that to an unknown cloud service.

I don't know.. saying "Alexa movie mode" and having my hue lights dim really does make it nicer. Is it a must-have or a need? Of course not, it's just a nice to have IMHO.

I also use Alexa to set reminders, get Roomba to clean specific rooms (or the whole house) and I use it constantly to control Spotify.

You can argue that Alexa is spying on me or whatever but i'm not sure how that's worse than the iPhone I carry in my pocket literally everywhere I go...

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#367

Post by mavhc »

Chris2048 wrote: post #363
mavhc wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I ended up buying Lilygo ESP32 POE from China because Olimex and Brexit don't mix

Hmm, I'm in the EU and still get hit with customs charges from Chinese items e.g. AliExpress stuff. Not sure if there would be British-made equivalent. But I'd sooner order from a company that is liable e.g. if the IoT device burns down my house.

AliExpress charges VAT now.

If your IoT device burns the house down your circuit breaker failed, or you connected it without proper failsafe measures.

Is it burning it down by being on fire itself, or by turning something on that shouldn't be?

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#368

Post by Jedd »

tzs wrote: post #349
Jedd wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au contraire - your setup is way more sophisticated than mine! : ) I have some 433MHz kit, plus a bundle of various arduinos, but (for me) the complexity of getting them to talk back to base has kept me procrastinating for years. The ESP8266/ESP32 devices, with WiFi built-in, are effectively the same price as arduinos (here in AU, via ebay) but so much more convenient because of that extra memory + the wifi. I'm goin…

> I have some 433MHz kit, plus a bundle of various arduinos, but (for me) the complexity of getting them to talk back to base has kept me procrastinating for years. The transmit side is pretty easy. Here's the xmit.ino file from my rain gauge project [1]. The receive side using one of those typical 433 MHz receive modules looks like a complete pain in the ass. I spent a while with the transmitter and receiver both on…

Your pain tolerance is clearly way higher than mine!

I really do have a drawer full of the 433 gear, and achieved some very rudimentary comms going years ago using a pair of arduinos sitting next to each other on the desk, but quickly abandoned it. I'm impressed that you've achieved what you have using this gear - and equal parts impressed / distressed that you use a CRO to get there.

I also have a tipping rain gauge, but I expect to wire it up to an ESP32 too - as the Hall effect doesn't care about 3v3 or 5v : ) And yes, rainfall models in my (rural) part of the world are poorly documented - but public transport systems are even further distant than official weather stations.

For some of my (few hundred metres from a power point) needs, very low power is a pre-req, but pricing now for LoRa, PVC panels, batteries, etc, means even that becomes orders of magnitude simpler to solve by NOT trying to scrimp on a few hundred mA.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#369

Post by gangstead »

fishtoaster wrote: post #275
gangstead wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Lutron my first two years after getting my EE. I wasn't on the wireless products but we did do crazy amounts of fussing over fall back behaviors and corner cases. We very much developed the software with the attitude of hardware: we knew what we shipped had to work for years and field updates were unacceptable. I've been gone from Coopersburg for 15 years but I still practice the engineering culture I lea…

Oh hey, Lutron! I interviewed there coming out of college, some 10 years ago. I think I drove down from Rochester, iirc. Of all the places I interviewed at the time, it's one of the only ones where I remember a specific interviewing session because it was somewhat unique: The interview sat across from me and role-played a customer calling to complain about a vague issue happening in their home. I then had to roleplay…

I hope they sent you a tin of Lutron cookies!

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#370

Post by gangstead »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #185
gangstead wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Lutron my first two years after getting my EE. I wasn't on the wireless products but we did do crazy amounts of fussing over fall back behaviors and corner cases. We very much developed the software with the attitude of hardware: we knew what we shipped had to work for years and field updates were unacceptable. I've been gone from Coopersburg for 15 years but I still practice the engineering culture I lea…

> long standing tradition that engineers put in some time on the customer support phones Before this, the tradition at engineering companies was that the "kids fresh out of school" would start in Manufacturing or Service so they'd have some experience with the difference between design engineering and actually being able to build or repair the thing you designed. It seems that this doesn't happen much anymore.

Not only did I answer the phones but I haphazardly volunteered to help out for a shift at the local factory. I spent a shift Christmas Eve (with tinny music over the PA) crimping wires to a transformer. At the end of the shift they explained that they didn't need that work done but they didn't like they the large wire had to be crimped to a medium wire before being crimped to a small wire. This was a step that usually had to be done once per panel one or twice per day (large commercial orders) but they had me, guy who had been there for six months, crimp a couple hundred of them as a lesson to management. Well I learned that lesson and to this day I don't waste ANYONE'S time. No matter what.
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