zlacker

>>pictur+(OP)
Call me an old man yelling at the cloud, but I just don't understand the hype of connected lightbulbs. In absolute, would I like to be able to turn off the lights from my smartphone? Well, sure, if there was absolutely no cost to it. But the negatives of being tied to Yet Another Cloud Service potentially subject to data breaches, of installing an app on my phone that's going to require space, updates, and an online account, of depending on a piece of electronics with a shitty firmware that's eventually going to break or go end-of-life, just vastly outweigh the positives.

In a vacuum, having more features is good. But simplicity itself is a feature. Simple things don't break as often, it's easier to fix when they do, and they're more predictable, meaning it's easier to plan your life around them.

>>Gazoch+ci
As long as your 'connected' devices are bulbs going into normal sockets, you can always just fall back to the way you do it now. My Home Assistant is just kind of an appliance (running on a 10 year old mac mini), that I do essentially nothing to keep working. If I unplugged it, I'd just be back to where you are now.

That said, when I set up Home Assistant, it was not without the need for some hobbyist motivation, but it wasn't too bad. That was over a year ago, and I have only gone into it since then to add a couple extra lights and set up a Christmas mode.

As far as the 'why', I can put the light switches where I want them, and have them do exactly what I want. I don't use voice or phone control, I have physical switches, but they're just exactly where it makes sense. An example is that in my living room I have a switch remote on the coffee table that lets me turn on or off all lights in view (kitchen, hallway, living room) and two different light scenes for reading or watching TV.

To me, it's actually simpler than flipping the 5 or 6 switches I would have to otherwise.