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A comment on Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018. Parent comment

Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by lorenzhs on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @11:14AM (#15653835)
Yes, most of the ready-to-use solutions like Philips Hue are very expensive. But there are cheaper options if you're willing to tinker a little bit (and wait a month for things to arrive from China), like $13 smart light switches (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Sonoff-Touch/32808809484.htm...) etc.

I'm still looking for a solution that's inexpensive and gets out of my way (i.e., is aware of what's going on) without phoning home to some server ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by exelius on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @11:27AM (#15653949)
Reliability is a big question here. I don't want to deal with replacing failures, and the risk of fire can be high (a lot of these chinese electronics don't use adequate gague wires or have legible datasheets to even be able to plan current draw).

And even with all that, I'm just not sure that a fully-automated home provides enough benefit to be worth the headache for the majority of folks. I'm in the top 1% of income, I set up my own system and it's nice; but even I don't think it's worth what I paid for it.

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