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Comment by bandrami | Hacker News Reader

I'm too paranoid to ever want a home snitch device, so I'm not their target audience, but it always struck me that if it took even ten minutes to debug a problem like that it completely destroys a year's worth of time allegedly saved compared to just walking over to the room and hitting the switch.

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It's not about time efficiency more about convince. It sounds trivial but sometimes it's really useful to be able to do things hands free/without having to move - worth spending the time to install/setup all of this once.

I'm in the middle of remodeling a new apartment and all my switches are smart. I won't even have physical switches for some fixtures like window rollers.

true, but also there is no debugging, right? it's apple's software either it works or it doesn't. (i guess other than connectivity issues)

idk if most of my home assistant automations have actually saved me time since i def had to debug them, but the level of satisfaction when they do work is def worth it for me, since i created (and debugged) them haha

Home Assistant automations for me are rarely about saving time, they're about saving mental energy. I no longer need to think about turning off the bathroom lights, my coffee machine is already warm when I go to make my morning coffee rather than standing around waiting for it, and when the washing machine is done I'll get a note reminding me to go empty it.

Yeah this is true however i will use the manufacturer app if Siri or the Home app doesn't work.

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