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Smartphone ≠ smart home

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Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#61

Post by recursive »

deminature wrote: post #32
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…

Xbox One's voice control would be my preferred input mechanism for controlling my entire home - no unlock, no app launch, not even any picking up a device/remote. Microsoft must have plans about this though, because it seems so obvious after getting used to voice control on the console.

Do you get accurate results with voice control? My success rate with attempted voice commands is something less than 50%. I wouldn't like that to be my primary mechanism for dealing with locks and climate.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#62

Post by polynomial »

tmuir wrote: post #45
coldtea wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. For one, newer smartphones will mostly come with fingerprint sensors. So no code typing there. Second, apps launch almost instantly in any recent iOS or Android phone. It's not like you'll wait 1 minute for he app…

Some of the first world problems of HN users using technology are beyond the pale. I was arguing mouse vs remote/phone for playing media on a media server, and someone's retort was that a mouse would require them to have a surface upon which to use the mouse at their couch. I've spent way too much time envisioning this mythical surfaceless couch and person.

Not that I spend a lot of time on couches, mine or others, but even if there is a "usable" surface nearby (I have no surfaces near my couch) it's usually a coffee table with terrible ergonomics for use as a controller plane.

But this doesn't seem like a major issue, since it really seems a tablet (or just your phone) solves the problem.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#63

Post by agumonkey »

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…

Think larger, with ~IoT networks you can express richer abstractions. "ensure all rooms lights are off", "all rooms facings south don't need the heater on", "are my doors locked ?". For one off tasks I agree.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#64

Post by adl »

dangrossman wrote: post #36

Instead of a $99 custom button, what about a sub-$99 Android tablet? You can put them anywhere you'd put the button, and leave your home control app running with the screen set to never turn off. Turning on/off a light with a touch will then be no more effort than flicking a light switch -- there's nothing to take out of your pocket, no waiting for an app to open. This is how my home works. I built the app that runs…

Can we see a photo of your setup? sounds pretty good.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#65

Post by prawn »

coldtea wrote: post #35

> Smart homes are not a thing of the future anymore. Right now, 100 “things” per second are connecting to the internet. By 2020, more than 250 things will connect each second. Probably unpopular in a programming forum, but, aside for people with physical difficulties, did anyone (e.g. more than a few outliers, not literally anyone as in > 0) ever asked for a "smart home"? And before someone replies with the quote abo…

I think the meh comes from poor implementation. I have LIFX globes I can control with my phone but they're a pain - takes too long to open my phone, open the app, wait for it to connect, etc.

Done well, I would be very keen for home automation. The two rooms at the front of my house have six privacy blinds and six blackout blinds. They are a huge pain to deal with and so I would find very useful a solution that automatically opened the blackout blinds in the morning and closed them in the evening.

Or tracked soil moisture and controlled irrigation around the various areas of my garden. Or handled home security/monitoring.

I thought Microsoft's original Surface (the projection table) was going to end up being a hub for this sort of thing to control a home, store media, browse media schedules, etc but it seems to have fizzled weakly.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#66

Post by prawn »

crazypyro wrote: post #34

I will say that I think Leap motion[0] is another really well made "controller" that would be great for smart homes. It just "works" with their code out of the box. You can easily tell how many fingers someone has, whether they are tapping, grabbing, a couple other gestures, their 3 dim location relative to the camera, etc. I used one at a hackathon a few months back to attempt a Theremin and it was quite fun. [0] ht…

Interesting idea applying that to homes. Instead of the device watching/scanning out from a monitor to a keyboard surface, it could be a panel on a wall in your kitchen that recognises gestures performed nearby (like in the cubic foot in front of it).

I could imagine that learning gestures to control doors, blinds, background music, lighting and wake/sleep procedures like locking all doors, fading lights, putting devices on standby, etc.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#67

Post by shurcooL »

Smartphones are not a good way to control things in the real world because there's no tactile feedback. So the only feedback is on the screen, which you have to look at, instead of the real world thing you're controlling.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#68

Post by markbao »

dangrossman wrote: post #43
markbao wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really awesome and a good example of a cheap Android device as glass for software (what a world). Do you just have it instant-on when you push the power button? What about having it automatically wake up when you pick it up? (Since yours is a web-app, it might require you to use something like Tasker to do it.)

I mounted the tablets on walls with $10 kits from Amazon that use those 3M removable strips to hold the mounts, and drilled small holes for charging cords. I have the screens set to never turn off, and leave the browser open. So all the buttons are always just there on the wall, ready to be pressed. Nothing needs to wake up first. BTW, Windows 8 8" tablets are now under $100 at Wal-Mart and Best Buy, so you aren't ev…

Hah, that's amazing. Great solution. If I had a house, I'd put together something like that, but with a Qi wireless charger with the magnet holding it up (hopefully strong enough).

Still waiting for home automation widgets to come down in price so I have an excuse to install a lot of them in my apartment.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#69

Post by icegreentea »

I think its perfectly expect-able that an actual smart home be accessible through a variety of modalities and methods. There's no reason why there shouldn't be smartphone access. But there's also no reason why there shouldn't also be the ability to use voice commands (not through your smartphone), direct wall controls, 'dumb' (relatively) physical remotes, etc etc.

For example, I don't always walk around my house with my phone. Sometimes I wear pants/shorts without pockets. Or I have to leave my phone plugged in somewhere cause it's charging. Or maybe cause I'm taking a shower and realized that I may have left the oven on and my roommate is out and I left my phone in my bedroom, and it would be awesome to be able to yell a question to my house and just have to dealt with. Or I have friend over and I want them to be able to play around with some of the coolness, but I don't want to fuck around with getting them to install the app, and syncing the authentication code, etc etc.

I mean, we can 'argue' about cost. But seriously, you're wiring up your house for automation and remote access. Enabling additional access nodes is a relatively tiny opportunity cost.

Re: Smartphone ≠ smart home

#70

Post by jpindar »

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.

http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/the-range/hue-tap/
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