Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

staceyoniot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 127 posts

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#61

Post by mynameisash »

car_analogy wrote: post #59
gh02t wrote: post #8

The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. Then they are either forced to a) operate on a pyramid scheme where new customers finance the ongoing costs of existing users or b) a subscription model that gives them a strong incentive to keep customers as locked into their ecosystem as possible. Either of these leave customers high and dry when the house o…

> The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. There is a bigger reason - what problem do they solve? How much money and/or time will using their products save me? The one area where there might be worthwhile savings is smart thermostats, but could 90% of those savings be accomplished with an offline thermostat with a timer?

I played with HomeAssistant for a while, and I kind of liked tinkering around with things, but it was still a huge pain in the ass, and I have no delusions that it was saving me money or time. For someone going into this with the expectation of tinkering, it's fine. For a commercial venture, I don't see current 'smart home' products/services as very viable. I've already switched my light bulbs to LEDs; how much am I actually going to save by having them turn off automatically after a preset delay? Not much.

One of my DIY projects was a couple smart plugs and a temperature sensor; at the peak of summer heat, when the house was hot but it cooled off at night, I automated ventilating our house. It had a great impact on our comfort without using air conditioning (which we didn't have). That is a decent use for this kind of stuff, but it's far too much effort for most people to go through.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#62

Post by Terretta »

gregmac wrote: post #48
gh02t wrote: post #8

The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. Then they are either forced to a) operate on a pyramid scheme where new customers finance the ongoing costs of existing users or b) a subscription model that gives them a strong incentive to keep customers as locked into their ecosystem as possible. Either of these leave customers high and dry when the house o…

> The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. I agree. It's a shame because Insteon products were pretty good for their time, for the most part. Granted, I never used their cloud stuff at all -- only local control (via ISY99 and later also Home Assistant). Though I'd say this was a long time coming; it had been nearly a decade since any new products cam…

> no equivalent for Insteon KeypadLinc

there are a variety of HomeKit buttons that are sold as e.g. dimmers or multi-bulb, but in fact can trigger arbitrary homekit devices, scenes, automations, etc. i’m guessing these fall in the category you say “comes close”?

an example of what i mean is “Philips Hue v2 Smart Dimmer Switch and Remote” which is actually 4 arbitrary device, scene, or automation buttons that magneticallly stays on wall or comes off to be a remote. there are also a few beautiful button sets made with wood, fabric, etc., launched on kickstarter. by working with homekit, you can be sure they will not require their proprietary cloud to stay functional.

that said, i’m a fan of ipad touch wallmount, like this in white:

https://www.amazon.com/VidaMount-Wall-iPod-5th-Mount/dp/B01N...

with this you get arbitrary button sets for arbitrary systems, and price is competitive with locked-in options — remember the very early days “Philips ProntoPro” universal remote with arbitrarily programmable LCD screens that could emulate any physical button layout?

or if you want something that does that for limited scenes, plus AV remote any house guest can pick up and use without instruction, there’s the interesting LogiTech Harmony Hub with the “Companion All-in-One” remote that doesn’t have a screen but does have buttons for scenes, super useful if you’re in the Alexa or Hue systems. i use the on-remote buttons for the lights of the room the remote lives in.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#63

Post by gh02t »

car_analogy wrote: post #59
gh02t wrote: post #8

The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. Then they are either forced to a) operate on a pyramid scheme where new customers finance the ongoing costs of existing users or b) a subscription model that gives them a strong incentive to keep customers as locked into their ecosystem as possible. Either of these leave customers high and dry when the house o…

> The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. There is a bigger reason - what problem do they solve? How much money and/or time will using their products save me? The one area where there might be worthwhile savings is smart thermostats, but could 90% of those savings be accomplished with an offline thermostat with a timer?

There are plenty of useful/interesting things, e.g. reactive lights, more proactive climate control, controlling ventilation on demand, presence based interactions etc. Some of this can be achieved with dumb solutions, e.g. humidity controlled switch etc. But when you start integrating devices together they can coordinate to do much more complicated and "smart" things.

Does everybody want to do that? No. How far do modern systems go towards achieving any of that? Ehh, IMO not very far unless you put a lot of effort into it. Do the UIs of modern systems really make setting up these sorts of complex interactions up accessible for the average person? Nope. Are there glaring privacy and security concerns? Yep. There are lots of perfectly valid criticisms, especially of "smart" homes as they are, but there are certainly lots of possibilities.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#64

Post by brimble »

Nextgrid wrote: post #42
brimble wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big missing piece for the whole thing is the Just Works factor. You're either stuck with cloud garbage (some of which does, kinda, Just Work, until it doesn't), or a bunch of DIY. Meanwhile, with traditional dumb fixtures, switches, outlets, et c., I don't even pay attention to which brand I'm buying. They all work the same, and you hook them all up the same way, then forget about them until/unless they phy…

Why is DIY considered bad? I mean, aren't existing "dumb" electricals also DIY in the sense that you have to install it, wire it in, etc? I have a "DIY" setup in my current property with Shelly modules behind light switches and everything connected to Home Assistant. It's been rock-solid for a year now and the occasional maintenance I do (updates, etc) is more out of a hobby than anything (I could air-gap the entire…

There's a big difference between wiring up a new outlet that'll likely last for decades without further effort and will very likely require an identical or near-identical process to replace even 30 years from now, and care and feeding of fully-local "smart home" networks & interfaces.

Most plumbing or electrical work I do will last decades. If I move, the same skills will transfer perfectly to the plumbing and wiring already installed in the new house. The last big innovation in any of that was PEX piping, which takes about five minutes to get completely competent with, and has been around for years already. People who can come out and fix any of that, if I don't feel like dealing with it, can be found anywhere and often work pretty damn cheap (unless you're getting ripped off). Almost all the maintenance is "buy part, replace part", which is fine because (in the scheme of things) most of the parts are very cheap.

Add "smart" devices to any of that, and they're instantly the most finicky and needy part of the whole system.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#65

Post by brimble »

cptskippy wrote: post #30
brimble wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big missing piece for the whole thing is the Just Works factor. You're either stuck with cloud garbage (some of which does, kinda, Just Work, until it doesn't), or a bunch of DIY. Meanwhile, with traditional dumb fixtures, switches, outlets, et c., I don't even pay attention to which brand I'm buying. They all work the same, and you hook them all up the same way, then forget about them until/unless they phy…

> I don't even pay attention to which brand I'm buying. My mil has purchased some seriously sketchy outlets off Amazon to install because she wanted to modern style but didn't want to pay the Leviton/Legrand premium from the home center duopoly. If you're purchasing in-wall electrical, I strongly encourage you to buy a name brand from a reputable source. Also spend the extra half dollar for nylon plates that won't cr…

Hahaha, I guess I've avoided that because I rarely purchase anything that involves electricity from Amazon. I don't trust them not to burn down my house.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#67

Post by larusso »

car_analogy wrote: post #59
gh02t wrote: post #8

The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. Then they are either forced to a) operate on a pyramid scheme where new customers finance the ongoing costs of existing users or b) a subscription model that gives them a strong incentive to keep customers as locked into their ecosystem as possible. Either of these leave customers high and dry when the house o…

> The reason these companies keep faltering is that they push cloud-based and/or locked in product ecosystems. There is a bigger reason - what problem do they solve? How much money and/or time will using their products save me? The one area where there might be worthwhile savings is smart thermostats, but could 90% of those savings be accomplished with an offline thermostat with a timer?

I feel slightly the same. But I still see some value in some actors but not really for smart solutions. I don’t need a central tablet to control the lighting in the house or play a music in every room at the same time etc. These are nice applications but the burden to pay and set it up and then actually using it would be to much. I got me some Shelly Relays to retrofit some light and Rollo sockets. The only “automation” I programmed is to open all Rollos in the morning at 8am. I really hated it to go from room to room and press the button next to the window. Classical first world problem. I also programmed my Harmony Remote to control the blinds/Rollos and the lights. Nothing smart just a button that does the same action the button in the wall can do. Ok the blinds can now be controlled in percentages which is nice. But and here comes the but. The setup is so custom and involves 3 software pieces that I lost a lot of interest while setting this simple system up. The harmony bridge to a custom piece of software found on GitHub which talks to openHAB hangs constantly ( something with harmony hub losing Wi-Fi access every few days). The setup and management of the Shelly plugs is also not ideal. One can flash them with a custom firmware but I wanted to start with the stock firmware first to feel the water. All in all I kind of like the topic of home automation but I’m just to lazy to play zookeeper for a bunch of devices. And the mentioned providers with their vendor lock and cloud only solution will not get into my house.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#68

Post by Terretta »

tristanperry wrote: post #51
blamazon wrote: post #5

The article talks about how Matter will save everything. What the heck? Don't we already have zigbee and Z-wave that work fine? Why do we need another communications protocol?

It is 'yet another' standard yes, but it's worth pointing out that Matter was jointly launched by the ZigBee Alliance (who now call themselves the Connectivity Standards Alliance). So it's not exactly a rival to ZigBee at least. Z-Wave are going a different direction though, and I wouldn't be surprised if Z-Wave slips into obscurity over the next decade.

Agree, this purports to not be “yet another”, but the one that converges. Oversimplified, Thread is already an IP mesh on Zigbee hardware, and Matter is a device/app protocol on top of IP.

“To simplify adoption, Matter will start as an application layer on top of existing IP technologies, including ethernet, Wi-Fi, Thread, and Bluetooth (for device provisioning). This means Matter is not reinventing the wheel; it’s adding better technology to the highways our smart homes are driving on.”

https://www.theverge.com/22787729/matter-smart-home-standard...

I like that article as a casual overview, which also references “What matters about Matter”, an ‘explainer’ and a ‘living FAQ’:

https://www.theverge.com/22832127/matter-smart-home-products...

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#69

Post by Terretta »

______-_-______ wrote: post #12

Let's say I want to dip my toe into smart homes, maybe get a smart light switch or two. I care about: - privacy - staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me) - an open protocol interoperable between vendors Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?

If you want privacy, staying out of cloud, and interop between device vendors, the home automation for dummies approach is:

Buy devices from Eve, which works with HomeKit and other HomeKit devices.

Other suggestions here miss the privacy angle insofar as privacy also requires security.

> Smart home company Eve built its entire business model on local control. “Our privacy platform is ‘what’s at home stays at home,’” Jerome Gackel, Eve Systems CEO, tells me. “With Matter, you do not need a cloud — you can have one, but it’s not a requirement.” Its commitment to avoiding cloud control is why Eve devices have been iPhone- and HomeKit-only thus far. But with Matter, Eve can move to the other platforms while remaining entirely local.

Re: The end of Insteon and why the smart home keeps faltering

#70

Post by lfowles »

______-_-______ wrote: post #12

Let's say I want to dip my toe into smart homes, maybe get a smart light switch or two. I care about: - privacy - staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me) - an open protocol interoperable between vendors Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?

How smart do you want to go? I found that for my purposes all I needed was some occupancy sensor switches and plain old timed switches (exhaust fans).
Post reply on HN