News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The smart home is flailing as a concept by colordrops on Friday August 06, 2021 @12:35PM (#28089521)
There is a value proposition, but the tech just isn't there yet. It requires too much manual setup, pieces are not very standardized, and they also don't work well.

Imagine asking your phone to watch a movie in your family room, then automatically, the lights dim or change color, the curtains are pulled if it's dark, the tv and receiver are flipped on and the movie is loaded and ready to go on pause. Many people would find value in this. This is all technically possible and some people have actually created this setup. But it probably took them several days and fiddling to make it work. I can barely get my Yamaha receiver and LG tv to work together and they are top of the line new components.

Re:The smart home is flailing as a concept by torginus on Friday August 06, 2021 @06:18PM (#28093410)
There is no value proposition. This tech is designed by software engineers for the purpose of harvesting the maximum amount of data about a a given person while giving him/her the thinnest possible veneer of value proposition. That's why mechanical wonders like the million-function wonder toilets of Japanese fame are not pushed - they do not allow companies to harvest as much data about its users, while taking actual engineering skills to design - a no-no proposition for these smart device companies.
Re:The smart home is flailing as a concept by colordrops on Friday August 06, 2021 @09:22PM (#28094805)
Umm, I was speaking about myself as well when I talked about this setup. There is nothing that phones home here. Almond for voice recognition, Zwave for the switches, movie served by Jellyfin, TV and Receiver blocked by OPNSense firewall with VLANs.

It's valuable and useful to me, and if it could be setup up easily, I'm sure others would love it to.

Ironically I also have two japanese toilets in my house.

Re:The smart home is flailing as a concept by riskable on Friday August 06, 2021 @01:36PM (#28090437)
> It requires too much manual setup

I'd argue that this isn't true. Installing a light switch is a HUGE pain in the ass compared to a "smart plug" that can turn a lamp on and off via your phone or any "smart" switch that can connect to it.

As annoying as setup procedures can be they don't take nearly as long or involve nearly as much sweat as cutting holes in walls, running wires, potentially installing additional circuit breakers, installing wall boxes, installing the actual switch, and making sure it's all according to code.

Furthermore, changing which outlet the wall switch controls is also a pain in the ass compared to just relocating the little smart plug or changing the device it controls in the switch configuration software.

It's possible to make a smart device that lasts for decades without security issues but device manufacturers just aren't willing to put in the effort for that sort of thing. It's much, much more profitable to make devices that only last 5 years before the end user needs to spend money on a new one.

Re:The smart home is flailing as a concept by silverlake on Friday August 06, 2021 @01:25PM (#28090279)
This exactly. I had this routine set up but then updates and bugs made it difficult for others to use. Even now turning on the lights in one room mysteriously turns off the lights and closes the blinds in another room. There are no logs to help debug it.