'Smart' technology is out of control. We adore this dumb tech | Hacker News Reader

'Smart' technology is out of control. We adore this dumb tech

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30 pointsyownv31 comments

Two observations:

- Traditional mechanical switches, locks, etc have a lot of 9's of reliability.

- Any smart tech including in my house needs to decrease my cognitive load.

That means while it can have setup (even extensive!), after that it better be able to work with less thought, reliably, including when the internet is unavailable.

Which generally means simple smart devices with open interfaces.

What most smart manufacturers actually seem to want to sell: their proprietary platform, running shit firmware, requiring buggy outsourced apps, and an always-on data connection into my home, that despite that will never receive updates for known bugs. Fuck that tradeoff.

(And I get why. Profit margins suck in that space, and customers/builders are extremely price conscious)

This is why I love the Lutron line of smart house stuff. Everything is more expensive, but you set it up and it just works as expected every single time.

Also, it uses a local hub so I don’t have 30 black box devices connecting directly to the Internet through my network.

Smart Technology is great when it is gets over the hump from being dumb, to overly complicated, to being smart and easy to use. I think of my smart lights as an example. They can be dumb (switch operated), they can be overly complex (remove phone, open app, find light, switch on), and they can be just smart (when I am in the room, turn on the lights, use time of day to decide light temperature and brightness).

I never understood the need for smart lights for able-bodied people.

You just stand up for a moment and flick the switch, what benefit do smart lights or even a remote for lights provide? Even if you disregard all the issues these iot/smart devices have and assume they operate perfectly I really don’t see why we should expend any resources to make them.

Peak laziness I guess. Probably appeals to the crowd spending hundreds of euros a month on uber eats then complain life is unaffordable.

Yeah how dare they not buy cars and gas and insurance! They'd save so much!...

I think this is weird rhetoric given the total ambiguity of who the target is. You can't just average comments on the internet and pretend they're all the same people.

My hue lights are one of my favorite things. I never have to walk into a dark home, which is especially nice when switches aren't located near doors.

I also get a huge boost from tweaking the colors. It's very relaxing and dramatically improves the ambience.

If you can't see the appeal there, idk what to tell ya...

Using a phone to control them IS a drag, but there are remotes that can toggle through scenes etc. it's fantastic.

Why have any technology at all? Why goto the park and fly a kite when you can just pop a pill?

I have Hue lights actually. I kind of dislike them since they try to nudge me hard to create an account - dark pattern IMO - lights do not need security updates or accounts period.

> Why goto the park and fly a kite when you can just pop a pill?

Weird tangent. I much rather go to the park and chill instead of tinkering away on my smart home setup…

I personally liked the full RGB color change option, which I use to help with sleeping (e g. lower and more orange lights at night). Hue also lets me control six or eight lights at once, instead of doing a full circle of the room to flick switches.

Its mostly the RGB functionality for me. I still turn mine on at the wall

> I never understood the need for smart lights for able-bodied people.

I've never owned a house/apartment, always rented, fwiw. The best part of having smart lights for me is that I can place my (zigbee) switches wherever I want, as apparently the people deciding where the light switches go, have no idea what they're doing.

So first thing when moving to a new place is replacing the bulbs with my own bulbs, and find better place for the switches.

I know almost nothing about all the smart home tech, but my son-in-law is a tech fanboi that has smart lights everywhere in his home, and some small Alexas in rooms that they are hooked up to. His lights are all voice controlled so they never use switches. Just thought I’d mention it as an option if switch placement is an irritant.

There was a time when I needed to wake up very early for a long commute.

I seriously considered obtaining and setting up lights that I could schedule to come on at the time I needed to wake up.

You can easily do this with a dumb mechanical clock switch.

No kubernetes backend architecture and AWS pods required here!

You can't imagine how much kilometers of in-wall electical cable installation (at least done euro-style) one can avoid by replacing normal light fixtures and switches with a single group relay, some tracks, and some matter bulbs.

Once everything is set up and switches are magnetically attched to walls, it works just like the dumb lights, but without 230V all over the place. Just need to swap coin battery once a year.

Plus, you can go fancy with colors, dimming and stuff, if you get the urge.

(also, if you ever had home fire because mismatched dimmer switch combusted, you would not want that stuff anywhere near your home)

That is a fair point but only applies if you are building a new home. I don’t think it’s feasible to retrofit an existing home in this fashion.

Agreed, existing wiring is better of with dumb bulbs (you can keep using existing switches), except if you want to add dimming — I have no idea how normal person can figure out which lightbulb will not burn down given wall dimmer switch (along with the whole house), if it all fits into E27. Integrated lightbulb seems safer.

To be sure, there is no *need* for smart lights, just like there’s no need for air conditioning, refrigerator water dispensers, and wireless headphones. But they are nice to have.

As someone who recently moved, they were pretty low on the priority list to get them reinstalled, but it was nice once it was done.

None of the things you listed need an internet connection so I would not consider them smart devices.

My lights automatically change their color temperature and brightness throughout the day. There is more to smart lights than on and off.

Do they need internet connection to do that? I have the same behaviour with a dumb light that just has some circuits to control the LED.

No smart devices needed to change Color/brightness dynamically.

Mine is done using Home Assistant, so no internet is required.

A difference of values? Mine is convenience/cost. I suspect yours is "always works" (possibly a bad guess let me know what your top property is).

I've used smart switches to join otherwise disconnected electrical lines without rewiring my house.

Compare two fans I replaced with a combo fan and light: One is WiFi controlled, other is a remote.

I didn't want to run another electrical line and expand the box.

Disconnecting the wall switch "always on" was optional. The remote takes over both to allow fan or light. There are 5 switches controlling my main living space. Only the fan is "smart". These switches are not co-located.

With a remote: We rarely use the light or fan. With a WiFi (in main bedroom) the light is used daily. Fan can be turned off from the wall, but not on (by choice). Fan also shuts off on schedule.

Ignoring fan costs: Two smart switches cost $25. Can be done in under an half an hour in main living space.

Compare running a new wire: 25ft wire ~$20 New Box: $5 New switch: $17 I need to crawl into attic, move insulation. Also run the wire through the wall.

Is it required? No. Does it make the system more usable? Spouse doesn't know/care. "It just works"

When it doesn't: it's two steps. If you're already doing this: the extra step is nothing lost.

Here's some questions I ask myself:

For $25 what annoyance can I fix this month? And I try to just do it.

Do I have an hour? Can I do it now?

What does this cost over time? This is not of a gamble (I spent much longer than I'd like to admit writing this post).

Thanks for the elaborate reply. I agree that it stems from a difference in values, my guiding one’s are being „always works - is resilient“ and „no unnecessary waste/labour“.

I know my time is extremely limited and while automating things like this might be a fun project I rather spend my time sitting in a park and looking at the trees. But this attitude also leads to living with unnecessary annoyances for a prolonged time sometimes

I have my entire living room (which also includes the dining room) set up to turn off via voice command.

Why? This covers 4 light switches worth of lights. They also auto-turn off at 1am via Alexa routine. Also I can change the colors of all the lights (and do sometimes - at Xmas parties I have a script which slowly cycles all the lights between green and red).

For sure if I could make all this work cheaply without needing an internet connection, I would do so.

‘Siri, nighttime’ turns all lights off downstairs except for kitchen, which it dims to 50% and turns on lamp in bedroom. Saves me switching potentially 9 switches manually and adjusting the dimmer.

‘Siri, downstairs off’ when I crawl in bed, and ‘Siri downstairs on’ in the morning.

I can also turn porch lights on from my car when coming home at night.

Whats overlooked is the muscle memory with mechanic switches. In older cars you could find and control them blindfolded.

https://archive.is/mNiW9

We had a washer/dryer from a prominent German brand. Rock solid. For about a decade.

Went back to the well, and well, it's unwell.

The interface now insists on smart phone integration, and the front panel UX looks done by a new hire.

And it doesn't do the basic job, especially the dryer. It "mostly" drys the clothes, and has crappy lint management compared to the classic design.

Bore me not with these political affectations: accomplish the task.

I feel this is right up the late Professor Neil Postman's ally. There are many interesting talks of his. Notably, a talk in 1993 hosted by Alan Kay, where Neil playfully gave an argument against computers in front of Apple computer engineers [1].

I find the value of momentarily taking Neil's critical view of technology seriously because it opens up the questions about the true value we bring to users. It challenges the bias companies impose on their engineers in pursuit of money over social value.

Typically for every argument Neil makes you can find a counter-factual and dismiss the point of view. However, the more I age and learn about history, the less I hold the religious belief that we are always doing good by adding abstract layers of information complexity over the human experience.

The recent data on smartphone/social media impacts on young children are a startling example that path we take towards technological progress is not always the optimal path.

Source: 1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Pau3v5i8c

This really has nothing to do with "smartness" or even technology. It's the ancient conflict between the urban interdependent elites and the rural self sufficient people, it's just harder to see now that the internet makes the actual physical location less interesting.

This is why FOSS is so important and why I refuse to buy hardware without firmware that I can build myself.

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