
Why Is My Smart Home So Dumb? - mparramon
http://gizmodo.com/why-is-my-smart-home-so-fucking-dumb-1684949715
======
upofadown
I've been into the home automation thing since before forever. There have been
many periods of excitement over the years. They come and go. As a result I
have to admit to a high level of skepticism about the current period.

The companies that generate and are influenced by this excitement tend to make
two main errors.

1\. They don't understand that without an open standard for controls and
sensors they are just fooling themselves. No one is going to permanently
install something in their house that is sure to be useless in 10 years.

2\. They don't understand that people don't want to control everything ...
they instead want to not _have_ to control everything. Being able to control a
light from your phone is not really any better than being able to do it from
the light switch. People instead want the light to just do the right thing
without having to think about it. They don't want a thermostat controllable
from a phone. They want a thermostat that makes it so they are comfortable and
not paying any extra money they don't have to. As a result, the home
automation people actually want is a much harder problem than what everyone
always seems to assume.

~~~
romaniv
Open standards are a real issues in the industry. I find it ridiculous that
you often have to pay thousands of dollars for software that simply
understands those protocols. Not only that, it requires you to jump through
ridiculous hoops to do stuff that you could easily do with a reasonably simple
Python script. (Look up Niagara AX as an example.)

Another problem is APIs and connectivity. Tuning a light on or off should be
doable with a simple POST call to a RESTful service somewhere. Instead, we are
sold dubious phone apps for everything.

~~~
bjt2n3904
Right, open standards. I think there's an XKCD comic about this...

There's no "open standard for wireless control of a light", because there's
not one standard way to do it. For a dollar in parts, I can build a wireless
light switch that uses 433 MHz, just like your wireless doorbell.

Oh, you wanted a network of addressable lights? Well now it's a dollar fifty.
We'll move to 900 MHz and switch to a ZigBee radio.

Oh, you wanted to address them through WiFi? Well, here's the problem. Light
bulb's don't have keyboards to enter your AP+Key. You could try and use WPS
with a fixed pin code, but there's another issue. Putting an embedded Linux
device that handles POST requests in a lightbulb is rather silly. We'll keep
the ZigBee radios, and build a crossover "base station" that has a RESTful XML
based JSON buzzword complaint interface.

Did I mention my ZigBee radio only talks with my brand of ZigBee radios?

The problem in making a standard comes down to the radios in the lightbulb.
That interface will likely always be proprietary. Even if you get a
standardized web interface, no one will be able to make a universal base
station for all "smart" electronics. Wink is trying to do that, best of luck
to them. I don't see it happening.

[http://thegadgetflow.com/blog/wink-wants-new-standard-
smart-...](http://thegadgetflow.com/blog/wink-wants-new-standard-smart-home-
devices/)

~~~
romaniv
You would be surprised, but there are already standards for automation of
almost anything you can think of. The problem is not with the lack of
standards or network-enabled devices. The problem is with them being
proprietary and tied to software that costs thousands or even tens of
thousands of dollars. Some of that software is licensed in such a way that you
cannot even install it without being an "authorized" vendor with an
established relationship with the manufacturer/provider.

------
jmuguy
Sounds like my experience with Nest last summer. Got the thermostat, can't get
it connected to my wireless. Support basically tells me to get bent until I go
into full IT guy mode and prove its an issue with the unit. Replacement unit
comes, doesn't work at all (first one was at least a nice looking thermostat
with no connected features). Third unit comes and it's been fine ever since.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to get their smoke detector.
One day it randomly detects smoke and will not shut the hell up about it even
after resetting, replacing batteries, etc. Nest offered to replace it - I just
put my old "dumb" detector back up.

I will say it's pretty damn embarrassing to buy this stuff and have it fail so
spectacularly, at least my roommate wasn't here to see me seriously losing my
mind trying to shut up the Protect.

~~~
matt_s
Knowing that pretty much all software is buggy and Nest and Wink are pretty
new to market, do you want to depend on them with your life?

In the northeast US this weekend we will be having a high temperature of zero
degrees Fahrenheit in some areas. I don't want to rely on a flaky device
determining if the heat should be on. What happens if the temp drops really
low, like with a power failure? Did they test that?

Same can be said for smoke detectors. A lot of new construction houses have
all the smoke detectors wired by electricity with 9v battery backup. One goes
off, they all go off. Sure there can be device failures, but you're talking
about something that has been around for a long time with a proven track
record.

If anything, maybe keep the old tech devices running and use the new tech
along side it to see how it works.

~~~
JshWright
As a counter-anecdote, I have been very grateful for my Nest during these
especially cold days. It takes the weather outside into account, and does a
much better job keeping my house in a comfortable temperature range.

~~~
maxerickson
Outdoor temperature reset has been a feature on furnace controllers for a long
time (also called modulating aquastat).

(so there is a sense in which it isn't necessarily a smart home type of
feature, it doesn't need a great deal of integration or whatever, and will
work with any dumb thermostat)

~~~
JshWright
Yeah, to be fair, my Nest replaced a dial thermostat with a mercury switch on
a bimetal coil...

------
gambiting
I have a similar problem with Chromecast and Youtube. My friends literally
cannot understand why I would rather use the YouTube client built into the TV
and control it with the TV remote, rather than cast to chromecast and control
with my phone. Controlling the TV with my phone is cumbersome. It takes time
to unlock it,to find the app, to send the command and have chromecast react.
What if someone rings and I want to pause the video before answering the call?
Doable,but more complex than it needs to be. What if I leave the room but
someone else wants to pause, skip or whatever, but their phone is not
connected to my chromecast? In comparison, TV remote is always in front of my
TV. Using it is dead simple,doesn't require pairing,and it's instantaneous. It
doesn't leave the room when I go to the kitchen, and I can use it while I am
on my phone. I feel like controlling lights with your phone is a similar
gimmick. It doesn't make it easier or faster - it's just gimmicky, that's all.

~~~
pluma
This isn't as much of a problem if you use Chromecast with a tablet. Also, you
can actually connect multiple devices with a Chromecast.

I think it's better to think of Chromecast as a wireless display device for
your {smartphone,tablet,browser} than a displayless smart-TV. It's just a tool
to turn your TV into a dumb client for your smart device of choice.

If you want something that extends your TV rather than something that lets you
use your TV to extend other devices, you're better off with an Amazon Fire box
or equivalent.

------
viccuad
I really don't grok why I should want to use my smartphone to move up and down
my wifi connected blinders. Yet that's all I see when all of this is pictured:
gimmicks.

I want to see a demo of a room alarm clock: with rising light (in brightness
and temperature), birds chirping, room getting warmer, music/radio a while
later.. and the same for going to bed.

~~~
TimothyGee
I set up my house such that when I unlock the front door using my code, the
downstairs lights come on if it's after sundown. I also have a camera capture
the first few minutes of the door changing state. I get alerts if the door is
opened outside of normal away hours (8-4 on weekdays). I also have a vacation
mode that will control various lights in the house to simulate occupancy. I
also set up a nightlight mode that will detect motion after dark and turn
lights on and off as you pass through the house. This was all done with off-
the-shelf components and minimal Lua scripting. Admittedly not life-changing,
but more useful than moving blinds up and down!

~~~
statictype
What components did you use for this?

~~~
TimothyGee
I used a Schlage Z-wave compatible door lock, a VeraLite smart home
controller, and a handful of generic Z-wave devices (sensors, outlets,
switches). I also have a Nest thermostat. The package cost me about $200 bucks
(not counting the Nest).

------
Shivetya
Having each light bulb intelligent seems like overkill, I can see a per
circuit setup where you replace the light switch. First off its not going to
go bad like a bulb which will be replaced eventually; even LEDs which still
die too soon. Really, who came up with this light bulb idea...its just daft.

Security motion detectors can be used to double effect here as well, you would
naturally have them facing doors so they could activate wireless or through
signals across existing wires. All sorts of options.

~~~
hueving
Well Phillips pushing the Hue is pretty far from daft in their perspective.
Get people to shell out hundreds to replace bulbs instead of a 1/10th of that.

Remember, Phillips is the reason incandescent bulbs had their lifespans
intentionally cut in half for planned obsolescence.[1]

1.[http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/history/the-great-
lightbu...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/history/the-great-lightbulb-
conspiracy)

~~~
marcosdumay
You know, the hotter incandescent bulbs consume less energy, saving much more
than their more usual replacement cost. Added to that, they are cheaper to
make. But let's not disrupt a good conspiracy theory (who was Philips
conspiring with, by the way?).

If Philips simply launched a bulb that lasted less, with no advantages, people
would buy from other manufacturer, and Philips wouldn't be here anymore. They
even took a huge risk launching it, because despite it being cheaper to use,
people do not like changing bulbs.

~~~
hueving
Did you even read the article? They got with other manufacturers and agreed to
put an age limit on the bulbs. Anyone that violates the pact was fined by the
others? That is exactly what a conspiracy is and is one of the reasons we have
anti trust laws now.

------
brudgers
Automated building systems are hard to get right even in the commercial space
where the specifiers, installers, and operators are professionals and end
users are given dummy thermostats to make them feel better or just outright
locked out of controls and windows are inoperable.

Even then it all depends on dedicated circuitry: webs of low voltage wires for
power and signaling snaking from control panels in closets. Sure Wifi is
capturing some corner cases, but NFPA isn't going to allow its use for fire
alarms any time soon. Those systems need to be reliable. Or people die.

The smart home won't be based on a wireless bus. Wall warts show that we're
already at the point where a standard low voltage power bus makes sense. More
wires and a case for surface mounting is the way electrification goes
historically.

The current approach to smart homes is equivalent to configuring a new
network, hooking up a dozen different 80's dot matrix printers, and then
writing drivers for them...using a smartphone touchscreen keyboard. Except
instead of technical support you get consumer services.

Adding a touch screen and 802.11 doesn't make getting a system working or
geewhiz configured easier than X10. It just makes it look simpler and cleaner
and more likely that the end user will blame themselves for not being able to
use a smartphone.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The obsession over Bluetooth-this and WiFi-that continually drives me crazy.
Home automation companies aren't investing in the sort of technologies we NEED
because they're more focused on the sort of technologies they can SELL.

------
linker3000
There's a few 'handy' things I'd like to do - for example, I am considering
replacing my basic central heating/hot water controller with a Raspberry Pi
and having features such as a low-heat, vacation mode where the system knows I
am 'x' miles away from coming home (tied to my phone's location) and it will
fire up everything again.

Although I'd consider doing more (ESP8266 modules with MQTT looks interesting,
albeit in its infancy), the proliferation of 'standards' (properitary and
otherwise) is offputting. Then there's the standards designed to interface
between all the different standards...rinse...repeat.

Edit: Spelling - I have a dodgy laptop keyboard with melted keys due to a
motherboard failure!! Waiting for Dell to come back again and change it!

~~~
jerf
I think one of the big problems with the whole "smart home" idea is that
people don't consider the use cases. As the article mentions but doesn't
really follow through the logic of, trading a light switch flip for a smart
phone fumble just isn't a win.

But remote access is one of those cases that is a win. I have a relative that
spends a lot of time about 1000 miles away for business and he's gotten some
mileage out of his remote furnace control. Access for people with physical
issues also makes sense, but relative to what I think the market is "expected"
to be for this stuff, that's still quite a small niche too. (Large in absolute
terms, that is, but nowhere near "we're going to have one of these in every
house!")

Beyond that, though, what's the best case scenario in practice? I spend
perhaps a minute during the day _tops_ flipping light switches... if you 100%
eliminate that I will, frankly, not particularly notice. My heater already has
a standard modern (and therefore a bit featureful) electronic control and I
already don't use its sophisticated features.

This isn't one of those cases where technical advances just made home
automation possible, like the way tablets were a joke until all the pieces
came together for the iPad and gave us a practical device for the first time.
The tech has been here for decades, and it has never taken off, even among the
geek set. I think the problem is there just isn't a _use case_ here.

At the risk of sounding simply contrarian, I'm still not convinced the whole
"Internet of Things" isn't going to fizzle out the same way. It's a basic
principle of good software engineering that it isn't enough to just throw code
at people and hope; you need a use case that makes sense. There will be some
use cases here and use cases there, but I'm not convinced there's a massive
new market that deserves a new moniker so much as "use cases here and there".

~~~
maxerickson
I think as soon as there is a comm protocol that is worth calling a winner
(works well, widely supported), it will quickly become the case that LED bulbs
and fixtures will come with it built in. A while after that, whole home
lighting control is a $100 feature that you expect in every house (or less for
smaller places), not a $500 or $1000 feature that doesn't work very well in
houses where the owner really pursued it.

~~~
sly010
I don't expect there will ever be such protocol though, there is too much
competition already and everyone wants to be the "platform", because no-one
actually has any idea of what gadgets would be useful. Even if we just look at
the low level, there already is a war between grid powered vs battery powered,
which then influences the war between BTLE, WIFI and ZigBee. There are
inherently very different architectures, I don't see a change for convergence.
But then probably when everything has been already done Apple will invent THE
Apple Home which will be (as always) the first of it's kind :)

~~~
maxerickson
Could be. There is some chance that hubs like Wink (which supports ~6
protocols) will encourage manufacturers to choose the ones that work well.
Then someone just needs to make a similar hub that isn't architecturally tied
to the internet.

------
antris
There's a lot of cheap crap on the market but there's also some great designs
out there.

For example, I've got this light control system installed in my home:

[http://houm.io/](http://houm.io/)

Wireless, battery-free buttons that you can put anywhere you like. I keep one
of them on my night stand. Rest of the switches look and work just like
regular light switches.

Except the switches are connected to the system, so I can activate pre-defined
scenes with one click of a button. No need to use a smartphone. The scenes are
configured through a multi-platform web client.

The client, by the way, uses a regular REST API so I can control my lights
with cURL too. Over the internet :)

It's more expensive, but it just works.

------
mrweasel
Maybe I'm just not getting it, but why would I want a "Smart Home"? It seems
to be a little like a Smart TV, everyone wants more features, but really
they're newer going to use the built in voice control or install any apps. We
need a few basic feature and the rest just sits their, unused, contributing to
the complexity of the device.

I have yet to see an intelligent house feature I would like. I understand that
some want a better climate control interface, like the Nest. But I have yet to
see a house that have central climate/heating control, and I don't miss it in
my own home.

Is it really such an inconvenience to get up to turn on the light or turn the
blinders?

~~~
icebraining
_Is it really such an inconvenience to get up to turn on the light or turn the
blinders?_

It can be; if you're incapacitated, for example. But automated lights and
blinders also offer other possibilities besides remote interfaces, like waking
you up with sunlight instead of an alarm clock.

In any case, I agree with you, for now; I do want a smart home, but the
current implementations provide very little utility for me. I want a smart
home if it can do actual work, like cleaning itself.

------
spiritplumber
I have had auto blinders, lights, and day alarm (courtesy of an old projector)
for years. It's all controlled by some random netbook I got for $30, picaxe
micros, and xbees (the xbees are admittedly overkill).

This is the sort of thing you build, rather than buy, since it will only ever
fit the person who designed it.

~~~
patrickk
I'd love to read a blog post about this.

Some dream features I'd like personally in a smart home:

* TV-aware lights - lights dim/turn off according to a preset pattern when the tv comes on

* Voice control - saying "Bed time" would turn off all lights & heating, other commands off the top of my head- "I'm home" (turn on hall lights & heating if its below a certain temperature) or "leaving home"\- turn off everything

* Low power screen in the hall, like e-ink, where I can have an electronic To Do list easily available, or warnings to bring an umbrella/coat today, or reminders for today from my smartphone calendar

Something like this Raspberry pi project looks promising for voice:
[https://jasperproject.github.io/](https://jasperproject.github.io/)

For me, having to whip out a phone to do stuff like turn off lights is
pointless. A smart home should be context-aware, e.g. home temperature, time
of day, doing an activity like TV, or needing cold bedroom for sleep (open
window, turn off heating).

If a smart home system isn't more convenient than the low tech version, then
there is no point.

~~~
spiritplumber
Agreed on convenience!

The way it works is, it's all xbee based (largely because I had a bunch of
short-range xbees around when Serious Business decided to get longer range
ones).

There's a remote that's a picaxe 28 (remember those?), plus a xbee, plus
buttons.

There's an old netbook that also runs my projector, mostly netflix/youtube. It
has a xbee and a few lines of python.

There's the light controllers which are just a USB charger, a relay, a picaxe
8, and a xbee.

The blinds have a tamiya motor and a L298 instead of the relay.

Both the remote and the laptop get to send commands to the other nodes, the
remote also turns the projector on and off (by serial port).

Nothing to write home about really. It mostly got done because there was an
excess of xbees.

The "serial protocol" is just sending two characters (0-9 digits) to address
the picaxe, and then a one-letter command.

Doesn't seem to bother wifi any.

------
thebiglebrewski
Not sure I agree with the article's title. He's basically bad mouthing the
entire smart home industry when this really seems like more of a
Quirky/GE/Wink mess up. Literally every single product he tested is by them.

I actually LOVE all of the stuff in my smart home! All I have is 6 hue bulbs,
a Nest, and an Amazon Echo that I've programmed to control everything with my
voice with the help of a Raspberry Pi.

Nothing feels better than walking in after a long day and saying:

"Alexa, turn on all the lights, color blue, brightness 9"

"Alexa set nest to 72"

Then sitting down on the couch and saying:

"Alexa play some jazz music"

 _pours bourbon_

If you're interested in this, check out my Alexa Home project alexaho.me or
the YouTube video below) ​. I'm turning Amazon Echo into a smart home
controller and people seem to be pretty jazzed about it. Frankly, if we can
get stuff to work like this where it doesn't rely on your smartphone, people
will use it a lot more. I also have a small switch next to my bed that turns
on and off the overhead light and desk lamp in my room for when I don't have
my phone on me.

I think success in the home automation biz is going to be all about untying it
from your smartphone...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AmxiGVBekE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AmxiGVBekE)

~~~
smackfu
Are you the only one using the system? That seems to be the big barrier to
greater acceptance. Convincing everyone who lives in a house to not use the
wall light switches is pretty hard. Heck, we basically leave our AV receiver
on all the time because requiring someone to turn it on to watch TV is too big
a step.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Yes, my roommate uses it too! But he's also in tech. I completely agree with
you. We need more really cheap IoT light switches so everyone can easily get
on board!

------
bojo
I know our generation is the one longing for the concept of a smart-home that
we see in sci-fi movies, but until we reach a stage where we can actually give
contextual voice commands that our "home" can understand I'm not convinced
this is worth spending a dime on. Not even in the "to promote research in that
direction" kind of way, because all I am seeing now are people taking
advantage of our high dollar whims and are missing hard.

------
amirmc
I feel like there's some kind of rush to become the box/service that runs your
smart home. _None_ of these vertically integrated solutions is going to cover
all of the use-cases or user desires, yet it seems that everyone want to be
the one that sells you their proprietary (and bug-ridden) box.

It would be much easier if most of this stuff could be shipped as software
that you can install (somehow) into a box of your choosing and pull together
components for your home as you see fit. This field isn't ready for consumers
per se but those with a more hacky mindset would probably uncover the useful
bits, which could later be picked up as integrated solutions. The only thing
I've come across that's like this is openHAB
([http://www.openhab.org](http://www.openhab.org))

~~~
semi-extrinsic
You really should check out Telldus
([http://www.telldus.se](http://www.telldus.se)). Their Tellstick Net is
simple enough that my father installed his own setup at the summer house,
where he has a thermo sensor and two heaters plugged in to remote socket
receivers. So when my parents are going there for the weekend, he checks the
app on his phone before leaving to see how cold it is, turns on one or both
heaters from the app, and the place is warm when they arrive. All of this is
available in brick-and-mortar stores in Europe, total cost is something like
$200.

------
pbnjay
My main issue with my wink is that it has to go all the way across the
internet to connect to the box 10ft away from me. A much "smarter" system
would simply connect directly over my home wifi and avoid most of the lag and
connectivity issues.

I understand WHY they did it this way (because they don't want to support an
open device/protocol for interacting with the hub...) but it seems really
short-sighted in terms of the user experience.

I've already rooted my wink hub and fully intend to implement this myself just
to reduce the annoyance.

------
natch
Homeboy cameras are the one thing in my setup that work perfectly. I wish more
products could be so well integrated with the cloud and the phone. I have them
set up to send pictures to Dropbox via IFTT, and it all works perfectly,
recording only when there's motion, and only when we are not home (it uses
your cell phone location).

Tried a Quirky Spotter, and it does detect things like motion, but it doesn't
know to send just one push notification; instead it sends a continuous stream
of them while motion is happening, which is irksome.

------
ufmace
This article made me think about these idea for a bit. I thought of something
that may not be very practical right now, but could be a way forward for these
things. I think what a really good home automation system ought to do is a
bigger version of what the Nest does.

All of the light switches, blinds, alarms, climate control, music, TVs, etc
could be manually controlled at first, but there's a system that watches how
you change all of them and coordinates it with your location and the time. It
could look for patterns of doing several things in a row or doing them at the
same time, and either offer to or just start doing them all together for you.
Like you normally turn on lights 1, 2, and 3 when you walk in the door from
work, so it notices and starts turning them on for you just from opening the
door. Or you normally turn off lights 2 and 3 and turn on the DVD player
within 5 minutes of each other, so it starts just turning off those lights
when you turn on the DVD player.

Basically, something that notices what you already do and tries to do it for
you, without you having to program things in with a smartphone or something. I
bet normal people would love that. As long as it wasn't laggy and buggy, of
course, which could be easier said than done.

------
tormeh
There are house-integrated things that are cool, but they rarely require
integration. CO2 and humidity-controlled ventilation is really nice, as is
whole-house sound systems. But why should they be connected to each other?

Maybe if you used some machine learning algorithms and made the house actually
intelligent, so it could anticipate what you wanted. Other than that I don't
really see the use.

~~~
maxerickson
A possible application would be to have different temperature regulation for
occupied rooms (With some smart scheduling that anticipates occupancy).

So there's a reason to integrate the HVAC system with awareness sensors (which
will probably be integrated with the sound system).

Not an interesting feature for an apartment or smaller house, but it's a
reason to try to build the systems so that they can talk to each other.

------
maxerickson
I think a big part of the problem is that integration is hard, and that the
companies more or less resist it (I guess because they think keeping people in
their garden is a good strategy).

It's also easy to oversell (to yourself) the value of a room having a movie
mode. Most smart home features are 'nice to have', not worth a lot of messing
around and cash.

~~~
glesica
> It's also easy to oversell (to yourself) the value of a room having a movie
> mode. Most smart home features are 'nice to have', not worth a lot of
> messing around and cash.

My girlfriend used to occasionally watch a show about house-buying (House
Hunters). In general the show wasn't terribly interesting, but the real estate
agents featured sometimes had some interesting tips.

One of those tips was to carefully consider not just _how_ you will use a
feature of a house (like a pool, or guest bedroom), but _how often_ you will
use it. Apparently people spring for expensive extras like pools and outdoor
living spaces because they imagine how great it will be to have family and
friends over for picnics, etc. But then they do it once, and never again
because it is a huge inconvenience. Same goes for "mother-in-law suites" and
spare bedrooms. People tell themselves it will be wonderful to have family
stay with them, but the family members only visit once a year (if that), so a
hotel is actually more economical (or just have someone sleep on the couch).

I tend to think of "smart house" features in this way. Every once in awhile I
would appreciate having my living space adapt to my needs or respond to remote
commands, but 99.99% of the time, it just doesn't matter. The light switch is
right next to the door, I can stand up to close the shades, and thermostats
have been programmable for decades now.

Eventually we'll probably come up with something that works even better (just
like the programmable thermostats were a strict improvement upon their
predecessors). But things like converting the light switch to an "app" or
controlling the AC with a rudimentary geo-fence aren't it.

~~~
Silhouette
_I tend to think of "smart house" features in this way. Every once in awhile I
would appreciate having my living space adapt to my needs or respond to remote
commands, but 99.99% of the time, it just doesn't matter._

I find there is only a tiny overlap between the many modern technologies I
would like to have in a new home and the many so-called smart home features
that are aggressively advertised. There are plenty of new systems I think I
would find valuable, and quite a few of them distribute some function
throughout the house but could usefully be controlled from a single location,
but I've never seen much advantage in controlling _everything_ together. That
just seems to create one more point of failure, not to mention glaring
security/privacy issues if any of the control systems are remotely accessible,
which almost all of the major suppliers of home automation control systems
proudly claim to be.

------
cxseven
There's a general pattern of trying to dumb things down to a simple,
inflexible interface, too often with half-baked "AI" bolted on. Good products
still need attentive human supervision.

I installed Insteon motion detectors and webcams after a robbery, but the
included software was such undependable and inflexible garbage that I replaced
it all with a simple Misterhouse-based Perl script that sends texts via email.

If I see another tech product ad aimed at millenials featuring bright easter
colors and indiepop music pitched by Steve Jobs wannabes who are unable to get
any angry nerds to make their products actually work, I might snap.

By the way, the other HN article about malfunctioning Nest smoke detectors is
a hilarious accompaniment to this. (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048110)
)

------
soylentcola
So-called "smart home" devices are certainly new and imperfect but the story
told at the beginning of the article is also not necessarily representative.

He describes months of setup, unlocking his phone, scrolling through apps,
finding the right screen, drilling through menus, and then not having it work.
In my limited experience with similar setups (a few Philips Hue bulbs, IP
camera, and a Nest thermostat) I haven't really run into anything that
obnoxious.

When I want to kick on the "mood lighting" for a movie or a party or whatever,
I just wake my phone and tap one of several presets on the homescreen widget.
Setting up those presets took maybe 10 minutes and I can always mess with the
lamps manually or create more if I feel like it. Otherwise the handful of
IFTTT recipes I set up and geofencing keeps the lights under control the
majority of the time without any input from me.

Nest is similar. It's reasonably good at learning my patterns and if I want to
tweak the temp or change something, I just open an app and the image on the
screen matches the display of the physical thermostat.

These are certainly early implementations of connected/smart devices but
compared to the state of "professional" integrated systems, they're just fine
with me. Just read up on Crestron programming if you want to learn how
complicated the enterprise solutions can be. And if you don't want to spend
months learning their wacky programming tools and procedures you can spend
thousands on hiring certified techs to do it for you.

The thing I'm most excited about is for more standardized and interoperable
devices to start overtaking the pricey "pro" options for at least the lower
level stuff in enterprise and education. As it stands now, a lot of the
Crestron stuff is not much more than a glorified universal remote. The faster
the consumer/DIY stuff improves, the sooner it will be able to replace the
ridiculous "pro" stuff that's been the only option for years.

------
djekels
I am now on my 4 controller "Smartthings (ST)" after dumping Nexia my 1st and
for many reasons such as compatibility and monthly costs et cetera, then
Micasa Verde whcih was okay but not the creates their tech support sucks and
more incompatibility issues, then Indigo6 which was okay for a year but they
drove me nuts refusing to speak to my doors locks (schlarge) and had to use
vera bridge which couldn't keep proper track of the state of the doors.

All the while I was researching a stand alone controller backed by a big
company like google, apple or samsung. Then I found ST backed by Samsung.

So here we are. migrated and all. Learning how to deal with MODES OMG. No
variables I can set to do things.

------
thret
When you use a smart phone as a remote control, it's just a slow and
inconvenient remote control device. If the lights don't dim by voice command,
it should be by your regular smart remote or the switch.

"I unlocked my phone. I found the right home screen. I opened the Wink app. I
navigated to the Lights section. I toggled over to the sets of light bulbs
that I'd painstakingly grouped and labeled. I tapped "Living Room"—this was
it—and the icon went from bright to dark. (Okay, so that was like six taps.)"

------
noobiemcfoob
Am I the only confused by the crazy delay mentioned in the article from the
"Robots"? The processing can't be all that intensive, and I can't imagine a
setup where communicating simple on/off commands to specific devices should be
so costly as tens of seconds. I would understand a general delay from sensing
the triggering event (i.e. opening the door), but that hardly explains the
delay in between all the lights as shown in the gif.

~~~
nitrogen
Any time there's a significant buzz around home automation, opportunists with
marketing skills and no appreciation for latency and UX flock to the scene,
drowning out the technically superior but underfunded and poorly represented.

This stuff doesn't have to be slow:
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L7jeJSdJPpk](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L7jeJSdJPpk)

------
supergeek133
The best 'consumer facing' demos of these involve the "I'm leaving home" or
"I'm coming home" activities. Aggregate functions, think IFTTT.

For much of these devices today, the experience is so fragmented that only a
tech savvy customer can figure them out.

Also, yes, it's not helpful when I have to take out my phone, put in the
password, open the app, and click 'off' when I could just get up and press the
switch much faster.

------
z3t4
Home automation is not something you can install yourself, unless you are a
full stack programmer, and with full stack I mean also PCB's and micro-
controllers.

Surprisingly there's a lot of cheap consumer stuff out there, witch can easily
be modified to do what you want. Some of them are "unhackable" though.

The trick is to make everything automated. And use a high level language like
JS to make it smart. Yes, I write my home automation in JavaScript :P

------
mikeytown2
It seems like the vast majority of the issues with the current generation of
products on the market has to do with speed & reliability; thus hardwired is
the only way to guarantee those 2 work all the time. Also by going the
hardwired route, the sensors and controls will be vendor neutral; thus
ensuring that it will be future proof.

After doing a bunch of research the conclusion I came to was Opto-isolated
relays [1] are the way to go for lighting control [2]. This allows for simple
logic boards to control line voltage things without the risk of the line
voltage killing your logic board. Best way to do this style of home automation
would be in new construction, as retrofitting it would be hard to do if the
house is more than 1 story tall as you need access above and below. Would be
labor intensive as well. Will also allow for manual control because you'd put
a current sensor on the wire so the hardware can tell when the circuit is
on/off.

I would also want to put in some thermal cameras, as motion sensors are not as
useful when your sitting on the couch, to tell when you enter/exit a room for
auto lighting control. Put temperature sensors in every room and have
motorized dampers & air flow sensor allowing for the control of the
temperature in every room. Now your lighting and hvac can be manually or
automatically controlled. Wire all the sensors and controls to a
hardware/software brain that can be upgraded at any time. If that
hardware/software brain is disconnected, all the light switches will still
work and the normal hvac system will still work; just less efficiently.

Have the thermostat be controllable from the panel when the house is occupied
(thermal camera) and auto controllable when vacant.

All of the above is possible right now; it just would cost a lot of money.
Every relay/current sensor is $80 bucks; every damper control is $100; every
thermal camera is $500; add it all together and you got one very expensive
home automation system. But it will work right now without a lot of user
frustration.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opto-
isolator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opto-isolator) [2]
[http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/46601/home-light-
auto...](http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/46601/home-light-automation-
emulate-4-way-switch-with-relay/46610#46610)

------
TACIXAT
Home security too. Finding an HD, outdoor camera system that has smartphone
and web functionality is very difficult. All the NVRs are horribly insecure.
It's strange that a (physical) security product completely neglects software
security. The more modern companies seem focused on indoor cameras with only
one or two variants and not much by ways of optical zoom lenses.

------
dswiese
One comparison to this is the big push to get in car navigation and smarts
developed by the tech sector. There is a reason radios and stuff work year
after year through heat and cold and the like. they may not be pretty, but it
(usually) does what its suppose to even after years of use.

------
pbreit
I think part of the problem is that frequently/mostly, I want a dedicated
input device like a switch or a dial, not my iPhone to control stuff like
lights.

Nest has an app but primary interaction is with dedicated UI widgets.

------
lylebarrere
What is the power limit of POE? I don't see a reason to try to dim LEDs on AC
or a reason to keep converting DC/AC/DC/AC so often. Wouldn't POE or a similar
standard be better?

~~~
unwind
PoE (that's Power over Ethernet,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet))
maxes out at 25.5 W at the powered device.

Not a lot general purpose domestic electricity, although of course lighting is
being pushed down towards lower power these days.

------
ocdtrekkie
A lot of this is bad technology choice. The new hipster smart bulbs are a
doomed technology, they were a bad idea from the start. Try INSTEON, buddy.

~~~
fixermark
Do you have any suggestions on debugging INSTEON?

I have a setup at my house, but the light switches stopped talking to the
SmartLinc and I can't get them to re-pair. And without any debugging options,
I'm feeling a bit sunk.

------
normloman
Flicking a switch when I enter or leave the room sounds easier than taking out
my phone and fiddling with some app. And it's way cheaper.

~~~
Someone1234
True. But having it turn on while you're on holiday is a nice perk.

Plus it isn't an OR choice, you often get both a switch and an app. So you can
have the lights turn on as you drive into the garage.

------
dayone
my learning is to approach "fads" with some skepticism and wait for market to
give a thumbs up before you try.

------
jennings223
If you have to set options or even program to get it started, it's definitely
not so smart.

------
ekianjo
Ouch, don't use GIF clips if the quality is so horrible.

