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I built an offline smart home

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Re: I built an offline smart home

#71

Post by j45 »

Aloha wrote: post #20

I went with the Apple HomeKit compatible camp, because it does indeed all work locally across your local LAN without a network connection - its not foolproof, but it mostly just works, and works well at that - and more importantly works when the internet is out. The biggest thing with Apple is they get that houses have more than one person living in them, and provided everyone has an Apple device, it all just works.

This is very true.

Our place came with an Ecobee thermometer. I threw it up on Homekit and my partner had it on their watch and phone instantly. Too easy.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#72

Post by j45 »

tharne wrote: post #41

The Smart Home is the ultimate triumph of capitalism. A product that nobody needs who's biggest value is mining user's data in order to sell that user more shit they don't need.

You'd be surprised how much time you can actually save yourself and get back for living towards other things by automating the right few things for yourself.

Get a stopwatch and try it out.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#73

Post by j45 »

tiltowait wrote: post #50
corethree wrote: post #36

The futuristic idea of a smart home is that you can talk to your smart home. "Computer, dim lights by 30%" "Computer, open curtains." "Computer, vacuum the floor." "Computer, play some jazz" All of these are phrases are actual literal phrases that I use in my home, some on a daily basis. It can only be done, with current consumer tech, through the internet. All you need is a roomba, some 4$ smart bulbs, a spotify acc…

Modern phones could easily handle every example you just gave. Heck, even the most recent Apple Watch could.

Tasker on Android is wonderful :)

Re: I built an offline smart home

#74

Post by tharne »

Johnny555 wrote: post #67
tharne wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always amazed that everyone seems okay with this, and will even say so when pressed on it. But those same people will get a look in their eyes as if they're going to shit their pants, if someone else picks up their unlocked iPhone and starts scrolling.

I'm amazed that people are afraid of a home assistant in their living room, yet carry a cloud connected microphone+camera around with them all the time (with the added feature of sending GPS tracking data back to the manufacturer, carrier, and apps that you granted location permission to, like a weather app). If you trust that your phone isn't listening when it's not supposed to, why don't you trust the home assistan…

I 100% agree with you on this. And I don't carry a traditional smartphone for exactly the reasons you mention.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#75

Post by tharne »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #55
tharne wrote: post #41

The Smart Home is the ultimate triumph of capitalism. A product that nobody needs who's biggest value is mining user's data in order to sell that user more shit they don't need.

> mining user's data The article is about offline Smart Homes. Using something like HomeAssistant, and products supporting integrations with local control you can eliminate data going to third parties.

I get that it was about offline Smart Homes. I just got stuck on the fact that the author said they weren't concerned about privacy.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#76

Post by tharne »

j45 wrote: post #72
tharne wrote: post #41

The Smart Home is the ultimate triumph of capitalism. A product that nobody needs who's biggest value is mining user's data in order to sell that user more shit they don't need.

You'd be surprised how much time you can actually save yourself and get back for living towards other things by automating the right few things for yourself. Get a stopwatch and try it out.

I'm sure that's true, but I just don't see the point. No one ever died saying, "man, if only I'd lived life more efficiently".

Re: I built an offline smart home

#77

Post by cameldrv »

moandcompany wrote: post #33
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

> EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL This is a solid principle. Another rule I include with this is that the "Smart Home" should still be able to operate and be controlled like a non "Smart Home" by a regular person. (e.g. light switches, thermostat, door locks)

Yep, I remember staying over at a friends's apartment that had just installed hue lightbulbs everywhere, and then put tape over their normal light switches. As he's putting the sheets on the pull-out couch, he says "if you get up in the middle of the night, you'll need this app to turn on the light..."

Re: I built an offline smart home

#78

Post by cameldrv »

m463 wrote: post #48
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

> For this reasons I have no smart light bulbs in my house. hmm... wonder why bulbs can't fail normal. maybe they should make bulbs with a deadman switch. If they don't get a "ping" from a controller in a certain amount of time, they revert to normal light bulbs? or yeah... smart switches.

The problem is that a light switch multiplexes/conflates power and control. The signal that the bulb is supposed to turn off is that it doesn't have power anymore. Smart light bulbs need power even if the signal from the switch is that they're supposed to be off.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#79

Post by WWLink »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #58
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

I recently bought some Philips wiz switches. I could have bought cheaper for literally 1/4 cost but they are internet first with zero local support or like tuya which is offline but still needs internet to work. Most of the stuff either looks to be subsidized to keep online access which will earn data or offline capability is charged more because they dont get data

Interestingly, you can control wiz lights with OpenRGB. It doesn't really surprise me lol. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenRGB/comments/jptv2a/philips_wiz...

There's also a home assistant thing for them.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#80

Post by squeaky-clean »

nanolith wrote: post #56

A dozen years ago, I designed and architected a "smart lock", back when that was a thing. Anyway... one of the most important features that we didn't advertise was the ability to use it without registering with the Internet service. It could be used entirely in offline mode. In fact, in most cases, you could use this device without it ever connecting to the Internet. I think that consumers should have a choice, and t…

I work at a place that does smart locks (for businesses though) and my first question to them during the interview was what happens when the internet is out. Thankfully they thought of that and it can even be taken offline permanently after the first time setup.

What I heard from other people in the industry is that when Facebook had that huge multi-day outage, it was partly because their smart locks couldn't open externally without an internet connection, and it was relying on Facebook's DNS which was the source of the huge outage.

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