
The light is off. War is over - ivanmaeder
https://twitter.com/brockwilbur/status/1218252514111283200
======
diffuse_l
I hate those automated systems. The company i work for moved to a new building
about a year ago, and all the curtains and lights are automated. Not
surprisingly, the lights are too bright, and there is no way to control the
light levels manually.

I asked the maintanace crew to lower the light intensity. After a full day of
fiddling with the system, they managed to somewhat dim the lights, which
reverted back to full on blast aftet a few minutes.

Having anticipated that, I built a "complex" system of shades using papers and
masking tape, which somehow survived to this day.

The best part? The desginers of the office come to show their creation to
potenial customers every few weeks and show off thier marvelous design. A
classic case of "You are not the customer".

And that without even going into the "automatic shading system" which opens
the curtains at the worst possible moment, and can't be changed because "we
need it that way for our green certfication".

Sorry, had to vent off...

~~~
ourlordcaffeine
Our office is marketed as 24/7 operation. We needed our office manned 7 days a
week 5am-11pm, so it seemed like a good fit, only building management turn off
climate control during the weekend, causing the temperature in the office to
rocket up to unbearable levels. Their explanation was that they had to turn it
off at the weekend to keep their green credentials.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Something about the way these anecdotes are told often seems to suggest "hah,
aren't green regulations stupid" but the message I take is more "modern
capitalist organisations can't even get basic things right when given
incentives to do so".

Bit of a Rorschach test depending on your preconceived notions I guess, though
I've always thought of myself as pro-market and these stories make me question
that.

~~~
diffuse_l
As I see it, these aren't green regulations at all. As mabbo mentions, there
is no conformance enforcement after the design stage, and the whole thing
feels like it being used for self-advertisment instead of actually being
"green".

~~~
diffuse_l
The "green" is in quotes here, because the building office is basically a
greenhouse (glass facade from all sides) in a hot climate where air
conditioning is needed most of the year.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Another thing that sucks is that offices refuse to let in fresh air. Even in a
warm climate the outside is often cooler than a closed up greenhouse with
equipment running.

------
pjc50
"Any sufficiently complex home automation system is indistinguishable from
being haunted"

This is just a plain digital radio one; I'm sure with the involvement of
computers it could have been made much more intractable.

My own experience closest to this was an office meeting room that had dimmable
lights ... with a standard "boolean" momentary switch. There were, of course,
no instructions. We sort of figured out that holding the switch down would
_sometimes_ put it into a cycle of brightness from which releasing the switch
would leave it at right level, but it wasn't reliable and we often sat in the
dim light, defeated by the UX.

------
bergoid
Entire text:

Short Thread: staying with some friends and last night after everyone went to
bed I could not figure out how to turn off the large ceiling light in their
living room. There is a wall controller that seemed fairly straightforward.

There is a large main light, a smaller light on top that faces up, several
levels of brightness, and a fan. Each time I tried to turn off the upward
facing light, something else would turn on. After ten minutes, I woke up my
wife to ask her to help. It only got worse.

Each time we thought everything was off, a few seconds later something else
(or everything else) would turn back on. Minute twenty, I started laughing out
of sheer frustration at what felt like a Myst puzzle. Couldn’t wake our
friends cause they have a small kid.

Suddenly, we solved it. Everything went off and stayed off and after waiting a
full minute we realized it was gonna stay that way. This is circa 1am. I
finally went to sleep.

This morning we asked about what the deal was with the light. The answer has
broken me.

Our friends are in a newly built condo complex. The fan controls use a binary
code to connect to the fans. Additionally the controls were only supposed to
have a signal reach of 30 feet. They reach much, much further.

There are almost 40 units within reach. Based on the binary code limitation
there’s only 16 possible code options. So everyone in this building controls
the main light and fan of at least one other person; maybe more.

From 12:30 to 1am last night, I was engaged in a proxy war with up to three
other apartments, as they in turn, set my fan to high and my lights to the
brightest setting, until everyone gave up.

Our hosts have been here for six months and have found a way to live with it
by imagining who in their building they might be interacting with. This one
guy who they think particularly might be an asshole and they have suspicions
about when he’s running the show.

I am staying here again tonight. I look forward to wrestling control of the
lights from what is essentially angry ghosts in my own personal AITA post.

My inclination is to go Full Lawful Good and turn off everyone’s lights
tonight at 10pm to make sure we all get a good night of sleep and wake up
rested and ready for a productive Saturday.

The light is off. War is over.

~~~
mixmastamyk
binary code, eh? Odd way to describe a remote control.

~~~
hiisukun
Maybe one of those where if you pop open the case, there are four little white
dip switches on the back of the board.

Flip them how you like, try and pick a combo that has the least neighbours : )

------
jentulman
I would love to do some sort of homeAssistant type automation, but I've been
dithering for ages because everything I read up on all the various light and
appliance control protocols make me feel my entire home would become a massive
UI/UX nightmare for myself and visitors. I want smarts, but I also never want
to have to reboot a lightswitch.

~~~
GeekFortyTwo
My rule for home automation at my house: a stranger walking in the front door
should be able to intuitively use my house without instruction.

Extra features are fine, but if they cannot turn on the light without 6 steps,
then it's wrong.

eg: my kitchen lights are all on Z-Wave dimmers. Each is still a normal wall
switch to the average person and can be fully controlled from there. I
probably use the switches 20% of the time and voice control about 75%(other
automations account for maybe 5%). Anyone who enters my kitchen will be able
to have light, I just get the conveniences.

Another example: my living room has no ceiling lights, just floor lamps. These
are not setup with automation because I have not found a way to control them
that makes sense to non-trained users. Therefore we keep the traditional
lights.

~~~
joshstrange
This!

Every smart device I have with the exception of 1 lamp in my office and 2
bedside tables in my bedroom are on z-wave switches. Eventually I might add
zigbee buttons or a panel by the fan switch that controls the bedside table
lights but honestly I see no real need. They have pull-strings you can use
(and break automation but I'm the only one using those so I don't care as
much).

The z-wave switches I use is the Leviton DZ15S-1BZ [0], they run about $45 a
pop but work flawlessly. I think I've had one lose connection less than 10
times total across all switches in the past year if that. My only complaint is
their size. They are chunky and if you have a tight electrical box you might
have issues. That said I've installed 6 or so of these and they are easy to
install (other than the shoving, pushing, cursing, crying, and begging them to
fit part lol), I can install one in less than 30min easily. I just keep buying
a new switch every few months, I'm a little over halfway there till I have
full coverage (already have full coverage in rooms I care about, so what's
left is the guest room, some bathrooms/closets, and 1 3-way that I can't bring
myself to replace right now as it will "burn" 2 switches).

My top tips to people looking at getting into home automation would be:

* Go with SmartThings, Wink is dying if not dead and ST works with Alexa/Google voice assistants. It also has a nice API/SmartApp ecosystem.

* Z-wave > Zigbee and NEVER use a Wifi device, they are a security nightmare IMHO

* Make SmartThings your single point of truth, don't buy stuff that "Works with Alexa" unless it's zigbee or z-wave.

* Make everything fallback to switches (real preferably but virtual if needed) on the wall, anyone should be able to walk in and use your lights without a crash course.

[0]
[https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ0WVKH/](https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ0WVKH/)

------
samspenc
TL;DR: he stayed over at a friend's place in a densely packed condo unit.
Condo building has a home automation system with binary codes that has a limit
of 16 combinations. With 40 units nearby, each unit controls at least 1 other
automation system in a neighbor's apt, so one of his neighbors was
accidentally toggling his light.

Even better are the replies from other Twitter users on the same thread on
what they experienced with their home automation systems. Here's one that
tickled me: "We had an Airbnb guest once who (probably accidentally) connected
his Spotify Connect to my living room sound system. Months after he was gone,
death metal would start without a warning, volume went up, silence after 5
seconds. It took weeks before I figured it out"

It's crazy how sometimes these automation systems that are supposed to make
our lives easier, make it more complicated instead. I wonder when the issues
that we see today with smart houses and smart TVs will show up in the upcoming
generation of "smart" cars.

~~~
garmaine
Not sure why this is downvoted. It's an accurate summary.

~~~
6510
Maybe they don't know Twitter is to complicated to use.

------
mosselman
How is this a liveable situation? Just tell the owner to put it something
else.

~~~
hnlmorg
That was my first thought too. I don't understand how the other owners are
happy to live with that.

~~~
zyztem
People sometimes like challenge in their lives. See Everest climbing & etc

~~~
Yizahi
He did use Twitter to write a normal blog post broken into pieces, so
challenge version looks probable.

~~~
posh_somme
This is very typical Twitter usage. Few people actually have blogs.

------
rambojazz
I was very confused until I realized this is a wireless system using 4 bits
encoding to identify the receiver, but there are 40 households.

~~~
hoseja
Seems to me like the inevitable conclusion to The King's Toaster.

[https://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/ktoast.html](https://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/ktoast.html)

~~~
yoz-y
To nitpick the story a bit, using time for any kind of cooking is a fire
waiting to happen. Use a thermostat, work with temperature. (Same for coffee
machines, measure throughput, not time, unless you want your coffees to
progressively get smaller as the machine clogs up)

~~~
huffmsa
Right. The engineer assumes immediate, uniform, consistent heat in the
elements.

But it's pretty true to life. Ovens and toasters get a bit wonky as they get
old.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Nobody was ever fired for using a wired system.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Mine uses IR, I was expecting a lot of problems from blocked view but it works
just fine.

~~~
tmikaeld
IR these days are strong enough to bounce off walls and glass, so might not
even need to point it at the receiver at all.

------
marcoperaza
Take out the bulb and get a floor lamp. Better yet, unplug the damn thing
altogether.

~~~
kelnos
Seriously. This is not just a "minor annoyance" to live with. I'd replace the
entire fan with something with good ol' pull cords, and then send an invoice
to the condo complex. Assuming they'd refuse, I'd likely even consider taking
it to small claims court.

------
rrix2
I stayed in an AirBnB that was like this recently, most frustrating experience
I've had in a while. Thought i was losing my sanity when the lights turned on
and fan spun up to high speed at 2:30 after I'd been out drinking... Left them
a note in the private review. I don't know how I'd be able to interact with my
neighbors if I was constantly in battle with them like this.

------
sbr464
I would of just gone to the circuit breaker panel. Problem solved.

~~~
PascLeRasc
It turns out the circuit breakers are mixed with other apartments as well. For
5 bonus points on your digital logic final, construct the apartment complex's
truth table.

------
huffmsa
Had thr same thing happen in my parents house home from school one summer.

Fans were set to the same receivers channel from.the factory. So I'd get in at
1am, turn my light off, which would turn theirs on.

Took a few days to figure out what was going on.

------
yoz-y
Product idea: tin foil hats for ceiling fans, or something similar to ruin
their reception.

------
waffle_ss
Surprised he didn’t unscrew the bulbs if he was really at it for hours.

~~~
mceachen
Don't worry, progress has taken care of that too. Many fixtures are now via
LED, soldered onto the fixture and not repairable/replaceable.

------
worldsayshi
I have no idea how to read this Twitter thread. It's just overflowing with
suggested content that is not related to the post. Broken UX.

~~~
cwyers
I have had that happening to me recently as well. The link that's supposed to
expand the thread doesn't work for me either. But weirdly, reloading the page
did.

~~~
tasuki
> The link that's supposed to expand the thread doesn't work for me either.

Same here. Reloading is of no help, though logging out helps. Twitter has
become near unusable.

~~~
cwyers
Sometimes when reloading doesn't work, I select the URL in the bar and hit
enter, which does a... hard reload, I guess? And that works. At any rate,
yeah, it's so broken.

