As the resident Tech Guy in a few circles (family/friends) I often get asked what I'd recommend with regard for "smart" products. Due to the widespread and apparently default lack of support for offline-friendly operation, my answer is always the same: dumb as possible.
edit: a more succinct way of expressing my thinking is to say "the less software the better" by which which normies are are often amused.
Tech workers: The only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes a noise I don't recognize.
I recently had to get a lot of electrical stuff in my house redone because of a kitchen fire, smoke mitigation, and a lot of stuff being opened up anyway.
I told my electrician to redo lighting in a more sensible and modern way but basically nothing involving smart devices -- to which he wholeheartedly agreed. There are a couple things that aren't quite convenient related to how everything is positioned and because a couple of motion detectors weren't reconnected. And I'll deal with those with unconnected devices.
So I had an opportunity to make the house "smart" and basically passed.
(Will probably add some remote monitoring over time but nothing fancy and mostly Raspberry Pi-based.)
I have smart lighting, but that's only because it means I can turn everything in the area living and eating room on/off with a single button/switch (not sure what the right English term is). In a typical Danish townhouse like mine that would be 4-8 buttons otherwise.
If I had an electrician redo the wiring, I'd do the same thing without the "smart".
Exactly. My electrician did a bunch of simplification--kitchen/dining had 3 different switches for historical/random reasons--and one room which never had a switch (originally an overhead pull-chain light) was redone for a variety of reasons given extensive down-to-the-studs work was needed anyway. Used a fair bit of X10 at one point and that one remaining room had an Alexa-controlled plug for a wall-mounted light.
(He also took out a ton of knob and tube wiring which gives you some idea of when the original wiring dated to even if a lot had been incrementally upgraded over the years.)
I don't know if they're available in other markets, but in the US I've been very happy with Lutron Caseta switches for that sort of "smart enough" use case. It generally all works like normal dumb switches if the hub is offline or doesn't exist, and you only need the hub to manage configuration or enable the remote control (outside home) features. The fact that the switches look like, act like, and install like traditional dimmers and control traditional light fixtures is really what sold me: I've never liked the idea of the smart parts being in something like a light bulb thats basically a replaceable wear item.
I'll admit, despite hating the idea of most "smart" tech, I do still have the lights. The ability to change the colour (mostly warmness) through the day and turn on individual lights is pretty neat. I've been using an energized white light during early hours and work, and then warmer colours in the evening to help wind down.
At the time it was an upgrade from halogen bulbs, so the lights themselves have seen me through 10 years so far, way more than the old lights would have. Sadly, they're all bound to go some point soon. It has been 10 years though!
I would never enable the feature that lets you control them from out of the home though. I'm not completely sure what the purpose of that would be..
I made a guest network called Light Bulb Zone just because I don't trust the tech on these devices to be very sound, and I want them to be sequestered to their own network.
No joke, I only plug my printer into the outlet when I want to print and immediately turn it off after. Never was connected to the internet.
But I do have Zigbee sensors and switches, all of which connect to my home server and Home Assistant. None of them see the internet. But Home Assistant is accessible from the internet through a reverse proxy from whitelisted IPs.
I WiFi enabled my fridge because the thermostat broke. So now an ESP32 with a dallas temperature sensor and a relay take care of that. The code on the ESP32 is smart enough to keep working if there is no internet (wasn't always like this, until it had to), but it still sends the temperature to the server for logging and the server can send it configuration commands or control the relay directly, as it was initially.
It was a great way to keep the fridge alive, the thermostat was already a replacement and it never worked properly, so that sometimes things were frozen, sometimes barely cold. ~24 years old. A new one would be more efficient, but then I woudln't be able to log when I opened the fridge anymore (only with something battery powered and long transmit intervals).
This is awesome, great way to keep a fridge going! Temp sensor to ESP32, ESP32 monitors set point and calls for cool, output from ESP32 energizes relay coil which turns on the compressor?
> A new one would be more efficient, but then I woudln't be able to log when I opened the fridge anymore (only with something battery powered and long transmit intervals).
Also, how did you do this? Wiring to the door switch itself or a current switch around the fridge light conductor?
i also have questions. was the fridge "smart"-capable prior to the esp32 mods and you just replaced the factory controller with your esp32 stuff, or youre saying you wired in the appropriate circuitry to replace the pressure-controlling thermostat with your esp32 stuff?
it was not smart-capable. I was very lucky that the thermostat was in the fridge itself, above the compartments. There I removed the old analog control and had enough space to fit a USB power supply to the cables which were there connected to the now-removed analog control. I was lucky.
The sent data gets stored in InfluxDB. So with Grafana it allows me to see when I opened it, because the temperature rises immediately.
History students are often disappointed when they learn why the AI take-over failed. They were defeated by human resistance, which was kept alive by libraries and old paper books, and a surprising machine ally.
Books had not been replaced, because even the mightiest AI could not make printers work.
The Automatic setting only allows devices to talk to a manufacturer whitelist of connections for things like firmware updates. The other two options are self-evident.
I've found that "Restrict to Home" occasionally causes problems with older devices.
It’s rightfully overlooked now because HomeKit Secure Routers are basically dead.
I actually have a router that supports it, but I don’t dare turn it on because I have no confidence on it continuing to exist and the migration path back off it looks like a pain.
I wonder if things have changed since that article was published a year-and-half ago, because my eero, with the firmware from a few days ago, still supports it.
I assume it’s in some kind of maintenance support mode. Actually removing support from routers would be a nightmare for anyone who’s set up their home by pairing devices through a HomeKit router - all their HomeKit devices would become unpaired.
Matter turned into a cluster fuck of devices. Use you're android phone to provision a device and connect it to your setup, most people use Google Home or homeassistant, smartthings is also an option, maybe others. But it's only to onboard the device for the most part. It'll still connect to your WiFi, give you next to no visibility as to what's going on in a failure and no interface to control it should your controller go down.
It's also not very well supported in things like homeassistant, despite what they say.
I’ve only got a handful of Matter devices, but haven’t experienced any problems with them. Have had them connected to HomeKit for a year or more, and got around to connecting them to Home Assistant last week - I was actually very impressed at how seamless it was to connect them to Home Assistant (generate pairing code in Apple Home, copy/paste into HA, done) - they’re now all directly connected to both HA and HomeKit and seem entirely functional on both.
I hoped so, I was wildly disappointed. In my experience so far Matter sucks just as much as what came before - unreliable connections, slow transfer, odd compatibility issues. The best IoT devices in my mind are still WiFi with HomeKit support - I can trivially block them at the router to keep them from phoning home.
Matter is that. However, version support varies by controller: some type of devices supported in one, but not in another. Multi-admin is supported, so that's good.
When people ask me about Internet connected door locks, I tell them about the coworking space I used to be a member of.
More than once I got stuck standing outside in the rain waiting for the smart door lock to come back online after a squirrel jiggled the cable drop by running down it or some k8s pod in the cloud service got knocked over by a chaos gremlin or someone was using a vacuum cleaner that generated too much noise in the wifi spectrum or who even knows what.
Also, there's a fundamental security issue with allowing doors to be unlocked remotely. Door locks aren't particularly secure (it doesn't take too much expertise to learn how to lockpick them), but they require someone's physical presence in order to unlock/bypass as that provides a disincentive for criminals to be seen lurking around a door with various tools in hand. Once you remove the requirement for a physical presence, it's more or less risk-free to attempt to hack the door and you can wait until you are successful to then approach the door.
I am same resident tech guy and I always answer the same way - never connect anything to wifi, no matter what it is. it is that simple and always works. if whatever thing you have does not work without wifi - return it.
WiFi is acceptable, but it must be locally managed. My Midea AC came with a WiFi dongle (for some proprietary cloud/app integration) that I replaced by an ESP32 equivalent for local control through Home Assistant. HA runs on my LAN, and is remotely accessed by a VPN.
You lose convenience/functionality though. E.g. it’s convenient for me to turn on the aircon an hour before I get home in the summer.
Edit: I'm not talking on a day to day basis, but when I go on a trip. And I don't have a porch nor I like beer.
Amazing that some people downvote for stating the obvious, which is that you can lose some convenience. There's trade offs when you connect something to the Internet? That's also obvious.
When I get back home in the summer from a short trip away, with a toddler and a million bags it is definitely convenient for me to have a cool home and not a 40+ degrees celsius one.
You can remotely control devices that don’t themselves have any access to the internet via local smart home platforms that are internet accessible, e.g. Apple Home or Home Assistant.
If your schedule is consistent a standard programmable thermostat does the job for pretty cheap.
My Ecobee is convenient but will probably go back to an offline model when it dies or loses support. Once I dialed in my preferred schedule, I rarely touch it except to lock a set temperature when going out of town.
I have a rule that I don't put in any smart devices that aren't at least as smart as a dumb device. They must do everything a dumb device can do when there is no internet.
I've had good luck with the TP-Link/Kasa/Tapo wall switches and bulbs.
When my dogs go outside at night, I turn on 4 lights with "Alexa, turn on the dogs lights." I'd have to go to my kitchen and garage to do that otherwise, and I certainly wouldn't have those sets of lights wired up in a circuit otherwise control in that arrangement.
The switches I buy, do all of the dumb stuff, plus more - and the "plus more" parts can be quite useful.
Network connected switches can be a reasonable compromise for a retrofit but if you're remodeling it's a much better idea to run data cabling instead of electrical to all the wall switches and install all the relays in a centralized location.
> I just use my hands to turn light switches on and off.
Difficult if you're not there though? Whereas a smart bulb/switch can turn it on when you're not there (crime deterrence) or when you're almost home (handy in hallway with no light.)
(Niche uses, perhaps, but "I just use my hands" is reductive silliness.)
Both of your use cases do not require any from of smart device and certainly no internet connection.
In fact you could even use an simple analog switch if you want the lights to go on at certain times. And for the hallway I would suggest the tried and true motion sensor.
Sure for really complex logic and a lot of flexibility you might want an micro controller eventually but those are truly niche uses.
"Smart" devices are insanely overengineered for the simple problems they solve and the huge problems they can cause.
> And for the hallway I would suggest the tried and true motion sensor.
By the time I'm in the dark hallway, it's a bit late. "But just add a motion sensor outside!" Yeah, except this is a block of flats and you can't add stuff to the communal areas like that.
> if you want the lights to go on at certain times
I don't. I want the lights to go on -as if we were at home-. Which is "random times depending on which room and what people are doing and if there is cooking going on and ..." Home Assistant learns from smart bulb activations and can simulate our presence effectively.
It consists of a mechanical timer, a dial, and a relay. It plugs into a receptacle. It does not require an internet connection.
> or when you're almost home (handy in hallway with no light.)
This wall switch occupancy sensor that can switch 2A (240 watts at 120V, more than enough for one hallway) is $23, it’s a decora device so figure $2 more for a 1-gang stainless decora wall plate (or less than buck if you go with plastic!): https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lutron-Maestro-Motion-Sensor-Swi...
However, that much current can power (72) 10W LED recessed cans that each put out about ~1000 lumens. Or enough light for approximately 2400 square feet of interior space.
> (Niche uses, perhaps, but "I just use my hands" is reductive silliness.)
These are not niche functions, occupancy sensing and time of day scheduling are in basically every commercial lighting control system and fairly common in homes. They’re solved problems with cheap commodity devices available that don't require an internet connection.
[can't see any of the links because homedepot is blocking EU/UK]
> It consists of a mechanical timer, a dial, and a relay.
Great but it only works on fixed times. Which isn't what we want.
> This wall switch occupancy sensor
Would only work once we're inside. Which isn't what we want.
(And there's no possibility of putting one outside.)
> They’re solved problems with cheap commodity devices
For certain simplistic scenarios where things are easily installable, etc. Which is great! I'm not saying everyone should use smart things. Just pointing out, repeatedly, that the "cheap commodity devices" do not, and indeed cannot, perform the same functions as smart devices.
I don't even like icemakers in my refrigerators. Meanwhile, my parent's Samsung refrigerator keeps annoying them with ads on it's uselessly huge screen.
I disagree with your point about quality, but I'll indulge you for the sake of discussion. Given the choice between "lower quality" that will always work, or convenient-until-inevitably-bricked, I'll always advocate for the former.
The question was about when they ask for a smart device specifically. Not when they ask for a dumb device. My comparison is NOT between smart vs non smart devices.
Sorry, I wasn't particularly clear. When someone asks me about smart devices, e.g. a washing machine, I really pressure them about why they need it to be smart, and encourage them to go dumb.
edit: a more succinct way of expressing my thinking is to say "the less software the better" by which which normies are are often amused.