this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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[–] Frypant@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You missing theoint of the "real" smart home what would be an automated solution based on environment and not a fancy remote controller to your lights.

Human presence sensors combo with light sensors, and you never have to think about turning lights on or off, and leave the voice assistant for overrides. Temperature sensor aligned with your callendar and weather data make your home warm or cool before you arrive and save on your heating without adjusting.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Walk into a room and the lights are on, why? Just why?

Every room has a different need depending on what I am doing, so even that makes no sense.

If I had to set a timer to adjust when the house is at various temperature I could, but the savings is negligible, just let it be comfortable all the time. If anything the best addition to the house is solar power instead of trying to squeeze 20 euros a month out of some automation system.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You're still not getting it. A proper smart home will know when you want certain things. You're going into the bathroom to get ready for work, the lights are programmed for full intensity. In the middle of your sleep period, they go to the pre-programmed dim mode. And most rooms will be used in certain ways, as defined by you. If you're in the living room and turn the TV on the lights dim, because that's what you told it to do. You have an EV to charge, it knows how much time your EV needs to charge and how much electricity costs you during certain periods. So you plug the car in and it charges it when you want it to so you are ready when it's time to go to work. This is where smart homes start to shine - they do all the usual things you would do if they weren't so complicated and all the default things you would normally do, and you just live your life and deal with the exceptions as needed. If you use a room 3 different ways, you set up those 3 different ways and make the typical one your default. Now you're back to exceptions. And the more rules you have to how you do things, the better it works for you. And most people have a preferred way they want things, modified by how much it takes to get there and other circumstances. With the right sensors, timers, etc., most of those can be accounted for.

So maybe you start with lights turning on when you enter the room, but if you do it right you get to the point where you barely think about lights at all - they're just how you want them to be. Why would you not want that? However little effort lights take to manage, why do you want them to take any effort at all? And there are many more things than lights, some of which just make life easier, or more comfortable, or cheaper, all of which are good reasons to want this.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

No, I get it. I find this crap useless. Failure points for no reason. I can flick a light switch to go into the bathroom. If I wanted more auto then that I would add a motion sensor for middle of the night.

I dont always want the lights dimmed or raised for things like tv, living room, or what ever. I simply change or push the switch. This auto shit drives me nuts. I don't have some constant robotic schedule, nor do the other people in the house. I am not going to fuck around with setting three things to try and manage that, lol. What a waste of time.

The ev charges whenever it needs to, and frankly I don't really give a shit when, as long as it is ready to use. The solar system balances all that out anyways.

I don't commute, there is no drive to work, so that also doesnt matter.

Effort: push a button. I think I can handle that. All of this is always so fucking stupid, because it always, ALWAYS, does something to annoy, when the analog version just works.

None of this makes my life easier, better, or more comfortable. Just dumber and more ways to get annoyed.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

While I personally like some of the extras a smart home can do for me, we can all agree that we’re being sold a bunch of bs that doesn’t work well for anyone.

Basic rules for smart devices should start with

  • local manual control still works, exactly as anyone expects. The “smart” part is extra
  • local network only whenever possible. Should never depend on the internet
  • no vendor lock-in. work with my mix of devices. No I will not use a stupid vendor app to a stupid vendor portal per device to do basic operations.
  • the goal is for my home to work better for me, not to feed me more ads. That will get your device thrown out

The problem is manufacturers highly advertise devices that violate these rules, that serve them before you, where you are the product, and a standard person will find it difficult to even learn they have options

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 hours ago

Yes, I agree. If one is going to do it, local no services required, replaceable. Very much so.