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Comment by artisinal | Hacker News Reader

I do not have a home so perhaps I do not fully understand. If it is warm when I go to bed, I turn on the ceiling fan by rotating the knob next to the bed. When I wake up, I turn it off. What kind of automation are you looking for?

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Not OP, but I can imagine piloting it with a temperature sensor: too warm=>increase speed. It could avoid some sweat-covered wake-ups, depending on the circumstances (trade it for a noise-triggered wake-up, perhaps).

Another use-case I have for this is in a house where the mezzanine gets much warmer than below when heating during winter: detect this with a couple of temperature sensors and turn the fan on when needed.

For the fan - I like having it turn on in the late afternoon to freshen up the air in the bedroom.

I also really like automatically adjusting the brightness/color temperature of all our lights during the day.

It’s by no means necessary, but I don’t want to go back now.

Thanks. I typically turn on the lights with a wall mounted switch when I walk into a room and turn it off when I leave the room. Never gave brightness or color temperature much thought.

The biggest benefit is it gives you something to tinker with!

There are people out there who similarly light a candle and never gave much thought to the fanciness of a switch.

If candles were as safe as lightbulbs I would probably still use them.

Safety is a totally reasonable differentiator between substitutes. So's price, reliability, functionality, convenience, etc.

I mean, is it that hard to imagine that someone doesn't have a knob next to their bed?

Also, I've maybe seen a speed control knob for a ceiling fan a few times in my life in the US. Here it's all pullchains, or more recently "smart" bullshit.

I am European and every ceiling fan I have used has a wall mounted knob. It is very convenient. Could be a regional difference.

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