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Anyone who’s serious about home automation eventually realizes that the only way to do it effectively is with locally controlled standards based devices like zwave and zigbee, and open source projects like home assistant and esp32.
Anything else will eventually be corrupted or abandoned by its corporate sponsor, as anyone who’s tried it the other way can tell you.
The best case scenario is: when they cut off access there is a large enough public outcry that they immediately reverse position (until the next attempt).
Lots of these companies just go out of business and leave everyone stranded. But companies like Google don’t give a fuck when they leave open source projects stranded like they did with the Nest API.
Open-source is the only way to get a decent product. Being locked down by proprietary software from a few companies with an oligopoly over the market and the growing culture of disposable devices means they don’t give a fuck if works well or if it works past a year or two.
Reminds me of MyQ garage door opener’s fiasco. I wonder if the RatGDO project is still doing good, they were flooded with orders last year.
I’m not familiar with this. What happened?
The fact that there is basically no good “premium” options for smart devices, just cheap adware trash or more diy type stuff with home assistant and the like, tells me there is not much of a mainstream market for most of these devices to begin with. If your only niche is just the hobby crowd or shit that has to be so cheap that you can’t make a profit without riddling it with ads then it might not be a market worth getting into.
The fact that there is basically no good “premium” options for smart devices
What’s wrong with Control4 and/or Savant, and Lutron?
I just want my damn blinds to open in the morning and close at night automatically, without needing a goddamn proprietary “app,” or a “cloud” connection, or a bunch of batteries I have to change (i.e., I want it wired to either 120VAC or PoE). Is that really too much to ask‽
No. The lack of variety in options is honestly astonishing. I’m looking for a cheap zigbee button that is wall powered. They don’t really seem to exist. Who the fuck wants to be constantly replacing batteries in smart things? Probably the same people who don’t want wires running everywhere, but their priorities are in the wrong place imo.
I’m also kinda shocked that a product doesn’t exist that’s just a AA or AAA fake battery with wires hanging off of it that you could plug into the wall. Probably a safety hazard or something.
The battery life of a typical switch can easily be like 5 years though.
Still something I’d have to think about in 5 years. Also, if I use rechargeables, which I would, it’ll potentially be less.
I don’t want to have to think about it. Ever.
Also, if you have a bunch of switches in your house, even at 5 years you could be replacing batteries in one switch or another every few months.
At 10 battery operated smart things in the house, thats - on average - swapping batteries every 6 months. As you add more smart things, that frequency goes up. I don’t want to be doing that, ever.
One of the first automations I installed in my Home Assistant, was a community contribution to show a table of devices by battery level, and alert when low. You shouldn’t have to think about replacing the batteries.
Of course, I immediately found out the remote sensors for my Ecobee don’t seem to report battery level …. Or maybe the integration is incomplete: my thermostat also doesn’t report battery level but was able to notify when low
Installing an automation and checking battery level manually, or even having an automation tell me to replace the batteries in devices means I’m thinking about it… Not to mention that I still have to replace the batteries which, shockingly, involved thinking about replacing the batteries.
Your wall outlet is AC but a battery is DC, so a pure wire setup is not so much a safety thing as it is just incompatible. A good fire starter.
So you’ll have to convert it, which makes for a big, bulky plug.
On top of that, you’ll need prior knowledge of the battery layout, including whether they’re parallel or serial. Usually parallel, but not a guarantee.
All of this isn’t insurmountable, but is enough to make it not the norm. They do, in fact, already exist
Holy crap, I’ll be purchasing that ASAP, guess I just wasn’t able to find them, thank you!
And yes, I was aware that simply wiring the device directly into the wall wouldn’t work.
There are better ones out there, that one in particular had some iffy reviews about voltages, but yeah they definitely exist.
I usually see them labeled as “power supply adapter for [AA,AAA,etc]”.
I’ll have to do some research… Wild that I wasn’t able to find them previously.
Some standard wall switches can also do multiple functions and may work for yours.
For example, I’m a fan of Innovelli switches where you can configure actions like double-clicks and more, to act as a “Zigbee button”
I can’t replace the wall switches, as I’m renting a manufactured home, which has some really wackily wired light switches, likely to save money. If I owned a home I’d definitely install some smart switches and utilize those.
This is one area where Apple have actually done a decent job.
Even the article reluctantly admits the AppleTV is the best media box now. Because it’s the only one that doesn’t throw ads on the home screen.
HomeKit also enforces local network control so you don’t need the manufacturer app or third party cloud services.
But the industry as a whole really needs better standards and accountability. And people need to stop buying products from an ad company (Google).
The Internet of Shit.
I’m getting sick of this yet we are backed into a corner. I never had to set up my old 21" CRT, yet LG forces me to fuck around with pointless settings to get an image I’m still not happy with.
My Xbox pushes ads. My Mac has stuff built in which I’ll never use yet I cannot remove. Windows is a joke but has compatibility I may have to return to. My phone asks me to review applications I just want to use and not be bothered by.
Whenever my workflow is interrupted by a review nag, they receive 1 star.
Poorly made smart devices turn out to be the only investment choice we had.
FTFY. They do it on purpose
Kinda. It’s really difficult and expensive to buy a dumb TV.
The only absolute with these devices is that you don’t get what you pay for. Inevitably it will completely change without your consent, and generally it will deliberately be for a worse experience since you’re captive.
Yeh. Never truely completely captive, but the potential shaftings they give us are hard to take. Full on denial can set in, I’ve noticed with some I know, the more we have invested into the given shittersphere. Understandable and sad. We are also talking about a relatively niche area here unfortunately. Obviously for the likes of google, amazon et al., we aren’t the customer. Our relative loyalty to their walled shitterspheres are unlikely even a metric to them other than as ad / clicks/ conversion, as they’ll just replace this week’s initiative with a shinier (to the masses) gadget next week. I really hope that whole industry’s days are numbered, but unfortunately all of it is a feature of consumer capitalism and not a bug. Competition, regulation , and DIY are our only defences. The fact that to varying degrees these big tech players are in control of information itself ( to anyone silly enough to consider using the yellowpages/google a fair and factual info source ) , helps them no end with whatever strategy they’re onto this week.
Regarding not getting what you pay for. Ive often thought that having to pay the nominal cost price for say the firestick is merely to obfiscate what it really is. ”They should pay me for embedding this spy stick in my house” is the natural feeling, so paying some arbitrary amount to ‘purchase’ immediately elicits some sort of entitlement ( which should totally be the case ! ) in the consumer. The psychology behind such corporate behaviour is fascinating but it’s probably as much to do with regulation, ironically.
Blocked by an ad-blocker…
Idk, my smart phone is pretty incredible.
