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People Think Smart Home Tech is Too Expensive (usatoday.com)
According to new research commissioned by smart home software and hardware brand Wink, 34 percent of Americans believe it would cost $5,000 or more to turn their home into a smart home. An article on USA Today adds: It's a stark contrast from Wink's real world user data: Of the company's 2.7 million users, the average person starts with just 4 smart devices, and spends about $200. The information comes from a report Wink has dubbed their Smart Home Index, released today, in which more than 2,000 U.S. adults were surveyed by a team at Harris Poll. Aside from the cost misconception, a few other key insights rose to the top. For example, the adoption rate disparities across gender lines and income lines have almost disappeared. 43 percent of connected device buyers are now women, and 20 percent of all households with income under $50,000 per year have purchased a connected product. Of those that did purchase a smart home device, energy savings was the most frequently cited reason for doing so, followed by security. Only 33 percent of buyers expressed a desire to monitor or control their homes while away.
or know?
There's something to be said for simplicity. The more I read about IoT vulnerabilities and clunky smart home devices, the less I want one.
There is elegance in simplicity. If I want to make something smarter, I put it on a timer.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Because I could program my light to come on anytime the temperature rises above 72F. I bet your house can't do that.
Another batch of would-be luddites decrying the inevitable embracing of technology by the masses for all purposes, simple and complex.
"Smart" homes don't have value to most people. If the value people received from the services were worth the money, people would purchase. People are concerned about the invasive nature of the tech (rightly so), and see any potential cost savings as trivial at best. Turning a dial on the thermostat is not that hard, and it's not like you are going to work on winter days and asking "Did I leave the thermostat 20 degrees off my normal?".
Smart homes are like VR, Apple Watches or Fitbits. A niche market which the majority of people could care less about or simply don't want. That means the cost will remain high, and the value people get won't change much either.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Back when I was a teenager I played with X10 stuff a bit. As a teenager it seemed cool that I could turn lamps and radios on and off through my computer.
Then the novelty wore off and I realized that at least for those things in the room with me, controlling them remotely didn't matter, and for those few things that could benefit me to be controlled in some fashion, it wasn't in the cards.
I'll admit, having a system that can tell when i'm leaving work in order to turn the water heater back on that's been off since the morning, or could turn on the air conditioning or heat woul be pretty cool, but on the other hand I leave work at roughly the same time every afternoon so it wouldn't really help all that much. Perhaps something to determine if I'm home and use occupancy to keep these systems from being idled would be handy, but on the other hand I can just go flip a switch on the water heater timer and it's on again, and I can turn down my thermostat easily enough on my own.
The one bit of kit that would actually be useful to me would be an HVAC thermostat that didn't require me to switch between heat and cooling modes for the heatpump. Just let me set upper and lower thresholds and have it automatically switch between modes. That requires no computing outside of the termostat itself.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
How hard is it to set your thermostat or flip on a light switch?
Impossible if you aren't standing right next to them. On the other hand it's pretty nice to be able to turn up the thermostat from the airport after you've landed the plane or even do it from the other side of the house without having to get out of bed.
I realize we can't spent all the extra time and $$ on "connecting" all of our otherwise mundane devices, but seriously, why is this needed?
For the same reason we have so many other devices and bits of technology in our home. Why do you "need" a smartphone when you have a perfectly good desktop PC? Same reason. Convenience, comfort, and in some cases fun.
Why do they assume I want this??
They don't. But they know for a fact that many people do. If you aren't one of them nobody is going to lose any sleep over that. Chose what works for you and let others chose what works for them.
Really... When I retire I'd like a log cabin in the middle of nowhere with maybe a wood stove, small 12V PV system to charge some batteries and small electronics. Stream behind the house with fish, etc.
A lovely notion though I suspect you'll find it less pleasant in reality then you imagine. Living out in the middle of nowhere with minimal technology tends to be a surprising amount of work.
Welcome to economics. The devices have security vulnerabilities and are expensive for what you get in return.
A lot of that is fragmentation. I enjoy reading up on home automation and building up a few things (don't have much, but I figure I can build up over time), and the one overriding factor is just how every single company feels the need to develop their technology above all else. No standard communication technology, no standard API for interacting with the device, no compatibility with other systems. You end up with many many "smart bridges" that only do one thing and have to chain them together to get anything done.
There's just a complete disconnect between manufacturers and users when it comes to value as well. A good recent example: for the same price, I can get a Lutron smart bridge, which only supports Lutron's smart lights and blinds, or I can grab a Wink which supports Lutron's stuff plus Z-Wave, ZigBee, BLE and Thread. There's half a dozen smart hubs on the market with the same kind of problem. Even the more generalist hubs like Vera or SmartThings tend to miss at least one thing which means you'd have to have many of them to fully cover everything (namely, Lutron's stuff, because they decided they'd have their own proprietary communication method). Philips Hue poses a similar issue: it's proprietary and doesn't integrate unless you also grab their hub.
Basically, they all want to lock you into their system, even though no given system has everything you want. On top of that, they make extension and customization really limited, often preventing integration (Lutron sells a telnet enabled bridge, but only to professional installers, otherwise it's fully locked down). I really shouldn't have to run Home Assistant on my home server to make Wink not suck, but if I just stick with Wink's app (no PC app, no website), the automation basically amounts to a dumb timer and making switches do something.
Smart homes should feel smart, almost magical. Right now you just end up with 10 bloody plastic boxes which all do one thing not all that well and rarely want to work together properly, and if you lose internet... tough luck (next to no smart devices support local control). If you want to do all the stuff they show in ads, you better be ready to start hacking, because none of them really do that without integrating into a third-party system like Home Assistant or OpenHAB.
There's something to be said for simplicity.
Sure if it works well and does what you want. Complexity gets introduced when one or both of those conditions is no longer met. Early car engines were much simpler than modern ones but they also didn't work as well, were less reliable, got less power, polluted more, and had worse fuel economy. The cost of those improvements was complexity. Simplicity did not equal elegance in that case - it just equaled simple.
There is elegance in simplicity. If I want to make something smarter, I put it on a timer.
There is elegance in simplicity only if it solves a problem more efficiently than other solutions. A timer can be a very elegant solution or a very cumbersome one depending on the problem it is intended to solve. Simple can be a good thing but it's not an end to be desired for its own sake.
...Then the novelty wore off...
Sums up the entire value-add right there.
Also sounds a lot like 99.9% of smartphone apps in existence today that get downloaded and used once...
...and it'll be 10 times cheaper, 10 times better, and looked at with 10 times the inflated sense of entitlement than today.
Because I could program my light to come on anytime the temperature rises above 72F. I bet your house can't do that.
No, it can't. But why would I want it to?
The one bit of kit that would actually be useful to me would be an HVAC thermostat that didn't require me to switch between heat and cooling modes for the heatpump.
Plenty of thermostats have a range feature including ones like Nest. I use that feature every spring and fall (and some parts of summer) when the temperature is normally reasonable so the furnace or AC only kick on if it gets too cold or hot for comfort. Usually I have about a 15 degree range which keeps it off most of the time.
I also still miss the thermostat and fan-switch for the air conditioning in my office. Instead of having to touch it maybe 2-3 times a year when the season changes, I now have to fiddle with an annoying touch screen multiple times a day to keep the temperature at least somewhat comfortable.
34 percent of Americans believe it would cost $5,000
What they don't mention is that, that's what the average cost will be per year for ransomware when some teenager in Romania hacks your thermostat and demands payment to turn the heat off in the middle of summer, or it on in the winter. Or the hacker in China that demands payment to stop turning you lights off in the evening, and strobing them while you're trying to sleep.
34 percent of Americans believe it would cost $5,000 or more to turn their home into a smart home
Which is probably true, since "a smart home" is defined by most people as "All (or most of) my lights and devices connected to an automation system and controllable." At $30-45 per light switch, power outlet, or device-controller, it adds up quickly in even a small home. (My home is not small, and I would easily go over $5k if I wanted to swap out just switches)
the average person starts with just 4 smart devices, and spends about $200.
Yeah, starts with a hub (Usually just under $100 by itself) and a couple of lights or sensors. They generally expand beyond that.
I work in a very nerdy industry and of those who have smart devices in their home, there are a lot of Alexas and wifi light-bulbs, a few Ring door bells, and one guy who's going the DIY route and rolling his own Arduino-based (Mostly ESP8266) gear. Almost none of these people will claim they have "a smart home" though they have "some smart devices." For most non-nerds, this is beyond their capabilities and they look at it as an ROI exercise: "How long will I need this stuff for it to offset the cost of electricity and installation?"
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
I have a $9 device from a hardware store that I plug into a wall and it turns on whatever I plug into it at a preset temperature. I use it to turn on a space heater in a cabin on my property to keep it from freezing. I really can't think of any use for the tech beyond that.
Because you are using high end stuff like Crestron and AMX. the other crap are simply toys. If it's cloud based it will not work a LOT of the time.
So yes they are correct, good robust and reliable smart homes ARE expensive.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I bought several Insteon SmartHome devices totalling well over $1000 -- light switches, i/o lincs, power outlets -- about 6 years ago to wire my house.
All of them have stopped working -- conveniently, after their warranty (some only 2-3 months after).
Insteon refused to refund/replace any of them, despite several emails/videos showing them how many stopped working.
Creating a "Smart" home is already pretty expensive, but even more-so if (WHEN) the devices break every few years.
I like my smart lights ... but not for any of the things that make them "smart." The thing I like about them is the ability to have them changes from cool light in the morning to warm light in the evening. This is something you could feasibly do without "smart" bulbs but is easier to set up with them.
But just about everything else that's supposed to be "smart" is just annoying.
Have someone over who wants to turn on the lights? Haha, they can't, not without the app! Want to turn on a light in one room? Better get out your phone and get fiddling! (They've since released physical switches you can use to control things, but I've yet to get one.)
The "smart" features that are supposed to work don't work all that well. I have them programmed to turn off automatically when I leave and turn on the light by the front door when I return. Sometimes this happens. Sometimes it'll turn on the light by the front door many minutes after I've arrived. Sometimes it'll just never turn them off, but turn on the light. Sometimes it just works.
You can use it with voice commands! These manage to be even slower than just digging out your phone and using the app.
So would I recommend "smart lights" to anyone else? No, not really. I like the ability to change the lighting color and selectively dim lights. It's nifty. It's not a killer app.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
There are only two "smart home" features I've actually cared to put in:
* Occupancy sensor lights in bathrooms and other places that one frequently enters and exits a lot of times per day.
* A smart thermostat with remote access
Both were more about saving money than adding convenience.
Nothing else is really worth the cost because the usability is utter shit and the interoperability is almost nil. Give me Star Trek level functionality ("computer, lights; computer, play ; computer, we're about out of TP, order some more") with cost effective equipment/install (wiring your house for automation, audio, etc. is insanely expensive, wireless stuff is still shitty) and I might change my mind, but we're a long, long way from that level of UX. Alexa, etc. notwithstanding. Also, it would require non-invasive implementations that don't collect data and/or otherwise spy on me.
"OK, Self. Open the refrigerator and grab me a beer."
Works every damn time.
Obligatory XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/149/
I'll admit, having a system that can tell when i'm leaving work in order to turn the water heater back on that's been off since the morning
The only reason to put a water heater on a timer is to save money by consuming energy off peak when it is cheaper. These schemes do not save any measurable amount of energy unless your away from home weeks at a time.
or could turn on the air conditioning or heat woul be pretty cool
The one bit of kit that would actually be useful to me would be an HVAC thermostat that didn't require me to switch between heat and cooling modes for the heatpump
Micro-managing temperature to save money when you have a heat pump accomplishes the exact opposite result. The most efficient operation comes when you set a temperature and don't mess with it.
You can have a couple of lights that you can turn on/off OR change your temperature from your Smartphone, not both. To have a truly automated home likely would cost about $5000. People are not so dumb. Wink would like you to think you can get real automation for $200 to sell you their $100 hub.
Back when I was a teenager I played with X10 stuff a bit. As a teenager it seemed cool that I could turn lamps and radios on and off through my computer.
Then the novelty wore off and I realized that at least for those things in the room with me, controlling them remotely didn't matter, and for those few things that could benefit me to be controlled in some fashion, it wasn't in the cards.
I've used X-10 to control anywhere from 2 to 9 lamps for the last 15 years. Mostly just 2. I've gotten so accustomed to the lamps turning on and off automatically in the evening that if something goes wrong and it doesn't work, for whatever reason, it's mildly shocking.
I like it because, being computer controlled, it can be more sophisticated than a dumb timer. I've got a cron job that launches a tiny program that recalculates sundown at my latitude each day and issues the turn-on command appropriately. Considering I got all the X-10 equipment for $10 per pack of 4 items (one RS-232 transmitter, one receiver that can control one socket, one lamp control that listens to the receiver, and one remote), it was a bargain, and a very nice convenience. But it would be better with a light sensor, which wasn't an option at the time, and I was only willing to do it at all because of the promotional pricing. I would never buy more pieces at full price. $45 per socket is far far too expensive, especially for a somewhat unreliable system with absolutely no security. The relatively large wall wart external box is also a major turnoff, and makes it impossible to control both wall sockets since it's polarity-sensitive.
...and I can turn down my thermostat easily enough on my own.
For that, I have a programmable thermostat, which was included with my new, high efficiency furnace. Very very convenient, and as someone else said, you can get one clever enough to control a heat pump properly. (Mine isn't that smart.)
> How hard is it to set your thermostat or flip on a light switch?
I assume you do realize that without IoT, people would have to stop stuffing their faces and actually get out of the chair in order to adjust the thermostat?
Consider the convenience of integration with either Amazon Echo or Google Home:
You: OK Google, can you please adjust the f---ing thermostat?
Google: Sorry, I can only adjust ordinary thermostats.
You: I just can't seem to get a f---ing break.
Google: Is that better than other types of breaks such as a coffee break?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Do you realize that we are blocking other (certain) nationalities at the border? So your plan won't work to Make America Smart Again.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
34 percent of Americans believe it would cost $5,000
Apparently 34% of Americans are actually aware of the security implications of a "Smart Home" and know if would cost over $5,000 in leaked personal data.
Don't forget that they'll stop working when the manufacturer goes bust and their 'cloud' server goes away. Or when Amazon's 'cloud' goes down again. Or when the manufacturer stops supporting them and shuts down the 'cloud' server that controls them.
Look, most "smart home" tech is always on, wasting electricity. Stuff you need:
1. home temperature or floor temperature feedback for heating/cooling that can be programmed. this is also very useful in second homes, and saves lots of energy.
2. security system ... LOL, jk. No seriously, most motion and heat detectors will rack up big charges from the local police, who can't even get there in under 45 minutes, no matter what the commercial says, so get rid of those. Better bet - lights tied into home motion detectors. Determined people will case your place and can always - and I do mean always - get in. And get out before any security or police show up. And get a real dog or cat.
3. low electric price on demand laundry wash dryer systems. These modern ones use very little energy and "buy" it when it's cheapest. Since modern laundry can run very quietly, it's ok if it turns on at 3 am. Same with dryers.
4. low energy fridge NOT CONNECTED TO Internet. Modern fridges are very quiet and save tons of money. Same goes for freezer.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You can self host with multiple different programs. I use Home Assistant running on a Pi in the basement.
I pay $0 in recurring costs.
Do not want! I mess with 'gadgets' all day I don't want to have to deal with that at home. If it's cold I light the pellet stove that is my automation.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I can go to my local hardware store and buy an Light Switch for £2.25 ($2.80) and it will sit, maintenance free, in my living room wall for several decades and uses zero electricity for the switch itself. Unless you are outside my house and can see the light that it controls you have no idea if it is switched on or off and thus if I am probably at home.
I can order one and buy one that connects via my wifi for $49.99 (£40.20) that I control via my mobile 'phone, so always using a not-disclosed amount of electricity. How long will Belkin support the switch through their servers ? If they did support it for 10 years I would be surprised, so in a few years I will need to replace it with something new. Some of these also demand some sort of subscription. Whoever operates the servers know the state of the switch and how it has changed recently and so if it is likely that I am not at home .... if not send round their mate Burglar Bill.
It seems like all the proprietary stuff is expensive. I bought little wifi power adapter switches (The Orvibo S20) for $20 each and an infrared blaster to control my TVs and HVAC for $30. I couldn't be happier. I did it for cheap and my stuff never goes out to the internet. I have full control and I can program them however I want! The Orvibo has a nice simple Python library that somebody wrote.
The value of IoT is explicitly not derived by normal exchanges of value for cash it's derived by leveraging the customer on the back end to sell their data and push advertising.
Well, if it costs $200 for 4 fixtures (an outlet, 2 switches and a light), replacing all the outlets, switches and lights will cost you a significant chunk of money not to mention the electrician's/permitting cost for such an overhaul.
$5k is a low estimate especially in older homes and that is IF you get it to work once it's all in. A lot of power line communication doesn't work (well) across both halves of the breaker box or sometimes even across circuits and a lot of houses don't have the requisite two legs of the circuit in every switch box and then it gets really fun with redoing the circuits on two-way or three-way circuits. Wireless communication is a joke when all your boxes are encased in 3mm of steel, most usable distances simply aren't covered without repeaters and then not every widget you get has 2-way communication or repeaters built-in.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Smart devices usually don't work without an internet connection and without registering on manufacturer's website. Then they will collect all your usage data.
Also this makes you dependent on the manufacturer for the rest of the life time of the device.
I see two totally separate marketing modes currently in use for this technology: the hobbyist market, home of the X-10 coffeemaker that you can sort of get working if you do enough fiddling with your wiring assisted by the advice of obscure online hacker forums, and the high end market for "smart homes" that you order as a turnkey package from a builder or a security company. Nobody cares about the X-10 hobbyists because they are invisible, so to the general public home tech is associated with the Smart Home they saw demonstrated on HGTV and bought by a young couple who work for a law firm.
But if you just want to do something specific, like monitor your baby, there are all kinds of relatively inexpensive and easy to assemble systems like the Insteon sensors that I use. But know when to invoke professional help in putting a system together. Don't be that person who is on vacation when their breaking glass sensor pings their iPhone app so that they can helplessly watch their house being cleaned out on live spycam because they don't have a way of calling their local police from Costa Rica.
Hey, I saw that movie about you -- The Omega Man. I could swear the vampires killed you off in the end...
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Don't forget that they'll stop working when the manufacturer goes bust and their 'cloud' server goes away. Or when Amazon's 'cloud' goes down again. Or when the manufacturer stops supporting them and shuts down the 'cloud' server that controls them.
Most residential Insteon deployments use controllers which are not cloud based, and all Insteon devices support local linking (e.g. you can associate a light switch to a motion detector simply by pressing a button on one, then the other -- no app required, no cloud service involved.
It is possible to deploy Z-Wave without relying on cloud services, you just need to choose your controller carefully. You can also purchase a local programmable controller which speaks multiple protocols, so you can use local REST calls to control Insteon/Z-Wave/Zigbee/etc.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I'll admit, having a system that can tell when i'm leaving work in order to turn the water heater back on that's been off since the morning,
Why bother? Any water heater made in the last decade is so insulated that it shouldn't be running the burner or heating element at all unless you're gone for days at a time.
Bingo! Any passive regulation in a case like this is so much better than some dumbass App. As an example In the first hot tub I bought, there was an energy saving feature where you would turn off the heater at say midnight, then turn it back on at say 1 in the afternoon so that you would enjoy a nice soak in the evening. Of course, if you wanted a soak in mid afternoon you were SOL. My latest one is insulated well enough that you just leave it on all the time. And I'm paying a lot less in 2017 dollars than I was in 1997 dollars. After a breaker tripped during an electrical storm this past winter, I discovered it a day and a half later, and the normally 104 degree tub temp had only cooled to 99 degrees. Not bad for a 32 hour interruption in an outside tub in a Northeast winter.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The point of home automation, when done right at least, is that it makes life easier/more fun.
I too, derive much pleasure and a sense that life is worthwhile when I push a button.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Well, in addtion to that, you need to replace the whole thing every 5 years when the IoT service falls into the corporate abyss.
Someone had to do it.
Right, when they ask the question people think of "smart home" like the computer on Star Trek being able to control everything.
They naturally presume it would cost a lot of money, certainly over $5000, and they would be correct.
Just because there are consumer devices for sale that cost $200 and do $20 worth of work, and connect to the internet, doesn't make those devices into a "smart home."
hot tub ... After a breaker tripped during an electrical storm this past winter, I discovered it a day and a half later...
Stick one of these alarms in your hot tub's equipment bay and you won't need to "discover it" a day later.
The thermostat has a 7-day schedule capability. I do occasionally have to override it when what I need no longer lines up with the schedule.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Get Smart + Get back Home = Smart Home
It's super cheap and you won't have to worry about a wifi kettle being hacked.
Exactly! Most of these devices are not smart in a sense as that they make autonomous decisions that go beyond a programmable thermostat or a timer switch. The devices are more remote controls operated through smart phones...which are the real expense. Data plans are cost prohibitive. If folks want to save on energy they should spend the money on better insulation rather than electronic toys.
The value of IoT is explicitly not derived by normal exchanges of value for cash it's derived by leveraging the customer on the back end to sell their data and push advertising.
If that were true, the devices would cost a lot less. A dumb light switch costs 46 cents. A "smart" light switch costs $46.
They're gouging you on the initial purchase and selling your data.
I have a long stick that costs ten cents that I use to push the button when I'm too tired to stand up.
I am all for using clever technology if it gives me something of actual value, but I have yet to hear about any IoT gadget that does anything that I would benefit from in my home. I have used remotely comtrollable gadgets (like networked powerstrips) in server rooms, and that clearly is useful, but I wouldn't spend money on any of the silly gadgets that are on offer, and certainly not if they can only communicate directly to the wider internet - for me to let any gadget in to my home, it must have the option to turn off all wifi and use local, cabled network only, and it would have to use an open protocol, so I can control it from, say, a RaspberryPi, which would be the only entry point from outside. Otherwise you might as well leave all the windows open.
It does not compute.
We use every labor saving device possible so we can either balloon up or spend all the time hungry or at gym.
I'll continue spitting, stacking and feeding my wood stove, shoveling my driveway and getting up to to adjust the lights.
Really don't mind feeding and walking my 90lb security system, or sweeping the floors.
I'm no Luddite but it's nuts to save so much labor only to pay for the gym. Maybe a manual push mower is a better idea
Here's what I did - works pretty well for making "dumb" appliances smart. $50 Echo Dot (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015TJD0Y4?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=178760267662&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16462602238754345856&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1bxrunqc4w_e) for voice control. $30 set of 5 RF power plugs (https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Wireless-Electrical-Household-Appliances/dp/B00DQELHBS/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1491405099&sr=8-2&keywords=remote+power+control+city) $50 Hook smart home universal RF bridge - allows the dot to control any RF devices on 315 or 433 mhz freqs: (http://www.hooksmarthome.com/) IFTTT.com - easy online rules you can write that work with the Hook One example of something I've done with this is program a sign to turn on in the morning if it will be clear that day, basically signalling to me to grab my fun car keys for the drive to work or wherever that day. IFTTT pulls a weather report to my gmail account, my gmail rules apply the appropriate tag based on the weather report, and another IFTTT rule turns the light on if the email has been tagged a certain way. Easy, and a fun way to avoid having to check the weather before leaving to work. Frivolous? Sure. Fun? Yeah!
I don't actually need most of the stuff that I have. I have it because I want it. That being said, I see a lot of people giving reasons why they don't want smart devices, and projecting to conclude that nobody else should have them either. I understand not wanting things personally, but I don't project my preferences onto everybody else.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I too, derive much pleasure and a sense that life is worthwhile when I push a button.
Because when you live in a place where you need a security system, the only fun thing to do is make your security system "smart." I want your life. Mine's feels dull now.
Ok, do you guys have something against home automation, or are you simply missing the point? I said nothing about "worthwhile" - what I said is EASIER and MORE fun.
The problem of course, is that we have already been treated to IoT Botnets, and we not only haven't addressed the inherent insecurity of these things, we're rushing headlong to install more of them.
I for one, have never found the LulZ in DDoS and botnets.
Or do you really think it's easier to run around the house making sure all the lights are off and doors locked before you leave than it is to just push one button and KNOW all the lights are off and doors are locked?
I've been in computers since before the PC, and the internet since the early 90's. You can rest assured that even if I had a 1 button do everything app, I would damn well go around to check everything afterwards. If you wouldn't, you don't understand the internet.
If I can use the internet to turn off, or lock or unlock anything then someone else can too. Same goes for you.
And yes, it *is* fun to be able to just push a button and watch my house go in TV watching mode, or lock itself up for the night, or whatever - I never said it was the *ONLY* fun thing.
Or maybe you were just trying to be funny, in which case, sorry, you failed. Try again next time! :-)
Well, you must be really easily entertained. This following statement isn't designed to be funny. Your App home is a disaster waiting to happen. If people want to drive off a cliff, I'm happy to warn people, but if they ignore my warning, I'm okay to watch them drive off the cliff as long as I'm not in the car. It's how I cope with being a Cassandra.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.