The unbearable fussiness of the smart home • Hacker News Board

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#371

Post by Chris2048 » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #367

Chris2048 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Surely a breaker can only detect over-current or short-to earth/neutral (which would also be an overcurrent I guess).

If the thing just heats up and catches fire, it might not trip the breaker. I meant overheating itself, not erroneously turning things off/on.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#372

Post by InvertedRhodium » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #293

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't use wifi. When the only firmware you need to update is in the MQTT bridge, the whole problem becomes a non-issue.

Zigbee or Zwave devices can have firmware vulnerabilities.

The attack surface at least requires physical proximity, unlike devices addressable via IP.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#373

Post by whafro » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 12:57 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #365

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?

It did. However, the beeping error only occurred long after the oven was used, and seemed to never happen while operating.

And given that we were aiming to have the oven turned off at/near the breaker most of the time, except when in active use (and therefore at least reasonably human-monitored), the risk seems acceptably low.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#374

Post by paisawalla » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #348

paisawalla wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Lutron has indoor and outdoor variants: https://www.casetawireless.com/products/smart-plugs

The indoor version is a lamp dimmer. I just want a simple on/off outlet. The outdoor version is functionally close to what I want, but it’s big and ugly - something I don’t want inside. This seems like a hole in their lineup.

A dimmer is a superset, in functionality, of a binary switch. Using the Lutron app or something like Home Assistant, you can treat the device like a simple on/off and drive the device to only values of 0% or 100%.

Re: The unbearable fussiness of the smart home

#375

Post by urbushey » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #321

pkulak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my smart home stuff. My lights turn on in the morning, change color temperature at sunset, and turn off at night. Thermostats set to the right temperature/mode at night and in the morning depending on the forecast for the day. My garden is watered, but not if it's going to rain. When I turn on my TV, the lights turn off and the blinds close. Everything shuts down and locks when the family leaves, resumes when…

Your not getting the weather forecast from your local network, so your put to at least 2 cloud dependencies. A really basic test it how much still works when the internet fails. Because just that watering setup is the opposite of rock solid. If the electricity is on, and these several devices in your house didn’t fail, and you have internet, and the cloud service works, then you water your lawn unless the weather for…

Not to mention what happens when the power goes out, even momentarily. On Friday afternoon I lost power an hour before leaving for the airport. I was reasonably sure I could remember the light switch position to ensure lights were off, but the digital (non-networked) thermostat booted up when the power came back and has been heating my empty apartment all weekend long.