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Comment by fennecfoxen | Hacker News Reader

WiFi? Eh. As an ever-so-modest upgrade to the cheap DIY, a Zwave or Zigbee system might be a better choice to integrate with a variety of other things (like thermostats and temperature/humidity sensors.)

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Most WiFi switches are based on ESP chips. Meaning they are trivial to install custom firmware on to extend the functionality. I haven’t found any affordable Zigbee or Zwave switches of this kind. Meaning that all the smarts need to be programmed centrally instead of putting them locally on the switch itself.

Or use a cheap zigbee or zwave power plug to switch the fan, then run the logic somewhere else. (I do this)

Wi-Fi is easier to interface with using any computer, where as those other protocols require a dongle on the computer side.

Sure, but once you have 20 or 30 of those things in your walls, congesting up your network, you’ll wish you went with something that runs at 900 mhz.

>20 or 30.

In my house. 9 X main lights. Kitchen work lights. Extractor fan. Oven Hob (gas) Dishwasher Washing machine Dryer. Fridge. Freezer. Food processor Kettle Toaster. TV. Digi box PlayStation (2 but anyway) Extractor fan Boiler Laptop Printer 5 X lamps.

So I managed to get to 30 things. I'm not entirely sure I'd want to hook up all those things to a network though...

Zigbee also runs on 2.4GHz, but I wouldn't even count WiFi out just yet since those devices are on 2.4GHz where latency and throughput are almost irrelevant (to me) for that application. Plus it's usually cheaper.

The problem is that lots of little wifi devices on your network will slow down everything where latency and throughput is relevant. I guess WiFi 6 will "fix" this, so maybe I'll be wrong when light switches are all WiFi 6, but I'm right for now.

Also, latency is very relevant for IoT stuff. Lights turning off 2 seconds after you push a button is a crappy experience.

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