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It's overcomplicated because it's not immediately easy to keep the smart functionality totally local to your own network.

Almost every company that sells an IoT product wants you to make online accounts, download their special app, sign up for subscriptions, download useless firmware updates, and have all the hardware connect externally with their mothership cloud servers in order to function, all because they want to run a data harvesting racket disguised as an "ecosystem".

I'd use mechanical switches in the house, but at the same time, yelling at Siri to turn on my lights for the third time is the closest thing we currently have to sexbot servants. I only have so many years left on this planet, and I wish to embrace the future now.

My rule for smarthome stuff is that it's self-hosted, and it has to have a low-tech way to use it. A light switch can be on Zigbee attached to my Home Assistant server, but it needs to function as just a light switch when the network is down.

Have some old stuff that doesn't follow these rules, but I'm slowly replacing them.

Mr. Bean demonstrating the principle of "it's not stupid if it works".

I will never use smart technology. I prefer analogue technology. Imagine using a subscription in your home for lights and TV and AC and heat and appliances and then boom, they decide to terminate your subscription and now your home is inaccessible for habitat.

I've had my Phillips hue bulbs for over 10 years now. I own like 20 bulbs and have only had a single failure. Never had any issues with the bulbs. Google Assistant however has let itself go.

I like smart tech, as long as I can make it work for me and not just another data vacuum for some faceless corporation. I've got Home Assistant handling a lot of my stuff now, and I'm moving things over to it and replacing corporate-app-only things with things that can work locally.

Yes. Yes we have. This is why the internet isn't fun anymore. I use YouTube like 20th century folk used TV. But at least I have control over my shit in that case.

Yeah I'm never buying those bulbs again. Learned that lesson years ago.

Being able to change colors from your phone is neat but let's face it, you're going to have it on the same setting forever anyway.

Maybe once I start selfhosting I'll fuck with HomeAssistant but till I control what connects to what, how, and why, I'm good.

I build my own smart lights to avoid this kind of bs. Thanks to ESPhome i didn't even need to program them myself. Everything is in an offline VLan and connected to Homeassistant.

That technology would be okay if it was 100% open source, and came with a hard-copy manual alongside purchase so I could write a Python script to control it from my PC. Then and only then would I consider deploying such a technology in my home.

I refuse to buy appliances that need an internet connection to work.

The pursuit of the almighty dollar has enshittified too many things! Bring back useful, well made things!

The only "smart" light fixture I have has its own separate remote for switching between modes and adjusting light. I will never buy a device that either needs Bluetooth of Wi-Fi.

!lemmysilver

My phone lets me listen to over 10,000 different songs.

How many different songs do you listen to each week?

Oh, I just play my 15 favorites on loop.

But can your normal lightbulbs ddos a Minecraft server?

If it has to be smart, instead of every single bulb, wouldn't you better have the light switch in smart?