Even the value proposition is unclear. A simple mechanical light switch Just Works (TM). It's cheap, reliable, and nearly universally understood. Adding network connectivity, scheduling, voice recognition, etc. to these things sounds cool, but that novelty wears off very quickly, and you're stuck with features that probably won't matter to you day-to-day.
It reminds me of those 3D user interfaces in the movie Minority Report. Very cool-looking and futuristic. Who wouldn't want that? The answer is anyone whose arms would be tired after a couple minutes of flailing around like that. Stop making things overly complicated for the sake of marketing copy.
I think there is value proposition in a smart home, but I believe every manufacturer has missed the mark on it.
My smart home is entirely app controlled (HomeAssistant), generally scheduled, and at no point does anything notify me unless an actual exceptional event happens. Every smart home device is controllable via a physical switch. My command and control centers are old android tablets acting as digital picture frames until you swipe on them.
And it's really convenient and it works well. No voice anything, no needing five different apps, and the UI is stupidly simple.
Most smart home devices that are advertised are a pain in the ass, the apps are intrusive and terrible, they are far too voice heavy and they usually don't play well with normal switches/remotes/etc.
I've got a similar setup that I started originally so I could turn off lamps in my apartment with mock lightswtches on the wall. This enabled me to have an otherwise normal experience since redoing the electrical wiring in an apartment is generally a good way to get in a lot of trouble. Being able to schedule or turn iff all the lights in a simgle action at night was just a huge plus
Thermostats, lights, entertainment center, cameras (kind of, working to update to a better system), presence via network awareness. Currently using a weather api as well.
Lights and entertainment center get the most usage of course, though thermostat control is nice. I do have humidity data from the thermostats but I'm not using it currently.
I built and did an alpha test of garden monitoring but haven't messed with it since.
I think richer control of lighting, including color and brightness, is useful, even if 99% of the time you interact with it via the wall switch. I had Philips Hue lights at my last house and enjoyed the level of control the app gave me. I used the simple scheduling capability it had and would have used more power if they offered it. (I did wish I had more control at the wall; I only had on/off switches and would have liked to have a dimmer and a button to toggle different programs.)
I can't say I found the ability to control my lights and thermostat from beyond the local network to be compelling. I changed the Nest thermostat for my mother once while she was staying there since she couldn't figure out how to do it, and I think that was the only time I found it useful. I never set up remote access for the lights and never missed it.
Remote security will be a useful application, though. Being able to buzz people in for repairs and deliveries and other services, and know that they know they can't steal anything without being seen, is an attractive possibility.
Fine-grained control of sound is another feature I would use. I often wish I could play audio in the whole house, just one room, or certain rooms, depending on the circumstances.
Also, something I find myself wishing for (less often since Covid, but still occasionally): cameras inside my refrigerator and pantry, so if I have a dinner idea while I'm out, I know what I need to pick up on the way home.
> (I did wish I had more control at the wall; I only had on/off switches and would have liked to have a dimmer and a button to toggle different programs.)
For what it's worth this is possible now with their Smart Button
> Even the value proposition is unclear. A simple mechanical light switch Just Works (TM). It's cheap, reliable, and nearly universally understood. Adding network connectivity, scheduling, voice recognition, etc. to these things sounds cool, but that novelty wears off very quickly, and you're stuck with features that probably won't matter to you day-to-day.
As I mentioned down below, I'm currently on crutches with a broken leg. Voice-controlled lighting is a big convenience in my scenario. Mechanical switches don't "Just Work (TM)" for disabled people.
Yeah I find that a couple of the 433Mhz remote-controlled sockets suit me very well.
I can lay in bed and turn on/off a fan, a pair of lamps, and the coffee-machine (which I pre-fill manually the night before).
More complex things would be nice, but I just don't trust most of them.
The only other thing I do is record the temperature in my living-room, balcony, and sauna. The sauna monitoring is useful because I can make it ping my phone when it reaches 80/90 degrees and is "ready".
(That just uses an off-the-shelf battery-powered temperature/humidity sensor. Every 30-60 seconds it broadcasts the current readings and I have an SDR-receiver plugged into my desktop. That logs the values to influxdb, and visualizes with grafana. Nothing amazing, but fun and a little useful.)
That’s not a strong value proposition though. There are many specialized devices for disabled people - doesn’t mean that they offer great value to the able-bodied. Eg a special watch for the blind is a great idea… but not something that would attract many non-blind people.
There is a value proposition, but the tech just isn't there yet. It requires too much manual setup, pieces are not very standardized, and they also don't work well.
Imagine asking your phone to watch a movie in your family room, then automatically, the lights dim or change color, the curtains are pulled if it's dark, the tv and receiver are flipped on and the movie is loaded and ready to go on pause. Many people would find value in this. This is all technically possible and some people have actually created this setup. But it probably took them several days and fiddling to make it work. I can barely get my Yamaha receiver and LG tv to work together and they are top of the line new components.
There is no value proposition. This tech is designed by software engineers for the purpose of harvesting the maximum amount of data about a a given person while giving him/her the thinnest possible veneer of value proposition. That's why mechanical wonders like the million-function wonder toilets of Japanese fame are not pushed - they do not allow companies to harvest as much data about its users, while taking actual engineering skills to design - a no-no proposition for these smart device companies.
Umm, I was speaking about myself as well when I talked about this setup. There is nothing that phones home here. Almond for voice recognition, Zwave for the switches, movie served by Jellyfin, TV and Receiver blocked by OPNSense firewall with VLANs.
It's valuable and useful to me, and if it could be setup up easily, I'm sure others would love it to.
Ironically I also have two japanese toilets in my house.
I'd argue that this isn't true. Installing a light switch is a HUGE pain in the ass compared to a "smart plug" that can turn a lamp on and off via your phone or any "smart" switch that can connect to it.
As annoying as setup procedures can be they don't take nearly as long or involve nearly as much sweat as cutting holes in walls, running wires, potentially installing additional circuit breakers, installing wall boxes, installing the actual switch, and making sure it's all according to code.
Furthermore, changing which outlet the wall switch controls is also a pain in the ass compared to just relocating the little smart plug or changing the device it controls in the switch configuration software.
It's possible to make a smart device that lasts for decades without security issues but device manufacturers just aren't willing to put in the effort for that sort of thing. It's much, much more profitable to make devices that only last 5 years before the end user needs to spend money on a new one.
This exactly. I had this routine set up but then updates and bugs made it difficult for others to use. Even now turning on the lights in one room mysteriously turns off the lights and closes the blinds in another room. There are no logs to help debug it.
Z-wave switches are the key. They don't have any "smarts" within them, they require a controller for that. So the switch itself is never outdated, and the controller can be continuously updated or even fully replaced without having to replace the switches themselves.
Being able to say "Hey Siri, good evening" to switch to my evening scene, or "Alexa, turn on the lights" to turn on the lights in whatever room I'm in becomes a huge convenience, not a novelty.
I use Z-Wave and the key for me is I'm not beholden to some external IoT service that is a potential privacy issue, can update firmware without my consent, or simply goes away. I feel I own my Z-Wave network (aka right to repair).
For light switches I use Z-Wave modules that use the wall switch as a low voltage switch to trigger the module to switch the A/C circuit. This way the existing switch acts just as it did before. My family really doesn't notice, yet somehow that porch light is always on around dusk and off by dawn.
I don't use Alexa or the like but as a developer I easily integrate with DiY equivalent.
That last point is probably a key gap generally though -- as a developer this home automation stuff comes easier to me, potentially.
Having a couple of Z-Wave devices, in my opinion they are not the solution.
Combability wildly varies between manufacturers, you have have to know what works with what.
The mesh capabilities are kinda wonky, where you have some kind of "heal" network function you use when devices for some reason stops talking to each other.
Electricians are not really pulling cable to put your switches in convenient locations anymore. They’ll place a smart switch wherever requires least effort, and then give you a remote panel for it wherever you like. The remote panel looks like a normal switch but actually sticks onto intact drywall, no cutting required.
Not quite “IOT” but the bridge between that low power network and the internet is a natural add on.
I confess slightly more complicated light switches would be convenient. We have some that have an LED in them when in the "off" position as an easy night light/indicator of where to turn lights on. That is quite nice.
Would also be cool if they were more "push toggle" style so that if I have two sets of switches on the same lights, I don't have to accept that four switches all in different "positions" are different states. (That is, Up Down Up Up, but all off.)
All of that said, most of that does not need any sort of "smart" additions. Basic circuitry has come a long way.
Can program double triple or more taps to run scenes or events, and can also sync multiple switches (wirelessly and on different circuits) to control the same lighting, or use cheaper (wired) remote switches that lack status lights, but are functionally identical.
I have single press resume previous light level, double up goes to 100% double down goes to preset dim level, triple up or down turns on/off the entire room/area of house.
They don't have wifi, unless you mean the z-wave protocol, which is a separate wireless protocol.
You can add a zwave controller that translates ip commands from a home server to zwave commands, but it can be wired or wifi (or usb).
You can also directly program zwave "scenes", which work directly between the z wave devices without needing a controller. Like a direct remote control.
It's proprietary wireless, usually people just say zwave.
My point was that it's not like most iot devices that try to find an open internet connection to phone home. They're 100% as isolated as you want them to be.
Check out Inovelli[0]. They are the darling child of the Home Automation subreddit. I have a few of the last generation switches and they do perform well and have a great feature set for the price.
As far as your "push toggle" concept, you could buy a Z-wave smart switch plus add-on switches and have this today. There's no requirement to actually connect to a Z-wave network, although smart switches are much more expensive than standard switches.
Right. Apologies, I meant to offer this as a small feature that comes with many of these "smart home" additions that actually is kind of nice. Just with the major caveat that the "smart home" aspect is... not really needed or wanted.
And with a huge confession that this isn't that big of a deal.
> It reminds me of those 3D user interfaces in the movie Minority Report. Very cool-looking and futuristic. Who wouldn't want that? The answer is anyone whose arms would be tired after a couple minutes of flailing around like that.
I'm sorry but mechanical light switches are certainly not as cheap as ZigBee alternatives. You need to have copper wires running from the switch to the light. If you want to move the button or add another button it takes hours of work. Working with electricity is even dangerous.
This has always been my general stance. It sounds cool but the juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze. It solves a problem that really isn't that big of a problem, IMO. It's almost a real life CINCO commercial.
It reminds me of those 3D user interfaces in the movie Minority Report. Very cool-looking and futuristic. Who wouldn't want that? The answer is anyone whose arms would be tired after a couple minutes of flailing around like that. Stop making things overly complicated for the sake of marketing copy.