Automation is not about having an app for your lights, it’s about not having to think of trivial stuff like turning on a light.
(As for automatically turning on lights, that is also good. I have two receptacles outdoors that aren't on a switched circuit. Thanks to the magic of smart lights, they are now off during the day.)
Do other people not struggle with apps the way I do?
Maybe I’ve become a crusty old man, in years gone by I would have thought that people would notice me getting up and wonder where I was going. Now though, I’ve realized that no one is really paying that much attention to anyone else, even if someone were curious about why you walked away for a moment, the room getting brighter and you sitting back down doesn’t require a brain surgeon to piece together what happened.
Once you remove the completely voluntary awkward part of that video call, fiddling with an app and flipping a switch are on a lot more equal footing.
I have lived in America my entire life, a relatively comfortable life, and this sentence makes me feel extremely alienated from first world culture.
When it works, it just feels good but certainly isn’t a necessity. And of course that’s just lights. I used to have my hvac system integrated into HomeKit too and again, it was nice being able to control the thermostat in my kids room without having to go in. More recently I’ve had a neighbor that smokes a lot of weed and something about the closets being badly insulated is letting in all his smoke in my daughter’s room. Tried talking to the guy and nothing happened. Luckily, his smoking schedule is super precise and I was able to set timers for my kids air purifier to go off at his exact smoking time for 1 hour. It’s been 3 months since I’ve seen particulate matter go above 30ug/m^2…it used to get as high as 180!
Being a renter means I’m only halfway into the automation game but I gotta say, given the right product and platform I’m all in. And if something doesn’t work right then it’s time to reverse engineer it and make it behave.
- schedule
- motion sensing
- voice
- routines / iftt (if it's a cloudy day, and zoom is open, then set brightness to x, maybe even open the shades)
If you don't need 'em or like the idea, don't spend $75 per switch. I got into smart lights because my apartment was apparently wired by a madman; the switch for my desk lights are right outside the bathroom. (Different circuit though!) I was very tired of walking that far to turn them on and off. I then replaced every other switch the week after, and have no regrets whatsoever, except maybe not having white tint adjustment. (I just have regular old LED bulbs. The switches are smart, not the bulbs.)
Once I was fully invested, I got a wall mount remote control that fits into a dual-gang faceplate (but only needs a single gang box), so I can control all of my lights when arriving or leaving. Very convenient.
Like others, I agree that automations are also nice. I have two fixtures outside that are unswitched. They turn on at sunset and off at sunrise now. No wasted electricity trying to overpower the sun. (Those are smart bulbs, of course.)
But aside from that, do you have issues with Face ID in the dark? For me it works in pitch darkness. It sends out some laser light when scanning your face and hopefully not frying your eyes.
It turns out that they are hard to find and very expensive ($30) for what they are. Even if you can find them it's hard to tell if its an original unit or some super cheap knockoff that might burn your house down. :(
This is a trivial wiring change, and a run-on timer from a local hardware or electrical store from a reputable brand is $25.
I understand small mains wiring jobs like this probably beyond some peoples ability or desire, but the benifits are:
One off up front cost
Probably never fail
No possibility of the product vendor having any impact on the products ever, other than the possibility of a product recall due to safety.
It’s creepy af
Motion sensing can be solved with Passive Infrared sensing light switches, it works great for my laundry, closets, and pantry.
One assumption I've made is that people just have much better and responsive phones than I do: I regularly wait 2-4 seconds for even the simplest things to happen on mine and it's overall a terrible experience. Overall I would say most phones I've had were like this at some point in their lifetime (often the majority of the lifetime), including a latest model Samsung phone that arguably was ahead of most available phones at the time.
I'm not sure what to think: I think it's just a matter of being used to a certain way of interacting with things in the end. Nothing's been able to replace a computer program for me, whether it be CLI, TUI or GUI.
As for home automation with apps vs. traditional switches and stuff I've always assumed that most of the stuff is done for coolness sake and because it's fun. Certainly what draws me to some of these things (though I haven't pulled the trigger on any of it) is that I could actually interface with the rest of the world from my computer, which I just think is a fun idea.