Smart Homes Often Dumb, Never Simple

An anonymous reader writes: Writer Adam Estes has tested over a thousand dollars worth of smart home gear from companies like Wink, GE, Lutron, Cree, and Leviton. Most of it worked correctly out of the box — which he said was great. But almost immediately, devices stopped responding and defects manifested themselves. Even after getting replacements and reconfiguring the devices, he found himself wondering if it was worth the effort to wrestle with all these devices, and ended up appreciating the simplicity of a plain old light switch.

Estes says, "Installation woes and bugs aside, my smart home never seemed handy. I had to tape off the regular switches so that the power would stay on and the bulbs' smart features would work. Even then, I had to pull out a smartphone or a tablet any time I wanted to dim the lights. That was never convenient. I could turn the lights on from my office, but that didn't really make my life better. I could impress my friends with a stray smart home feature here and there, but more often than not, I found myself embarrassed by the glitches of my smart home gone dumb." He concludes that while many smart home products can and do work, the biggest lie their marketers tell us is that it'll be simple and easy to set up and operate all these gadgets. Those of you who have wired up parts of your home, how has it worked out so far?

Comments

A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Overzeetop]

Even ignoring those in the house who don't always have a smartphone with them (young children, grandparents) and any visitor who isn't on your network, needing a smartphone to control most things is simply awkward in inefficient when compared to a dedicated remote control.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's not as though the current offerings leave you with much of a choice; but 'smart' is never going to be worth it if it is merely a high tech re-implementation of what you can already do with a few bucks worth of mechanical switches. Even if it works flawlessly, it's still going to be expensive and unexciting.

The only real shot for 'smart' is to do things that conventional systems cannot or do not. Exactly what those things are is a bit vague(lighting and drapes that automatically adjust to available sunlight? automatic dimming when you fire up the TV? subtle color temperature modifications to facilitate greater alertness or easier sleep depending on time of day?); but unless they figure those out, there simply isn't any any way that 'smart' could possibly be worth the trouble. If they do, then we can talk; but 're-implementation of a light switch by dragging an entire wireless LAN and more computing power than existed on earth in the early 80s' is just dumb, even if you polish it properly.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[TellarHK]

I think the missing key in current smart home options that most people can actually afford to purchase, is reliable voice control. I know Google's acquisition of Nest (and whatever Apple gets around to doing) will make a big difference here, but I can already say that I'd be a lot happier with my "smart" lighting if I had:

A: More money for more components such as light switches and socket replacements.
B: Voice controls that were as responsive and reasonably reliable as the Amazon Echo, which gets it right a surprisingly large amount of the time.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[michelcolman]

Exactly. If you need your smartphone to be able to dim the lights, you're doing it wrong.

Smart homes should still have switches and dimmers in the usual places where people expect them (not actual switches, but transmitters obviously) and then, on top of that, allow extra functionality like one button mood lighting, switch of all lights, switch on all lights (if you suspect a burglary), remote control, etcetera. If you get rid of the simple old-fashioned concepts, you're just making things harder instead of easier.

It's one thing to say "the light switch is next to the door, but never mind, I'll just do it for you with my smartphone" (which is way cool) but quite another to say "oh, you want light in the toilet? No, there's no switch, but let me get my phone, just as soon as I can find it, hang on..."

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[eth1]

I think the missing key in current smart home options that most people can actually afford to purchase, is reliable voice control. I know Google's acquisition of Nest (and whatever Apple gets around to doing) will make a big difference here, but I can already say that I'd be a lot happier with my "smart" lighting if I had:

A: More money for more components such as light switches and socket replacements.
B: Voice controls that were as responsive and reasonably reliable as the Amazon Echo, which gets it right a surprisingly large amount of the time.

But the GP's point still applies. Voice control is still just re-implementing the dumb light switch, making it more complicated and prone to failure (although it would be an improvement over a smart phone or remote, and definitely useful for mobility impaired, etc.).

The key is automation. If you're not doing that, the whole exercise is relatively pointless (IMO).

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[gregmac]

Yeah this is exactly the problem. The idea of a control that is fixed in a predictable easy-to-reach location, with tactile feedback (so you can use it without seeing it -- eg in the dark because the lights are off) and requires a single press to activate (eg: a switch on the wall) is a very good one, regardless of the fact that most if not all people have been trained to be used to this feature their whole lives.

There's this huge marketing effort dedicated to "control your lights from anywhere" and "do cool stuff with your smartphone" combined with a focus on products that don't require rewiring (eg: "smart bulbs" and plug-in modules). Great, it's a neat technology demo to get people sort of interested in doing more, but if it's taking away the simplicity of a light switch to get it, it's not going to succeed.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[sumdumass]

Well, you brought up some interesting points. Like your thermostat monitoring your adjustment habits and automatically adjusting the temp for when you are away and home or normally turn it up/down, by displaying usage statistics along side your electric and gas usage and telling your water heater tank to not bother keeping the stock hot over the next 5 or 6 hours because you will be gone for the next 7 hours. Of course you should be able to still press buttons and turn nobs to override it, but you should also be able to sit at a web panel and adjust it too.

Your fridge, Your right, open it by hand. But let read a QR code when you put milk and eggs in or something that is perishable then have it remind you if something if at the expiration date or if you are low so you can stop and grab more or even create a shopping list for you. You should be able to pull a screen up on your phone or web panel and monitor it or perhaps it sends you a reminder at the end of the work day or something.

Don't think of it as fixing any problem, think of it as making saving money easier and general life more convenient. It doesn't need to be a solution. It's more like an enhancement I guess.

Re:A smart phone is rarely convenient

[Aighearach]

Voice control for lights reminds me of capacitive lamps; lighting in a metal case that you turn on/off by touching the metal. Really cool the first time you see it, especially for kids. Not actually any different functionally, other than malfunctions in an electrical storm or cycling the light at every brownout/ or power supply flicker.

But I will give voice control some credit; it is at least useful and reliable as Clap-On, Clap-Off.

As an accessibility device for the blind, though, voice control will be a major improvement. Combined with good interface design it would be possible then to have appliances with a voice-discoverable features and menus. For the most part we're not there yet. But I only fault product design for that. The blind don't need the voice control to be really great, only the masses need that. For people just trying to control important devices, they can simply learn to enunciate as the computer requires.

No shit

[smooth wombat]

and ended up appreciating the simplicity of a plain old light switch.

What a stunning revelation. A simple analog switch is better than hundreds of dollars of technology.

The familiar phrase rears its head again: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Re:No shit

[frovingslosh]

Actually a simple on/off switch is digital, not analog. You would need a dimmer to be analog.

Re:No shit

[Anubis IV]

Precisely. I've been looking for a simple way to automate various things around my home, but I've been holding off until these systems can pass the "if I sell the house tomorrow could the new owners get by like normal without an instruction manual" test.

Which is to say, the bar for entry should simply be "works like a dumb device", with any technological enhancements layered on top of that functionality so that it supplements the dumb functionality, rather than replaces it. Instead, many of them outright eliminate the dumb functionality or else make it dependent on the smart technology, meaning that they're utterly useless if the wrong link in the technological chain has a hiccup. If I move out tomorrow, I want the new owners to be able to use the place like a normal house without having to configure arcane systems, regularly maintain misbehaving technology, or worry about which OS they're running on their phone or personal computer.

Re:Tried and gave up

[wkk2]

I had a high end system with lots of keypads and dimmer switches. I removed it after finding out that the dimmer switches didn't get along with any LED bulbs. The only feature I really was happy with was "all lights on" triggered by the fire alarm. The furnace blower rotor locked at 2AM on a cold New Years day. It was nice to have all the lights on when I started searching for the source of the smoke.

Insteon Experience

[jtgreg]

I started with a few X10 components and moved to Insteon from SmartHome. My experiences and the acceptance by wife, teenage boys, and friends:
Wins:
- Control of outdoor low voltage lights. Works great, nice to have different schedules for different days of the week. No one cares but me.
- Christmas lights. Nice, but cheap timers work as well. No one cares but me.
- Combining switch locations. Our kitchen has switches in five different locations. Replaced one of the switches with a multi-button scene selector for the kitchen. Big winner with everyone.
- Panic button turning on all outside lights. Wife likes in concept, she still has not pulled out her phone to activate it if I am around.
- Indicator in kitchen that garage doors are open. Very popular
- Motion controller turning on lights when approaching front door. Popular, but cheaper to install a light with motion sensor.
- Wife wants ability to activate spa before we get home. On the list, but relatively expensive to add to Smarthome or pool controller.

Losses:
- Smart phone control of lights. I am the only family member who ever bothers to use their phone.
- Anything that changes indoor lighting unexpectedly. Startles everyone, even when they know about it.
- Even with Insteon's redundancy, I still have problems communicating with several devices. This is an ongoing debug effort.
- I am the only one in the family who can program this system. Software is almost user hostile.
- I have many systems with home control capabilities that do not interact: a satellite box, pool controller, garage door opener, Apple gear, Harmony remote, and Insteon.

Who processes the commands?

[s.petry]

Maybe you were hinting at this, but just in case... Given our current technology, I refuse to use any voice recognition. Samsung is sending everything you say to a 3rd party, who can do anything they want with everything captured by the TV. Siri is no better, so I refuse to use Apple's voice recognition as well. At least with Siri currently, I'd have to push a button to use the service.

If we somehow had enough processing power and software _in_ the house I'd consider it.. but that system can't be directly connected to the internet to be used and I'd have to have full access to monitor communication in my house. I have a nice soldering gun to fix unwanted web cams and microphones I don't want and can't control. I believe the 2nd amendment protects my right to use my soldering gun in my house for protection!