> I would hate to make that trip downstairs, annoyed and grumpy.

My grandma always said "What you don't have in your head you must have in your legs".

My calculation is simple: Where do I expect to waste more time in my life? Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected, or once in a while walk the stairs an extra time because I left the TV on.

So far I don't forget to switch off my TV often enough to justify the human effort of smart home devices. Maybe one day when I become older and more forgetful and not turning of TVs and lamps becomes a habit then I might re-evaluate my decision.

I have spent a non-negligible amount of my life looking for remotes. But the really big waste is the amount of time fiddling with 5 remotes trying to figure out how to get the f-ing AV system working.

I have a magnificent non-smart home theatre on my property, set up by one of the other co-owners. He's pretty much the only person that knows how to use it; the last time I tried, I had to call him. This stuff is a disaster. Over in my house it's "Hey Google, play some music".

I replaced my 60s-era manual mercury switch thermostat with a Nest. It's way better! More accurate, accepts voice commands, tells me the temperature, can be turned on before I get home, and can be turned off remotely when I left for vacation and forgot (yes, I've done this). Call me a very satisfied customer.

I'll take the smart home, thank you. If that makes me dumb, fine. I don't want to have to be a genius just to watch a movie.

Combine the AV system with the variety of places on might have audio or video, and it is even more confusing.

I'd like to see a web site or an app that lets you input what you've got and how it is connected, and then answers questions about that setup for you.

For example, I'd be able to tell it that I have:

  Denon AVR-1913 receiver
  Comcast X1 cable box
  Sony BDP-S390 Blu-Ray player
  Nintendo Switch
  Samsung 55U7000 TV

I'd be able to tell it that the receiver is connected to all the rest by HDMI, and that the TV also has an optical audio connection back to the receiver.

I'd also be able to tell it that I have an iMac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch 4, Surface Pro 4, and a Windows 10 desktop. I'd be able to tell it that I have WiFi that the all of those are on as is the Nintendo Switch, and an Ethernet that the iMac, Windows desktop, receiver, cable box, Blu-Ray player, and TV are on.

Finally, I'd be able to tell it that I have an iTunes library on the iMac, an iTunes account, a Netflix account, Amazon Prime, and Spotify.

The site would then answer questions based on that. Typical questions might be:

"I bought movie X from iTunes. How the heck do I watch it on my TV?"

"I don't own a copy of X. What are my rental/buying options using the services I currently have?"

"I have a photo gallery on the iMac. How can I view the photos on my TV? When doing so, how can I control the viewing while not at the iMac?"

"I want to listen to music while sitting on the couch. The music comes from a playlist on my iMac, and I want to be able to play/pause, and to skip tracks. How can I do this?"

Ideally the site should also be able to suggest improvements. For example, for the setup described above it might suggest that I connect the Comcast X1 directly to the TV, because they both support 4K. The receiver does not, and so my current setup can't do better that 1080p.

Have you looked into a Harmony remote?

Not the world's best UI for configuring, but when done, it works, and you define "Activities", like you described.

And at the start it does exactly that: "What devices do you have?" "When you watch TV do you control volume through TV/STB/AV receiver?" "What inputs on what devices are used?"

Periodically? I've spent DAYS of my life wrestling with my Harmony Home Hub. It's only worth it because my A/V cabinet is off to the side of the room with opaque doors, otherwise I'd just juggle the 5 remotes.

I have a very basic SmartThings setup to play with, and, same deal, days of my life for something that basically doesn't ever work. Every time I open the app I'm supposed to enable 2fa or sign up for a Samsung account instead, the prox tags never stay paired (and the batteries die almost immediately), the batteries on the sensors die constantly, and the actions only mostly work. It thankfully doesn't do anything that important to me, it's more of a silly side project I messed with a few times, but I've gone no further because it doesn't solve any actual problems, but it sure creates a bunch.

I definitely am not interested in getting into the business of figuring out whether I want to have light switches or smart bulbs that can change color, and how to ensure the SWITCH is on so that the BULBS always have power and can be activated via an app, or whether I need to now glue on a wall control, all so that I can.. have the same functionality it used to have.

I was pretty skeptical before trying it. I found that you don't spend much time configuring things and it's actually quite nice to just go to bed saying "Alexa, turn off living room". Not life changing, but definitely worth the investment. If something fails, you're no worse off than you were before. Also, smart sockets and switches are great items for a Christmas/birthday/wedding/etc registry/gift-list.

The key is the voice control. Trying to do it via an app, a remote, or even remembering the switch UI isoften too heavy-weight. Being able to say just "Alexa, living room 50%" is very nice. Same thing with being able to turn off my bedroom ceiling lights without getting out of bed. Sure, is it required? No. Can I get up? Sure. Was it worth $50 for the smart switch? For me, yes.

I know not getting up sounds like a good thing, but the logical conclusion to that are the couch potatoes shown in the movie Wall-E.

If your only exercise is walking to the light switch you have bigger problems.

It's cumulative.

Turning off the lights is negligible to your overall health. Automating it (or not) will not affect your obesity or other health outcomes. There are lots of reasonable arguments against IoT switches; this is not one of them. Let's move on.

Just pumping the muscles in your legs will decrease the potential for blood clots forming in them, according to a recent HN topic.

Assertions dressed as facts are not very useful either.

You mean like:

> the logical conclusion to that are the couch potatoes shown in the movie Wall-E

?

> If something fails, you're no worse off than you were before.

Well, you are already horizontal. In fact it's worse, because unless every single light source is hooked up, you now spend twice the mental effort.

Past: 1. Turn off everything 2. Go to bed.

Present: 1. Turn off everything that is dumb. Only dumb thing. 2. Ensure smart things are ON (physically have power) otherwise you won't be able to voice control them. 3. Go to bed. 4. HEY GOOGLE! GOOD NIGHT! to turn off everything and hope for the best.

You’re really stretching to make this sound tedious and error prone. Obviously you don’t have to wait until you’re in bed but moreover in 2 years I haven’t once had to get out of bed to manually turn off a light. If you like physical switches, more power to you, but stretching like you’re doing to vindicate your preference is just bizarre.

> Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected

Only people who don't use smart home devices think the experience is even remotely like this. Worse case scenario for any smart home device malfunction is flipping a switch on and off. You're just imagining problems that don't exist.

> Periodically configuring/updating smart home devices, getting to the bottom of issues if something doesn't work as expected

Software development in a nutshell. It's how I have spent most of my life.

The drive to get that extra bit of efficiency, eventually, for what is a time-wasting activity such as watching TV, is something that most people lack.

Most Americans could use that extra trip up and down the stairs.