People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
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 like using the smart bulbs as part of my wake up alarm. HomeAssistant starts fading the lights on 10 minutes before my alarm is set to go off.
I bought the bulbs before Hue made accounts mandatory, so I blocked the bridge from all internet access, and it never got the update. If I ever need new/more bulbs, I'll be just buying some generic zigbee bulbs.
If it's just dimming you could go with dumb dimmable bulbs and just make the light switch "smart".
Apparently modern dimmers just PWM the power so it wouldn't take much to make something that does that. I assume LED bulbs work nicely with dimmers by now.
The smart light switch has exactly the same problems as the smart bulb, and it's much harder to replace.
I have one WiFi bulb in my house near the entrance to my office. I turn it red to let my housemates know I have a meeting without leaving my chair.
This is about the only reason I could see for a WiFi light bulb. I could wire something but that’s a lot more work.
It is more work, but imagine how cool you would feel with a big red button on your desk that you hit to turn the light on!
I haven't reconnected all of my smart-bulbs in over two years because every time the software updates or when I have to change devices I have to reinstall everything all over again and find my account information and reset my password and all that, and it's fucking absurd and I am done with it.
Fuck voice controls, it was fun at first but there are switches on the wall, I will keep using them.
Maybe in a few years some AI program will be released that actually works and can be used to assist with home-control and it will just work autonomously, but I doubt it. These companies have zero intention or motivation to produce things that make our lives better, they go halfway by making something "cool" we want to try, but don't make efforts to make the new, cool things actually work better and more efficiently for users. No need, if they already buy the thing, then line goes up and that's all that matters.
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.
I blame Spotify for its crappy algorithm. I have over 2000 songs on my liked list and shuffle gets me the same 30 every day.
It's not just theirs, I swear every fuckin streaming service has made the most dogshit algorithm of all time. If I have a playlist of 100 songs, and I hit shuffle and repeat, I expect a list to be generated with each song in a random order that will get played through until each song has been played once, and then ideally a new randomized list is generated to listen to the same 100 songs again in a different order.
For every streaming service I have used so far, my experience is that it'll just pick a cluster of maybe 10-15 songs, and cycle through exclusively that until the algorithm either decides you want to listen to something not on your playlist, or the internet connection breaks for a second and the algorithm just gives up completely on randomization.
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!
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".
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.
Reminds me of that post
“My room mate asked if I could unplug his book so I can charge my cigarette, the future is stupid”
Are the persons a little mixed up?
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.
Everything is in an offline VLan
This is the way.
I don't need ANYONE to control my house when not in my house, and if that means I don't get to either, then oh well.
I find it funny how people who are not working with any kind of electronics are the ones who have smart homes, smart bulbs, smart keys, smart tv's. People who work in it have nothing connected to the internet, except their own server with a hammer next to it.
Why don't just use simple lightswitches?
Because then the lights wouldn't change brightness or color temperature with the angle of the sun, my motion sensors wouldn't work, and the light wouldn't turn on together with my morning alarm.
I see you're a person of culture. I too get flashbanged every morning by all my lights.
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.
You just described home assistant. The only part not open sourced is the firmware in the device you want to control.
Zigbee device + zigbee usb bridge and you can talk to the device directly or via an MQTT abstraction layer provided by another open source service. The MQTT way makes it even easier to do.
The only smartbulb feature I need is dusk-to-dawn for my porch lights, and I found lightbulbs that actually have it builtin.
Good old electronics that don't depend on the cloud.
I did this with a string lights, a smart plug, and a home assistant 'sun' integration
I'm reminded of GE and their unintentionally hilarious video about how to factory reset their smart light bulb
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.
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.
Most people use YouTube without an addblocker. In which case, your content comes with about ten times the amount of advertisements than if you'd have used a TV back then.
While we're at it: I remember when opting into adds was a choice for creators on YouTube. Quite a few refused, even popular channels. Can't imagine growing up with this shit now and thinking it's normal.
This is what the Unabomber was trying to warn us about!
I added my heated socks to Home Assistant so I can have them turn on when getting out of bed because I have a pressure pad under my mattress to track when I get up.
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.
The post the other day about charging their something with their couch and 10 yr old them...
Back around 2011, I remember reading a headline along the lines of "Samsung Galaxy 2 receives Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich on Sprint" and understood it completely while also thinking that just 5 years earlier that I'd call 911 if someone said that because they were clearly having a stroke.
I have shitass intelligent bulbs. In case of lost connection, they work like standard bulbs via , you know, switching lights on or off via switch. Wtf. Also app allows me to connect via bluetooth and just requires me to be on the same wifi.
Cheap intelligent lightbulbs apparently are better xD
I keep telling people to quit buying this shit and stop using corporate social media. But they're scared that lemmy is a virus (shrug) and only trust daddy google and apple
The kind I have, worst that happens is I can't change the color or warmth of the light until I am reconnected. They still work with the switch going on or off, and they are set to return to default color/warmth settings when the fixture they are in is physically turned off so I also won't be stuck with rave party disco lights.