
Ask HN: Which IoTs/smart home devices are useful and aren't gimmicks? - whitepoplar
I&#x27;ll admit upfront that I&#x27;m skeptical of IoT devices and anything that fits into the &quot;smart home&quot; category. I think the majority of it just isn&#x27;t that useful and adds a lot of complexity and failure modes to stuff that would otherwise just work.<p>Do any of you have any recommendations for products&#x2F;configurations in those categories that are actually useful and that don&#x27;t have issues with complexity or security? Thanks!
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ocdtrekkie
I find smart thermostats to be remarkably useful, and the primary smart device
of mine I interact with. That being said, I recommend something like Insteon,
Z-Wave, or ZigBee based hardware, be they lights or thermostats or otherwise.

Avoid having a lot of network-connected devices. One smart hub is one device
you have to be worried about, instead of wondering if any given light bulb
might be part of a botnet.

