The smart home is a crappy idea because appliances, switches and fixed lights are supposed to last for decades before needing to be replaced. Companies have clearly shown close to no interest in maintaining and upgrading even reasonably recent devices - adding smart features to previously dumb devices is nice at first, but what about in five years when the software will start to rot and stop working, and probably become a serious privacy and security liability?
Until this gets solved somehow smart features will always remain a marketing gimmick. There's no way around it.
People accept replacing ageing phones and computers because their connectivity features are a large part of the reason they exist. This isn't true for a light switch, for instance, which is mostly seen as a way to turn lights off.
No company has successfully marketed an actual smart home system. Google Home and Amazon Alexa are, in reality, personal data collection systems that utilize convenience to get consumers to use them. The goal is not to help consumers, but to collect data.
And from an economical perspective, this makes sense. There's great money in gathering massive amounts of person data about people. Who would have imagined 15 years ago that we'd let Amazon and Google know about what time we get up and go to bed, what time we use our microwave, what sports games we watch, when we call our mothers.
I want something simpler, local-network-only. Not a 'smart' home but an obedient home. Ideally something like an Event Bus with a basic protocol for events and some safety controls to prevent chaos. But there's no economic incentive to build or sell such a thing.
> No company has successfully marketed an actual smart home system.
No company has successfully marketed an _affordable_ or middle-class smart home system. These systems do exist and have for years, and they largely work exactly as you described. The big three companies for such solutions are Crestron[0], Savant[1], and Control4[2]. It's been awhile since I've checked, but if I recall correctly they run on average anywhere from $5-$25k (or more depending on the size of your home and scope of automation). Much of the cost comes from all of the bespoke devices they build to automate existing products e.g. a proximity sensor that goes in your car to trigger presence automations, as well as the cost of the (very granular) white glove setup you get from the installer to prevent the possibility of the chaos you described.
It's kind of a PITA to setup and maintain, but for technically inclined folks, I've found HomeAssistant to be a great tool for gluing together a lot of local-only devices into a semi-coherent interface.
I bought a house last year and the first thing I did was remove the Ring video doorbell. But if it hadn't been a company with an Amazon or Google type reputation I'd have at least tried using it for a while.
In our apartment, we have the following smart features:
* Multiway light switches [0], which allow switching lights on and off from several different locations.
* A boiler, which heats water up automatically should it become too cold.
This covers lighting, heating, and supplies water at arbitrary temperatures between around 15 and 60 degrees celsius on demand, at several locations. The features do not require internet connectivity, are vendor-independent and have zero privacy issues. In the last 30 years since their installation, they have not once failed.
I am at a complete loss why this should not be smart enough. The technical overhead some people introduce into their lives just to avoid pressing a button to turn of the light is mindblowing to me.
> I am at a complete loss why this should not be smart enough. The technical overhead some people introduce into their lives just to avoid pressing a button to turn of the light is mindblowing to me.
My leg is currently broken and I'm on crutches. At this point I'm really glad that I installed voice-controlled lighting in my house. Good reminder that things that seem trivial are very much not to people with disabilities.
Our new house came with a Nest thermostat. It has some perks. Probably the main one is that we can turn the thermostat down to just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing when we will be away from the home for a while, and then remotely turn it back up so that the house reaches a comfortable temperature just as we're arriving back home.
However, I don't think that that's enough to counteract the many, many UX annoyances we've encountered with it. When it craps out or Google decides to brick it, I intend to replace it with a regular old programmable thermostat.
I'm sympathetic to your overall point, but I'm impressed that you've had zero boiler failures in 30 years. I'm pretty sure that's better than the average. (Mine is about 10 years old and has needed one fairly minor part replacement to fix a failure in that time. The figure that seems to be commonly quoted for boiler expected lifespan in the UK is 15 years.)
I don't have too much "smart home", but I am really tempted by lighting. Being able to dim and change the color temperature of the light depending on the time of day is compelling. Dimming is easy conceptually, but it would mean rewiring large portions of my home. I don't know how I'd manage that with color temperature.
For some reason, last year I tried to rederive the circuit diagram for 3 way switches. I failed. It's actually a very clever idea, and higher numbers are fun to think about independently.
I've really liked my RainMachine sprinkler controller. It only requires internet connectivity to download weather reports; all other functions are available via LAN. Being able to turn the sprinklers on via the phone is incredibly useful for verifying repairs, finding leaks/clogs and aiming spray patterns. And it reduces water usage by deferring watering if enough rainfall has occurred.
Well first of all I think there's a large portion of home automation users that are tech people and just enjoy the process more than the results.
There are some generally good use cases though.
My most useful automation feature currently is that I can turn the air conditioner on and off in my attic office without having to walk up two flights of stairs or even be home. Sure I could leave the ac on a preset temp, but that would be a huge power waste.
Then there's home security features, which are really all just a subset of home automation. The only low tech solution to this problem is basically to move, but that isn't exactly practical.
> The technical overhead some people introduce into their lives just to avoid pressing a button to turn of the light is mindblowing to me.
I use a "smart" socket to switch off most electronic devices in my home for the night (and I tend to hide cables so it's not easy to do manually). And because it's automatic I don't have to remember switching it off and then on in the morning.
Yeah, when I think about smart homes, I think about the possibilities of materials and structure and moisture management and clean-air management and noise abatement, not gimmicks. American houses are surprisingly poorly designed and built given what humanity knows about the discipline.
For general consumers, I would agree. For geeks, I love my smart home with Home Assistant (thanks devs!). I was reluctant at first and thought I'd just dip my toe in to see what it could do. Now I'm regretting not diving right in.
I love using a browser to manage Schlage keycodes instead of tediously punching numbers on each keypad. I love that my kitchen lights all come on at once instead of having to flip 5 switches all over the room. I love that I can turn on the outside lights when we're returning home late and even unlock the door as we're pulling into the driveway, so the little one can make it to the bathroom on time. I love that my outdoor lights react to both time and outdoor light conditions.
I recently bought and installed an IotaWatt, an open h/w and s/w home power monitoring system. I haven't integrated it into HA yet but I guess I only care about having a dashboard widget.
Everything is local and self-hosted. I don't have to worry about cloud rot, suspended accounts, or Internet outages.
PS, if anyone knows how to control a Mitsuibishi hyperheat heatpump through HA, I'd love to know more. It's the big missing link in the system right now.
Check out https://github.com/SwiCago/HeatPump (and derived projects) for your heat pump. I was just looking at this yesterday - unfortunately my units don't have the CN105/CN92 connector so I'm out of luck but if your unit is newer you should be fine!
I have yet to buy a "smart" device that I haven't been able to control through HA. The Broadlink RF/IR bridges even makes anything with a remote automatable.
Seriously, If it wasn't for Home Assistant, the "smartness" of smart devices would be next to useless.
My smart home strategy is pretty simple: nothing that requires internet connection to work. Only local devices. WiFi where possible over anything low power (BT, Zigbee, ZWave), wired over wireless wherever possible (e.g 1-wire). Policy for anything I include is that it must fail like an escalator not an elevator - a dumb switch for example, not a light that can’t be switched on. This means smart lightswitches, not smart lights.
It’s a lot of work to configure and maintain but tools like home assistant, proxmox and docker at least makes it somewhat manageable. It’s still a pain though, and it feels like a special kind of masochism to tinker with.
I think it’s entirely possible that an average user who isn’t a programmer or willing to pull a neutral wire here and there could have a decent “smart home” set up by themselves some time within the next three or four decades…
I'm seriously considering getting rid of most of my smart home devices not because they suck but because the software to control it sucks. The Samsung Smart Things app used to be so responsive, I could turn devices on and off without much delay. Now when I open up the app I have to restart it wait for it to connect, then wait for it to find every device, then 20 seconds later I can push a button that does something. That's unacceptable.
I don’t think many people make a decision to “smartify” their home at any one point in time. The reality is that it creeps in over time. If you are shopping for a mid to high end anything today - lighting to a dishwasher - some smart features are likely going to be standard on many models. People get these things home, probably try and like some of the smart features. But inevitably over time you discover how poorly integrated they all are with one another, you become frustrated when the smart features start chronically disconnecting, and suddenly it’s all more trouble than it’s worth.
The only way out of this that I can see is the passage of time and steady iteration by device manufacturers, and real investment by a few platforms (eg Apple with HomeKit) to give us a decent front end and quasi home iPaaS. I worry they don’t have the incentive to keep investing.
I couldn't agree more. There is no magic feature that is going to make me want a smart home. The whole concept sounds like a nightmare on so many levels.
A lot of off-the-shelf consumer smart home products do suffer from the drawbacks you've listed, but they do not generally apply to the smart home concept. My home is automated using components that use the KNX standard, and although the initial investment is higher than a conventional electrical installation, I'd argue maintenance is actually simpler and cheaper – as pretty much all of it is in the software.
Additionally, there's quite a few benefits:
- It's all wired, so it's been rock solid;
- It's vendor agnostic;
- It's entirely local, so there's no subscriptions or even an internet connection dependency;
- There's a ton of gateways available that allow me to interface with non-KNX products;
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. It is just a matter of convenience however, it's hardly a must-have.
if it's full offline with no subscriptions or internet connectivity - I'm up for some.
If it needs any kind of connectivity or it comes as a service - no way in hell I'm exposing my family to the risk of not being able to flush a toiled one day because of a tweet or god know what.
Yeah, I consider "smart home" to be one of those complexity feith driven developments. Switches are simple, understandable, minimally-abstracted interfaces that almost never fail. Why would I want to add a several computers and some software to that? That just brings a whole bunch of new failure modes to the table for a miniscule gain in convenience.
It's funny how first item on your list of drawbacks (higher maintenance) was already there with first-wave of home automation, back in last century [0]. Current iteration not only fails to solve that problem, it also brings 3 additional problems.
>There is no magic feature that is going to make me want a smart home.
Imagine the fun when it all goes obsolete in five years, a controller board dies with no replacement available, all for very little advantage.
Maybe this is Peak Technology. Sticking a computer and communications network on things that gain little from the addition. The one exception I might make is low-cost surveillance cameras, but of course it took the industry about ten seconds to add subscriptions and spying-on-you to the business model.
What's really sad is that there's no need for any smart home concept to result in a loss of privacy. However people are cheap, and its difficult to impossible for somebody selling a self-hosting smart home appliance that you just plug in to your wall to outcompete somebody who is practically giving away the hardware to make the money on your data or on subscriptions over time.
The author is right the, most current home automation products suck.
The stuff from big brand names is poorly supported, pricey and designed to suck your money away from you.
The cheaper Chinese stuff requires the use of a cloud server located somewhere I don't know and it comes with god knows how many security holes. Plus, the build quality is ropey at best, I clearly remember that time a desk lamp controller in my children's room literally melted.
There are a few devices on the market that don't rely on cloud servers. I have a few plug controllers that you can control via WebSockets or a REST API. I've been dabbling with them for a while and they seem pretty decent. It's just a pity there isn't any off the shelf home automation software that I could use to control them.
I think this is a combination of various weaknesses acting in discord (rather than in concert) to create pure chaos.
1) Making the devices Internet-Must devices. Not only does this mean some dumb failure modes when your connection goes down -- and it will -- but temperature adjustments might be made based on far-away weather stations, processed through layers of averages and aggregators, instead of drawing from local sensors.
2) Not thinking about security (conflicts massively with #1). Security isn't as daunting if you are not hooked up to the Internet. It can still be an issue, but opening up your attack surface to "the world" only makes things worse.
3) Proprietary, and therefore incompatible standards. If I want X, but I already have Y, I hope to hell that YCorp has an X-like offering in their works.
4) Being more about data collection (see also Samsung's SmartTVs exfiltrating data, or Amazon Walk ... or maybe now Apple is dipping their toes into that with their CSAM "won't somebody think of the children?" business)
5) The general disposablity of today's electronics. This also plays into standards because it'll just burn out so why be backwards-compatible? Just make a new standard. And you're back to #3.
My wife and I were constantly warring over whether our living/dining/kitchen window blinds should be open or close, and there were too many and the faux wood was too heavy to manipulate so much. To make things easy, we got Lutron motorized cellulars shades so we could just ask Siri to open or close whatever. Totally worth it.
Since we had the shades, we also did our lights in that room, so now we can quickly put down all the shades and turn on all the lights.
That being said, I can’t see doing it for any other room in our house. The bother factor just isn’t there like it was with our main open living space. Well, maybe the bedroom, we don’t open the shades very much even though I’d like to.
I never wanted a smart home. I don't even want "smart" appliances. I want energy-efficient, reliable appliances and homes, with behavior I can predict, that don't spy on me, or rely on remote APIs, and have high usability factors. I don't mind remotes, and voice activation might be nice if I was disabled, but for the most part I'm happiest when my home and I don't get in each other's way.
I think that the smart home is failing/will fail because people have a limit on how much they are willing to be tracked. Smart devices from TVs, to cameras to speakers to vacuums are reporting details of our lives that most people just don't want to give up.
It used to be the case that people feared that the government could watch them through their TV or listen in via their phone. Now, those things seem like they are product features.
Anecdotally: I don't have any smart home stuff, but literally every other member of my family does (parents, siblings, inlaws, etc). I've had numerous conversations in which they ask me why we accept an Echo or a Nest or something as a Christmas present, but my privacy concerns are always greeted with a blank stare. They just don't see it as an issue.
To them, the (perceived?) issue is how hard everything seems to setup and maintain. I haven't tried connecting any smart stuff lately, so maybe it's really easy for all I know, but all that stuff seems really advanced to them and they seem kind of afraid of it.
I doubt it. Most people literally don't care if Amazon is recording all their conversations. Even more people don't care as long as nobody at Amazon is actually listening.
Smart homes aren't super popular because of integration issues imo.
I feel like the biggest problem I've had with smart home technology is that there is no out of the box standard for controlling or having access to all of your devices. Almost every device seems to require interacting with it with the vendor's own app or other utility, and so I've needed to install a multitude of at least 3 apps just to control the lights. So not only are vendors trying to compete with their smart devices, but additionally with the apps they've created to even use them, probably to see how much more money they can squeeze out of selling your personal information.
Thankfully, there's Home Assistant[1], which is an amazing project that aims to bridge connectivity and control between all of these devices into a single centralized environment. Pair that up with Tasmota[2]-compatible devices and you can have a smart home that can be completely disconnected from the cloud and in your control.
I am a bit disappointed that no one has mentioned a big problem with all these machines: security. Most of these items were developed by companies with only limited experience in security. They offer a tempting attack surface for attackers. Once they are compromised they can be used to attack other devices in your network. Most of them run proprietary software, so it is not possible to verify its code. They require that the network is correctly configured which is not at all easy. There have already been a lot of incidents where surveillance cameras were exposed on the internet.
Even if they do have security experience (i.e Google), I would expect that for many vendors security is WAY, WAY down the list. And security doesn't end when they ship the device, it also must be present throughout all updates, even when the device is no longer supported by the vendor.
To this day I am baffled by the smart lighbulbs. So you take a LED light, strap a bulky AC/DC convertor to it, then also glue in a WiFi module, and also some microcontroller for managing all that stuff. Then you cram all that into E27 fitting and have problems with heat dissipation if your LED is actually about as bright as an old 100W lamp was: the capacitors give out after a couple of months of work so you have to buy a new lightbulb (and those things ain't cheap because of all of that additional stuff it has inside it).
Obviously, a sane way to do things would be to have a single microcontroller/WiFi module mounted near/inside any of traditional manual light switches, have a single AC/DC convertor near your circuit breaker box, and have it power the whole lighting wiring (from which the microcontroller would draw too) with 9V DC, and now the LEDs inside the lightbulbs will have enough space to cool properly even with size-reduced fittings.
But where is money in doing things the sensible way, right?
I have a bunch of philips hue lights, a nest thermostat and some blink cameras hooked up to both alexa and google hub and it all just works and has for years. I used to have problems when I was buying a bunch of cheap china mix and match products.
Fun story time - One time I woke up in the middle of the night. Not knowing what time it is, I shouted into the darkness "Hey Google, what time is it?" To my surprise, the machine reply in a excessively cheerful tone, "Welcome to what fruit are you" and proceed to give me a personality quiz. I wasn't able to get the time - but I found out that I'm a watermelon.
So I think it is a mistake to call smart home a failure.
[+] [-] qalmakka|4 years ago|reply
Until this gets solved somehow smart features will always remain a marketing gimmick. There's no way around it.
People accept replacing ageing phones and computers because their connectivity features are a large part of the reason they exist. This isn't true for a light switch, for instance, which is mostly seen as a way to turn lights off.
[+] [-] mabbo|4 years ago|reply
And from an economical perspective, this makes sense. There's great money in gathering massive amounts of person data about people. Who would have imagined 15 years ago that we'd let Amazon and Google know about what time we get up and go to bed, what time we use our microwave, what sports games we watch, when we call our mothers.
I want something simpler, local-network-only. Not a 'smart' home but an obedient home. Ideally something like an Event Bus with a basic protocol for events and some safety controls to prevent chaos. But there's no economic incentive to build or sell such a thing.
[+] [-] CSSer|4 years ago|reply
No company has successfully marketed an _affordable_ or middle-class smart home system. These systems do exist and have for years, and they largely work exactly as you described. The big three companies for such solutions are Crestron[0], Savant[1], and Control4[2]. It's been awhile since I've checked, but if I recall correctly they run on average anywhere from $5-$25k (or more depending on the size of your home and scope of automation). Much of the cost comes from all of the bespoke devices they build to automate existing products e.g. a proximity sensor that goes in your car to trigger presence automations, as well as the cost of the (very granular) white glove setup you get from the installer to prevent the possibility of the chaos you described.
[0]https://www.crestron.com/Products/Market-Solutions/Crestron-... [1]https://www.savant.com/ [2]https://www.control4.com/solutions/whole-home/
[+] [-] bradstewart|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdulli|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dolmen|4 years ago|reply
Just a small issue: huge installation cost (because wires, but also software license)
[+] [-] lqet|4 years ago|reply
* Multiway light switches [0], which allow switching lights on and off from several different locations.
* A boiler, which heats water up automatically should it become too cold.
This covers lighting, heating, and supplies water at arbitrary temperatures between around 15 and 60 degrees celsius on demand, at several locations. The features do not require internet connectivity, are vendor-independent and have zero privacy issues. In the last 30 years since their installation, they have not once failed.
I am at a complete loss why this should not be smart enough. The technical overhead some people introduce into their lives just to avoid pressing a button to turn of the light is mindblowing to me.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching
[+] [-] pcwalton|4 years ago|reply
My leg is currently broken and I'm on crutches. At this point I'm really glad that I installed voice-controlled lighting in my house. Good reminder that things that seem trivial are very much not to people with disabilities.
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|4 years ago|reply
I have a light that automatically comes on in the bathroom when someone enters, shuts off a few minutes after they leave.
With kids, it has turned out to be an energy saver.
No hub required.
[+] [-] mumblemumble|4 years ago|reply
However, I don't think that that's enough to counteract the many, many UX annoyances we've encountered with it. When it craps out or Google decides to brick it, I intend to replace it with a regular old programmable thermostat.
[+] [-] pm215|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebiester|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn41|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dharmab|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] only_as_i_fall|4 years ago|reply
There are some generally good use cases though.
My most useful automation feature currently is that I can turn the air conditioner on and off in my attic office without having to walk up two flights of stairs or even be home. Sure I could leave the ac on a preset temp, but that would be a huge power waste.
Then there's home security features, which are really all just a subset of home automation. The only low tech solution to this problem is basically to move, but that isn't exactly practical.
[+] [-] hdjjhhvvhga|4 years ago|reply
I use a "smart" socket to switch off most electronic devices in my home for the night (and I tend to hide cables so it's not easy to do manually). And because it's automatic I don't have to remember switching it off and then on in the morning.
[+] [-] 762236|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|4 years ago|reply
Well there’s the problem.
[+] [-] Steltek|4 years ago|reply
I love using a browser to manage Schlage keycodes instead of tediously punching numbers on each keypad. I love that my kitchen lights all come on at once instead of having to flip 5 switches all over the room. I love that I can turn on the outside lights when we're returning home late and even unlock the door as we're pulling into the driveway, so the little one can make it to the bathroom on time. I love that my outdoor lights react to both time and outdoor light conditions.
I recently bought and installed an IotaWatt, an open h/w and s/w home power monitoring system. I haven't integrated it into HA yet but I guess I only care about having a dashboard widget.
Everything is local and self-hosted. I don't have to worry about cloud rot, suspended accounts, or Internet outages.
PS, if anyone knows how to control a Mitsuibishi hyperheat heatpump through HA, I'd love to know more. It's the big missing link in the system right now.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] splitrocket|4 years ago|reply
Or, you can use a Broadlink IR blaster to clone the remote.
If your heat pump talks to MEL cloud (Mitsubishi's cloud thingy) then this should work: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/melcloud/
I have yet to buy a "smart" device that I haven't been able to control through HA. The Broadlink RF/IR bridges even makes anything with a remote automatable.
Seriously, If it wasn't for Home Assistant, the "smartness" of smart devices would be next to useless.
[+] [-] splitrocket|4 years ago|reply
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/01/19/perfect-home-a...
An app per device class/vendor is beyond useless. A centralized, single controller that mostly has no interface at all is the solution.
[+] [-] alkonaut|4 years ago|reply
It’s a lot of work to configure and maintain but tools like home assistant, proxmox and docker at least makes it somewhat manageable. It’s still a pain though, and it feels like a special kind of masochism to tinker with.
I think it’s entirely possible that an average user who isn’t a programmer or willing to pull a neutral wire here and there could have a decent “smart home” set up by themselves some time within the next three or four decades…
[+] [-] cprayingmantis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbos87|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anm89|4 years ago|reply
- higher maintenance
- loss of privacy
- loss of ownership of things in my home
- reliance on subscriptions
[+] [-] vwelling|4 years ago|reply
Additionally, there's quite a few benefits: - It's all wired, so it's been rock solid; - It's vendor agnostic; - It's entirely local, so there's no subscriptions or even an internet connection dependency; - There's a ton of gateways available that allow me to interface with non-KNX products;
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. It is just a matter of convenience however, it's hardly a must-have.
[+] [-] White_Wolf|4 years ago|reply
If it needs any kind of connectivity or it comes as a service - no way in hell I'm exposing my family to the risk of not being able to flush a toiled one day because of a tweet or god know what.
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nousermane|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.10
[+] [-] bishoprook2|4 years ago|reply
Imagine the fun when it all goes obsolete in five years, a controller board dies with no replacement available, all for very little advantage.
Maybe this is Peak Technology. Sticking a computer and communications network on things that gain little from the addition. The one exception I might make is low-cost surveillance cameras, but of course it took the industry about ten seconds to add subscriptions and spying-on-you to the business model.
[+] [-] blacktriangle|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mumblemumble|4 years ago|reply
> Non-magic users: collect crystals, call their pet a familiar, draw pentagrams
> Magic users:the most magical things I keep in my house are rocks, and I keep a hammer next to them in case they act up
[+] [-] DoubleGlazing|4 years ago|reply
The stuff from big brand names is poorly supported, pricey and designed to suck your money away from you.
The cheaper Chinese stuff requires the use of a cloud server located somewhere I don't know and it comes with god knows how many security holes. Plus, the build quality is ropey at best, I clearly remember that time a desk lamp controller in my children's room literally melted.
There are a few devices on the market that don't rely on cloud servers. I have a few plug controllers that you can control via WebSockets or a REST API. I've been dabbling with them for a while and they seem pretty decent. It's just a pity there isn't any off the shelf home automation software that I could use to control them.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|4 years ago|reply
Home Assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io
[+] [-] at_a_remove|4 years ago|reply
1) Making the devices Internet-Must devices. Not only does this mean some dumb failure modes when your connection goes down -- and it will -- but temperature adjustments might be made based on far-away weather stations, processed through layers of averages and aggregators, instead of drawing from local sensors.
2) Not thinking about security (conflicts massively with #1). Security isn't as daunting if you are not hooked up to the Internet. It can still be an issue, but opening up your attack surface to "the world" only makes things worse.
3) Proprietary, and therefore incompatible standards. If I want X, but I already have Y, I hope to hell that YCorp has an X-like offering in their works.
4) Being more about data collection (see also Samsung's SmartTVs exfiltrating data, or Amazon Walk ... or maybe now Apple is dipping their toes into that with their CSAM "won't somebody think of the children?" business)
5) The general disposablity of today's electronics. This also plays into standards because it'll just burn out so why be backwards-compatible? Just make a new standard. And you're back to #3.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|4 years ago|reply
Since we had the shades, we also did our lights in that room, so now we can quickly put down all the shades and turn on all the lights.
That being said, I can’t see doing it for any other room in our house. The bother factor just isn’t there like it was with our main open living space. Well, maybe the bedroom, we don’t open the shades very much even though I’d like to.
[+] [-] jonnycomputer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uberman|4 years ago|reply
It used to be the case that people feared that the government could watch them through their TV or listen in via their phone. Now, those things seem like they are product features.
[+] [-] laddershoe|4 years ago|reply
To them, the (perceived?) issue is how hard everything seems to setup and maintain. I haven't tried connecting any smart stuff lately, so maybe it's really easy for all I know, but all that stuff seems really advanced to them and they seem kind of afraid of it.
[+] [-] only_as_i_fall|4 years ago|reply
Smart homes aren't super popular because of integration issues imo.
[+] [-] 0xC0ncord|4 years ago|reply
Thankfully, there's Home Assistant[1], which is an amazing project that aims to bridge connectivity and control between all of these devices into a single centralized environment. Pair that up with Tasmota[2]-compatible devices and you can have a smart home that can be completely disconnected from the cloud and in your control.
[1] https://www.home-assistant.io/
[2] https://tasmota.github.io/docs/
[+] [-] NotSwift|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x86_64Ubuntu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Joker_vD|4 years ago|reply
Obviously, a sane way to do things would be to have a single microcontroller/WiFi module mounted near/inside any of traditional manual light switches, have a single AC/DC convertor near your circuit breaker box, and have it power the whole lighting wiring (from which the microcontroller would draw too) with 9V DC, and now the LEDs inside the lightbulbs will have enough space to cool properly even with size-reduced fittings.
But where is money in doing things the sensible way, right?
[+] [-] nickthegreek|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuy910616|4 years ago|reply
So I think it is a mistake to call smart home a failure.