Hacker News Reader

Comment by poink | Hacker News Reader

I'm usually an early adopter for tech stuff, but I'm not interested in this smart home crap at all. The idea that vendors could remotely mess with it is back of mind, but the main thing is that it ~all just seems worse than the stuff it replaces.

My door locks, light switches, and thermostats have simply never bothered me enough to consider the hassle of automating them, even assuming the automation works perfectly (it won't) and the "smart" devices are just as reliable as the things they replace (they aren't).

View on HN

I work in IoT and I don’t install anything on my home that isn’t local first and doesn’t require internet access. As you can imagine, the list of these products is very small, most of them are things I custom made.

The problem with IoT is that most of the products lose their shit and very ungracefully handle poor or intermittent internet connectivity, all so they can potentially route my button taps and commands through a random server outside my house and back to the internet connected device. When this company discontinued the product, goes bust, or they just change their servers without an update to “older devices”, your $xxx item becomes a paperweight. Some of this is likely data mining, but I would reckon most of this is simply poor or incompetent engineering and management with a slash of vendor lock-in. The company selling you cloud service does not care that it stops working when the go under, and we need to not buy this hot garbage either.

I try to go that route, but for some items there isn't a good alternative. I have a Roborock vacuum which requires the app and an internet connection to use the smart features, but it can still be controlled by the physical buttons if the internet is down.

I'm hoping that Thread/Matter will change that, but most likely it'll still be the same walled garden - there are already some devices that use ZigBee but only work properly with their own hub.

Why would you need a vacuum connected to the internet. Love to hear the use-cases

I have a Roborock too. It has an app that shows you the map, collected by the vacuum's lidar, so that you can point the vacuum to a specific area on this map and stuff like that. I absolutely hate that I don't have control over what's actually being sent to the cloud. Though at the time of purchase there were no models with lidar that didn't require the Internet connection. Not sure if that's still the case. I would be happy to replace the damn thing with something that doesn't call home.

I am heavily into smart home; I have over 100 devices in my home.

My main requirement for my home is that everything had to “fail normal”. My non-geek family would not tolerate the lights not working if the internet connection failed. To that end, although everything is connected to a cloud service eventually (HomeKit), loss of internet or excommunication by a cloud service provider would simply disable app- and voice control, but stuff would still work normally otherwise. If a device manufacturer bricked a device intentionally then I am fortunate enough to be financially able to hire an attorney.

I am currently working with an electrical engineering firm to build my own line of smart home devices, that will be fully open (HW and SW) and will be based on Raspberry Pi (there’s an actual Pi Zero 2W in the light switches).

I’ll post here when I’m at the point where I have something to share.

I have a few smart power plugs outside that I like being on the cloud so I can control the string lights connected to them from bed without having to go outside and actually hit the physical switch.

It's also super frustrating that they all need their own servers and app and infrastructure. You'd think there'd be a standard by now. Last time when the power went out for several hours I had to resync the switch.

They profit from spying on you so obviously they need an app and SaaS per device vendor. In their perspective interoperability is an anti-feuture.

Even just pushing one of those IoT buttons tells them you are at home and is probably used for some ad placement or credit score or whatever.

I wonder if home automation is one of those things that eventually gets figured out and we look back at today thinking, “we tolerated that?” or if it never gets solved at a standards level and we just have egregiously subpar experiences delivered by vendors all naively attempting to dominate the market with a crippled product.

Also, I think the spying has the potential for being more insidious and more passive. Im thinking of sound beacons, at human-imperceptible frequencies, sent by a TV or smart speaker that lets some data aggregator determine what is being played in a home or who is at home.

> potential for being more insidious and more passive. Im thinking of sound beacons

I have some bad news for you - what you describe as a dystopian future hellscape was up and running by 2015. If you want to so much as slow it down, stick to F-Droid or ditch your smartphone.

[0] https://www.wired.com/2016/11/block-ultrasonic-signals-didnt...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-th...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/there...

I think this is tinfoil hat energy. The power adapter can't provide any meaningful information. I leave it on for days sometimes when I'm not even in the yard. Does that mean I was home or not home? Totally irrelevant. It doesn't have its own screen and once it's synced to my Google home I don't even have to think about it. Google home even lets you setup automations based on sunset and sunrise. How does that figure into this data?

Credit score? Seriously? Really?

> being on the cloud so I can control the string lights connected to them from bed

> You'd think there'd be a standard by now.

I don’t understand, isn’t there a standard? All my smart stuff is on ZigBee, I can control everything locally (app via LAN to the machine running the automation, machine via Zigbee to switches and sensors) and I don’t need any cloud functionality at all. If the power goes out, everything reconnects in two minutes.

Matter. There's a significant shift in progress to Matter from smart home device manufacturers.

https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/smart-home/matte...

There are standards, but every major smart home tech company wants to be the controller, not a slave. Generally you find that, for each brand of device, you have an in-home controller that controls that brand of device over a proprietary protocol, and a proprietary cloud that the controller talks to for app control. Most clouds allow integration with Alexa and Google assistant for voice control, and many clouds will also allow you to control devices of other brands that might have integrated with them.

ZWave and Zigbee devices are currently the most vendor neutral but you have to really love smart home to stand up HomeAssistant or whatever and maintain it. And zwave in particular has lots of small but annoying compatibility issues and is difficult to troubleshoot and to keep a complex setup running.

I thought threads/matter was going to be great but it looks like latter just took a whole pile of standards and mashed them together and rebranded them. I dunno for sure; I tried to install the matter SDK on a raspberry pi and it was north of a gig download and difficult to figure out.

> There are standards, but every major smart home tech company wants to be the controller, not a slave.

This is really the crux of the issue. First, from a business perspective, it makes sense: why sell a one-time hardware device when you can charge rent for its continued usage? From a consumer perspective, how can you justify buying a device that can’t operate without an ecosystem you have no knowledge about?

This is why we need free and open standards of interoperability. It would benefit hardware businesses that now feel compelled to create an ecosystem when they’re only good at making hardware and consumers can buy devices and only need to check if it works with some standard like we do with WiFi now when selecting personal wireless devices. Maybe a bad example, considering the backwards compatibility of WiFi and the fact that there is only one practical set of wireless network connectivity transports.

It still needs to play out but Matter is a multi-master architecture. It is not tied to a single controller.

I tried my first switch this week and in one pass it was setup with Google Home and HomeKit. Home Assistant is my next test but I’ve been on vacation.

For something like light switches and outlets, it would be nice to have the option to say whether they fail on or fail off, and perhaps even if it loses internet, keep on or off for X time then flip the state (or keep whatever schedule it's on, which is saved locally).

Surely IoT without the Internet is a NoT.

Maybe we’ve all been getting the “I” component wrong and it’s suppose to be Intranet of Things?

If it is local, it isn't IoT but just T.

Or, alternatively, it's Intranet of Things, a clearly better kind of IoT.

My thinking was the same for years, but then I learned about Home Assistant. It's a wonderful open source package that integrates with everything. And there's a lot of options for local wired or wireless transports that keeps smart home usable without third party servers or even an internet connection.

In my setup I have some Wi-Fi connected outlets running Tasmota and some light bulbs and thermostats on Zigbee.

This sounds nice but I don’t want to manage my house, maybe I’m just getting old.

When you hear the relay click at 5.15am and the espresso machine starts warming up, it’s truely glorious.

It’s been doing it for about 10 years and it still makes me happy every time I hear it.

I can appreciate that. I have Phillips Hue setup with some lights and schedule. Having the porch and a few exterior lights come on/off makes the house feel more comfortable and is really nice when arriving at a late hour.

That is a perfectly reasonable position. Personally I consider it a hobby to tweak these things. During high volatility periods of energy price home automation can be somewhat profitable too, as it enables scheduling of the load periods to coincide with cheaper power.

Would love to see a writeup make it's way to the top 60. It sounds like a fun hobby.. I had some of the early 90s/2000s devices that could do a few things but wouldn't know where to start today.

Home automation stuff particularly seems... problematic for the current market.

Houses and stuff installed in them regularly out-live these product lines, and many of them are proprietary and only work with their brand, possibly that one product line. If you're willing to consider them disposable and are alright with that, that might be reasonable and they do some neat stuff, but they're certainly not systems that last :\

I would love to hear of counter-examples, what pieces of tech that rely on third party service have actually lasted more than 10 years?

I don't trust a SaaS to stick around for 6 months, let alone integrate into a 30+ year home.

All of my ZigBee lighting. My house has been entirely ZigBee for over a decade. If by third party service you mean cloud then I'd suggest Hue, but I actually run mine locally.

Hubitat is exactly this (runs locally), but with a lot more support for what gets blessed but the corporate owner.

ZigBee seems like one of the few long-term-reasonable options, yeah. Self-hosting (as an option! it's insane for most, but it guarantees replacements can be made) and a reasonable standard is critical for longevity.

Well, the power company is a third party. The city water supply has lasted more than 10 years.

Perhaps we can get IoT services regulated the same way.

Given how convenient a light switch is, I can't see a world where it's _more_ convenient to talk to a microphone, and occasionally need to repeat yourself. Perhaps it represents a benefit for someone with limited mobility? But, for everyone else it represents increased complexity without actually adding real convenience.

Depends on your use case. In my house we don’t turn on the big light, we use 3 lamps that make a nicer light. I can turn them on all at once from my sofa when it starts to get dark.

Getting up from your couch would have taken 15 seconds or less. This didn't save you any time, nor any real effort. What it did was erode your impulse control.

I used to be in the same boat with the lights, but then I bought some cheap-o local brand of smart lights I could automate and control remotely and it was simply amazing.

I have since upgraded to Philips Hues since there was some connectivity issues (plus no Apple Home support) with the cheap-o ones.

I am real tempted with smart lock since I dismissed it as useless as well, but I simply don't trust that it will be secure.

As for thermostat, I live in a old building so I have no central AC/Heating, but if I had you bet I would have it remotely controlled. I am running one of those "tube out the window" style ACs and I have that hooked to Hue socket and it is pretty fucking lit.

I like tools and I like them to be simple and reliable. When it comes to tools in use by others (such as heating, lights), I also want them to be easily serviceable without me. This rules out any home automation I've seen. The cloud-shite, well, an obvious no-go. Roll your-own server and integrations: complicated and looking around user groups, pretty fragile. Simpler off-the shelf stuff: barely does more than what I already can accomplishment with non-automated tools.

Anyone I talk to doing this, seems to be using it as a toy first and last. Which is fine, but to me, not ready for anything other than wasting my time. I'm not wasting time of others in my house with it.

I have a room with several ceiling lights, one of which was made "smart" by the previous owner.

That light has its own switch. Unlike a normal light switch, there is no difference between the off position and the on position.

I do not ever intentionally turn that light on.† But it commonly turns itself on, at which point I have to turn it off, using its dedicated "switch". This usually takes between five and fifteen attempts. Sometimes I give up and go do something else for a while.

† Because it's so difficult to operate that switch, sometimes while attempting to turn it off I will turn it off and then on again.

I think smart home stuff is actually pretty cool.

I remember when I had an X10 setup, and I could get in bed, hit a switch and turn off ALL the lights. (note that this backfires when you have a partner in the bathroom)

But I balked at the cloud stuff, the intrusion and the snooping and have mindfully lived with less.

I think we just have to wait (like the amish¹) until we get socially acceptable technology to adopt.

[1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/

I had an X10 setup too, and it was great. I was just a teenager, so my ability to control the "whole house" was limited. But I had several of those relay-based switches and dimmers too, for the lights. I had an RF controller and the timer that was like an alarm clock. I always wanted the system you could install on a PC with DOS. I believe you could design a program and then upload it to an autonomous controller.

X10 was exciting and unusual. It works by sending coded pulses through the household AC mains themselves. You have to set a "building code" in case your neighbors use X10, too, and their electrical system is closely coupled to yours. But obviously, it does not rely on the Internet, nor sends anything very far. I believe that once they hit a transformer, the code pulses will be neutralized.

Why would anyone just turn the light off when exiting the room?

I've always been excited about stuff like motorized blinds, and being able to control them remotely would be cool, but I have likewise touched none of the commercial IOT stuff, not even the more generic stuff unless I could put a custom firmware on it.

I also will probably never trust a digital lock until they are known to be the most reliable and hassle-free option, which I assume will be never at this rate.

But, if you did want to play around with some stuff, there are non-corporate devices that don't have privacy issues and there's Home Assistant, a software package/OS if you want it that does all the home stuff. There's a learning curve going that way for sure, but what form of Freedom does not require something from you?

I’m nit-picky with lighting. We only got a smart bulb because we moved in to a (rental) house with a ridiculously-placed light switch in the kitchen. It’s behind the door when the door is open, and the door is always open.

Turns out the best part of having a smart bulb is temperature control. “Hey Siri, evening light!” makes it a really very pleasant cool, 60% kinda bright. “Daylight” is full blue, 100%. I have a couple of others.

Of course when it doesn’t work it’s maddening. But it’ll get better. It’s obviously the future, there doesn’t seem much point fighting it.

You might consider adopting smart products which allow disabling the cloud connection. Or which have no cloud connection to begin with.

At Bond Home, we tell users how to disable or redirect the device’s MQTT connections, at which point our cloud no longer can monitor or control your home. Less convenient for the user, but makes this kind of shutdown technically impossible (without more advanced shenanigans).

Sorry to nitpick (I have one of your products and have generally been quite pleased with it), but where do you explain this? I only get one unrelated article in your knowledge base searching for “MQTT” and don’t see anything in a quick web search either.

I can see convenience in turning on/off the AC if I forget when leaving the home empty (which often happens), but it's more like a "oh you wanna hook me up? sure". Not something I'd actively buy.

I do have a smart bulb and it's nice for lazy me to just tell my phone to turn it off. But a single desk light is a bit less insidious than my house locks.

Vendors yes you're right but what about hackers? It'll be absolutely amazing for criminals and enemies of all kind. Imagine the next war in a country where everyone has a smarthome. It'd be a widespread humanitarian crisis within hours.

The worst are the battery-operated thermostats that you install on individual radiators. Then inevitably the batteries will run empty and you will have a radiator heating full blast in the middle of summer...

Why would you have the heating on in the middle of the summer?

Radiator thermostats (TRVs) are for individual radiator control; they allow turning on/off zones when the heating is on, they don't control the heating itself.

It turns out that you don't even need those for the case where the radiator is difficult to access, because you can get an unpowered remote TRV that works via (it appears) some kind of heat pipe. Eg: https://www.screwfix.com/p/pegler-white-remote-adjustment-tr...

> I'm not interested in this smart home crap at all.

You can have smart home stuff without exposing it to vendors who can shut it all down.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com