I used to have a dozen or so Google Home devices for all sort of automation, but have mostly given up on it. I feel like Google is going to kill these any day now, the Google Assistant on them has been getting dumber and dumber. Where in the past, it would do its best to provide an answer, now for 99% of queries it just says "idk how to help with that."
So the only thing these devices are used for these days in my household are setting alarms and turning lights on/off. In the next home, probably won't even bother.
I've totally disabled my entire smart home ecosystem. Philips hue thankfully has a hubless fallback (with the Zigbee remote). I just hate the unreliable nature of wireless devices, and having to manage an account for every accessory (Philips hue account, wemo account, iCloud account, etc.). Matter/thread which was supposed to be a smart home revolution turned out to be a crapshoot requiring proprietary Thread border routers.
Probably A/B testing but mine answers most questions these days, I swear even those it couldn't answer in the past. It hasn't given me the I don't know answer in a long while. Still mostly used for lights, morning alarms, shop opening hours, asking if my dog can eat my snack and the weather.
I know others here saying they can do it themselves but nothing beats asking google to turn off the lights in the house when I've forgotten and I'm cosy in bed already.
There's also profiteering and security issues. Thermostat that wants to connect to "cloud" and needs to know my street address, my name etc.? -- Not happening. Companies selling "smart" devices instantly overcomplicated relatively simple appliances making them beyond DIY repair level, and, on top of it, wanted to sell service of supporting these overly complicated devices. It's just very hard to see the benefit, when all that eg. the thermostat does is turning the boiler on and off, saving a few seconds to someone who'd otherwise have to do it manually.
There also aren't that many areas where automation could possibly accomplish much. I think, the main directions are:
* Optimize energy usage (the same thermostat thing). It doesn't really amount to much. It could be useful in industrial setting, but for households it just doesn't save that much money, even if it works well.
* Cleaning. Making roombas deal with furniture or large objects left on the floor seems like mission impossible without a significant change in approach. Similarly for surfaces that are above the floor (desk, shelves etc.) Cleaning the exterior could be its own an quite an interesting thing though. Stuff like removing dead foliage from the roof for instance, or repainting the walls.
* Cooking. This could be potentially interesting, but will probably require a complete redesign of the tools used for cooking today to be reasonably priced. Eg. there would be no need for knives with handles for humans, because it's easier to make a slicing / chopping machine that has a very different configuration. Stoves and ovens would need to have some way of moving pots in and out automatically. Also, they'd probably have to be connected to the fridge and other kitchen storage... Which, in the end, means that it's not going to be an incremental upgrade. It will be also probably difficult to make the automated system coexist with human cooks...
> it just doesn't save that much money, even if it works well
You should see how wasteful typical American households are when they use a dumb thermometer. The best energy-saving feature is simply at-home vs away-from-home detection. I don't want my HVAC at home to run when I'm away at work or worse away at vacation, unless the temperature is really extreme. This easily saves me hundreds of dollars for a month-long vacation.
> Making roombas deal with furniture or large objects left on the floor seems like mission impossible
Roomba the company hasn't innovated in years. Switch to a different brand like Roborocks. Also don't choose models with a camera for privacy and performance reasons: lidar is much better.
High end robot vacuums have been innovating (including Roomba), with self-emptying bins and ML-based obstacle avoidance for things like cords and pet waste. This requires a camera, so any high end robot vacuum is going to have one. For me, those features are worth it.
The other big area of innovation is combo-vacuum+mop, including automatic water replacement and cleaning, but those features don’t seem to be fully ready for prime time yet. Roomba is behind the curve on this one.
ML-based obstacle avoidance does not require a camera. The latest products consciously avoid cameras to assuage fears that the images captured could be sent to the cloud.
It may not require a camera, but in practice I think most or all units use them. It’s definitely not a Roomba-specific issue.
I’m familiar with the “woman on a toilet” story and I think it’s overblown. It was a prototype unit used for training the ML model, not a consumer unit.
This is why it’s requirement that all “smart” devices in my house can fall back to “dumb” use. Smart switches are the way forward here. They work just the same as existing switches, but I can also control them via automation, voice, or an app.
I normally recommend people start their home automation journey with smart bulbs, ideally in their bedroom so they can speak their lights off and on while in bed, but long-term, switches are the best.
> I think the issue is that smart home devices didn't do anything I couldn't already do, but a physical switch is faster than arguing with the computer.
Exactly this.
I've had so many "aw fuck it I'll do it myself" moments with tech.
I no longer use any smart home devices. It was a passing fad as far as my experience goes.
Hey Google, can you turn off the baby bedroom light?
I'm sorry, I don't know that device.