Current Events > I'm not sure I understand the point of smart homes. Sell me on it

(+) Yeah! (+)

The one cool thing I've seen was someone being able to command music to be played in any room in the house.

But otherwise it seems like a lot of work to set up a system with a single point of failure which controls literally everything useful in your home

Like all these stories of people being unable to turn on the lights or use the fridge because google's servers are down. lol

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if someone breaks in when you're gone, you can make them think there's a spooky ghost by turning the lights on and off.

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You can check Twitter from your fridge!

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a hacker can watch you through your bathroom's smart mirror as you take a shit!

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Also of all the dumb shit Trump has said I think he was unfairly raked over the coals for the fridge meme. I mean, that's clearly a very simple to imagine bit of surveillance

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At my job I've had to install smart light switches and smart smoke detectors. Both use wifi and the lights can be turned on and off from your phone. I don't understand it personally. Seems like there's too much room for some kind of error or fault in the signals. I wouldn't want to depend on wifi or Alexa to detect smoke or carbon monoxide. And is it really worth paying around $100 (or even higher depending on what you get) per switch just to save you the effort of having to get up and physically hit the switch? A lot of that has to be only for the status.

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your house: stupid

their house: smart


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The voice stuff has always been finicky with me and it's too much of an effort to have to use an app to turn on/off lights.

So ya, I'm not much of a fan of the smart stuff.

I wouldn't mind getting one of those smart door locks though, so I can open my front door with bluetooth or something
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you know you'd command Pat to do some freaky shit.

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Southernfatman posted...

At my job I've had to install smart light switches and smart smoke detectors. Both use wifi and the lights can be turned on and off from your phone. I don't understand it personally. Seems like there's too much room for some kind of error or fault in the signals. I wouldn't want to depend on wifi or Alexa to detect smoke or carbon monoxide. And is it really worth paying around $100 (or even higher depending on what you get) per switch just to save you the effort of having to get up and physically hit the switch? A lot of that has to be only for the status.

Clapper lights outdid this technology like 25 years ago lol

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Southernfatman posted...

At my job I've had to install smart light switches and smart smoke detectors. Both use wifi and the lights can be turned on and off from your phone. I don't understand it personally. Seems like there's too much room for some kind of error or fault in the signals. I wouldn't want to depend on wifi or Alexa to detect smoke or carbon monoxide. And is it really worth paying around $100 (or even higher depending on what you get) per switch just to save you the effort of having to get up and physically hit the switch? A lot of that has to be only for the status.

I think part of it is the notification aspect. A smart smoke detector detects smoke like a normal one but also sends you an email/text if it's triggered. I'd certainly like to know if my smoke detector is going off while I'm not at home.

For smart lights, I don't get it much either. My friend is obsessed on turning his house into a smart house. He has his lights on a schedule and stuff which I can see being convenient in certain situations but meh.

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I remember seeing those "houses of the future" at Disney and thinking they were awesome, being able to control everything remotely.

What we got was like something out of a dystopian novel... Devices always listening to you and tracking your net traffic like wtf

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smart homes feel like forced innovations to me, sort of like the apple watch or VR headsets or whatever. basically it's not addressing any real need, not providing any significant innovation, its just another toy for conspicuous consumption for people that have lots of money to spend and just want to get something new and distracting

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Its fun? Not everything had to have a point. Why do people like to maintain a garden or whatever? Its nice and fun.

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Romulox28 posted...

smart homes feel like forced innovations to me, sort of like the apple watch or VR headsets or whatever. basically it's not addressing any real need, not providing any significant innovation, its just another toy for conspicuous consumption for people that have lots of money to spend and just want to get something new and distracting

This

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You can turn the light on and off in bed.

Actually that seems like the only thing I would care about. I don't even use the voice features on my phone or whatever. I'd rather just type what I want.

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VipaGTS posted...

Its fun? Not everything had to have a point. Why do people like to maintain a garden or whatever? Its nice and fun.

At least gardening can provide fruits and vegetables to use as food. Having a phone app to control the lights instead of using a lightswitch or a toothbrush with a wifi connection is a pointless gimmick.

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I have a few smart lights that are kind of neat. I've got it set up to be able to turn the lights off in my office with my voice while I'm playing video games. Which is nice since my kids like to play Legos in my office and it would be dangerous to walk across the room in the dark to get to my computer.