[keraf]

When my parents built a new house, they wanted to get smart home features and got quoted 12k CHF (pretty much same as USD) for a crappy proprietary system.

I asked them for 1/4th of that amount to buy hardware and do it myself. My philosophy when designing it, is that everything that is "smart" should have a non-smart backup. You can trigger the lights via an app or the tablet, but the switch on the wall also works. The garage can be opened remotely and automatically when the car approaches, but there's a physical radio remote that still does the job independently of the smart home system. You can set the blinds exactly at the level you want from the app, but the remote is always around if you need it. And so on.

The idea was that if the system goes down, everything should still work. But it also made me realise that the convenience of having both options is what my parents love the most. They mostly interact with things using the non-smart controls, but love to know that they can monitor and interact with these same things from anywhere.

[Saris]

Yes in my opinion the benefit of smart home stuff is not controlling things from my phone or tablet or some touchscreen on the wall. But instead having the same physical switches and controls as one normally would, with the ability to automate things in the background.

Smart home setups where a failure stops you from turning on a light or opening the garage is the worst possible combination.

The trend of smart devices that require internet access to function even when on the same local network as my phone or smart home system are a good example of very poorly designed products.

[joshstrange]

This is the way.

Everything must fail back to "dumb", not "unavailable". Smart Switches are a huge QoL improvement IMHO and if Home Assistant goes down, you can still use everything like normal. Fans/lights should be voice/app controllable but also have wall/remote controls. Any guest in the house should be able to navigate it without knowing anything about the smart features. Progressive enhancement, if you will.

I never want my house to fall apart because HA is down.

Also, having the garage open/door unlock as you pull up feels like magic, and I never get tired of it. Especially paired with door sensors to auto-lock/close the door. I can pull up, have everything unlock, walk in, close the door, and have it lock behind me.

I also like motion lights, dimming late at night instead of full brightness, etc but those all "fail" back to just normal dimmable lights that I have to manually switch in the "worst case".

[f30e3dfed1c9]

"Also, having the garage open/door unlock as you pull up feels like magic, and I never get tired of it."

I pull into my driveway, press a button on a $15 remote, and the garage door is opened by a thing that is worth about $200. Nothing "smart" about it, and hard to see how being "smart" would improve it.

I get that some people seem to like the idea, but I have just never really understood the appeal of "smart home" stuff. I mean, "for the low, low price of several thousand dollars, we can make it so you don't have to flip light switches anymore!" is just really not an appealing offer. Flipping light switches is not a problem.