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Comment by acidburnNSA | Hacker News Reader

Well if this isn't the most validating and ringing endorsement of privately-hosted, open source home automation stuff like Home Assistant [1], I don't know what is. I rigged it with $2 of infrared LED transmitters and receivers hooked to my raspberry pi and automated my TV, stereo, and air conditioner [2]. I am so glad I did this now. I think there is big business, on the order of a full-on electrician, in going around and setting up Home Assistant, some zwave stuff, some IR stuff, etc. in people's homes.

[1] https://home-assistant.io/, very recently discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15521743

[2] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-rec...

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That's great and I hope there's a fantastic open source community for home automation, especially as I'm getting into it myself this season. But I would wager 99% of home automation consumers won't, don't, or can't do DIY software solutions. So I'm not sure this bonehead move by Logitech really validates the DIY solution, as I don't see one covering the others' market.

I agree that DIY isn't a great solution for most people, especially if it involves writing your own software. But as the Home Assistant community grows there are more and more pre-built, highly capable open-source modules for Pi's and ESP8266's and whatever that entrepreneurs could start selling, installing, and servicing them at normal people's homes for megabucks. I think it's a big market.

> But I would wager 99% of home automation consumers won't, don't, or can't do DIY software solutions.

It's more about hardware. Good luck getting your fire insurance cover damages when your Alibaba sourced board that you operate on the mains (via Alibaba source AC/DC converter) fries your living room.

The issues with DIY here are not hard issues in themselves (grounding, heat protection/ventilation), but they require a custom casing solution which is kind of hard if you don't want to end up with weird looking industrial cases on your wall and ceiling.

You can build a system that simply controls commercially sourced, UL listed, mains equipment. That top level comment mentioned using IR but you can also control cheap 433Mhz outlets with simple transmitters and a library like rc-switch for arduino[0].

Home assistant also integrates well with openzwave so you can use most zwave devices including a variety of switches.

[0] https://github.com/sui77/rc-switch

Yep, that's exactly how I automate a room fan to turn on over the winter, when the humidity is too high.

A respectable 433MHz controlled plug, an arduino, 433MHz TX and a humidity sensor.

The first rule of AliExpress is you don't buy anything that comes into contact with >12V on AliExpress unless you want to start a fire. The logic board probably isn't going to set your living room ablaze.

HomeAssistant is getting close to being idiot proof.

Interface configuration still requires writing some YAML (unless the editor got better since I last looked at it), but installation and configuration is now extremely simple.

It'll still need someone to turn it into a product if "normies" are going to get into it. Literally any amount of DIY or even DIY-adjacent work is too much.

I think it's not so much that this Logitech issue validates DIY, as the fact that it validates not relying on external services. Using stuff that will still work if the company shuts down.

The problem with home automation is that it is so expensive just from a hardware standpoint (you’re talking $50 light switches instead of $2 light switches) that most folks willing to pay for it are already served by existing home automation vendors (most of whom are independent contractors).

You’re not going to convince your average homeowner to replace $100 of mechanical light switches that last forever with $3000 of IoT switches that have to be replaced every 10 years or so. You’re really not going to convince them to drop another $2000 on configuration.

By far the biggest use case is in home theaters, which is already a well-served market. Pro-level home theater installers have been putting in these systems for 20 years; they’ve just become cheaper. The pros definitely use this stuff too; open source is pure margin on an install versus a commercial solution.

Yes, most of the ready-to-use solutions like Philips Hue are very expensive. But there are cheaper options if you're willing to tinker a little bit (and wait a month for things to arrive from China), like $13 smart light switches (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Sonoff-Touch/32808809484.htm...) etc.

I'm still looking for a solution that's inexpensive and gets out of my way (i.e., is aware of what's going on) without phoning home to some server ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Reliability is a big question here. I don't want to deal with replacing failures, and the risk of fire can be high (a lot of these chinese electronics don't use adequate gague wires or have legible datasheets to even be able to plan current draw).

And even with all that, I'm just not sure that a fully-automated home provides enough benefit to be worth the headache for the majority of folks. I'm in the top 1% of income, I set up my own system and it's nice; but even I don't think it's worth what I paid for it.

Ikea has great cheap home automation product line that has impressed the developers of Home Assistant. See https://home-assistant.io/blog/2017/04/17/ikea-tradfri-inter...

Previous discussions of Tradfri on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069975

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14077614

I have some hue bulbs right now, but if I ever need more I'd definitely consider a Tradfri hub too to away from the Hue's internet connected stuff.

Just FYI: it’s trådfri, which is a (quirky?) way of writing “wireless” in Swedish.

Regrettably, this is COMPLETELY normal.

I worked in the CEDIA industry for a number of years, and was in direct competition with Logitech-- at one point we were even going to buy their remote division. My company was allergic to sustaining engineering. We would toss a buggy 1.0 iOS / Android app onto their respective stores and then forget about them. It felt dirty. I hated it.

When Apple's 64-bit transition happened, I dutifully warned my managers, was given no resources to get out ahead of the problem, and a year later all of our apps were kicked out of the App Store. It was hilarious, but not for our customers. :-/

Has the company continued to make a healthy profit? I mean, I'd hope that customers would care but sometimes I wonder if it actually affects the bottom line?

Yes they do. Most of the income is derived from B2B sales such that you don't know you're buying the product. Just like LifeLock is really just reselling Equifax credit monitoring :)

I want to spend money, but just reaching for the CC starts giving me the hives. Buyer's Premorse, regret for things not yet occurred. Why does everything suck?

If you want deep insight into the remote control market-- I am your man-- humanity, doubly so.

Regarding humanity, the most important thing about any issue is what you're not considering. As humans we accumulate experience in proportion to our exposure to it. We are most vulnerable when life does not afford us an opportunity to accumulate that experience.

Things people get ripped of on? Home purchases, cars, funerals, weddings, etc. you won't have an opportunity to accumulate more than a few of these experiences in your lifetime. You cant extrapolate a larger pattern from your interactions.

As someone who has designed dozens of control surfaces-- let me you-- the problem is this: two dollar remote controls-- and believe me, tahts what we sold them to our OEMs for-- are "heads up" interfaces. Ipads, iphones, etc are "heads down" interfaces.

A single function, 2$ remote with no display at all is a tactile interface. You can in the complete dark control your TV more or less.

Our flagship, $1200 remote, wasn't as functional. People bought it anyways. I honestly don't know why.

> We are most vulnerable when life does not afford us an opportunity to accumulate that experience.

We fuck up the things we only do once.

Scammers will gravitate to those events as they don't get punished by bad behavior. Ahhh, and this is why people use the big business, been around awhile car dealerships, funeral homes, etc. They get a solid dependable level of shafting instead of total shafting.

I have yet to find a wireless bluetooth headset where I can reliably (more than 100 button pressed) operate the device when it is on my head.

How do we fix capacitive touch buttons? Vibrator motor? Injection molded textures? Moar beeping?

I was thinking of going with some out-of-the-box hardware to do it but like you said, there's no greater control over a system than building it yourself.

Looks like I'll be buying parts and building my own equipment soon.

Most likely it validates the success of Samsung's SmartThings platform. Coupled with Z-Wave and ZigBee devices, SmartThings seems to have 'conquered' the DYI part of the home automation market.

Every house should and likely will have a Home Assistant type appliance in their home that stays with it as homes become 'smarter', a Pi would suffice.

Getting home assistant setup is my xmas project. Kind of want to get rid of my Nest if I can.

Almost definitely. I immediately got one for my mom and she just loves it when the house warms up before she wakes up, when the birds chirp (over the stereo) over the stereo as she comes downstairs in the morning, as the northern loon calls exactly at sunset (over the stereo), and a bunch of other goofy stuff. Not to mention the full-on security system that sends email pictures of intruders when it's set off.

If you have a temperature sensor and a relay getting rid of Nest can be pretty easy and cheap with Home Assistant (for the DIY-inclined) as well [1].

[1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/enlighten-your-old-furna...

Anytime a smart home startup shuts down someone makes the ‘cloud is bad’ argument on HN. It shows that you have never actually talked to a paying smart home user. All industry surveys show a top 3 reason people buy smart home gadgets is ‘peace of mind’ ie being able to check in and control the home when they are away. Since few Americans have a static IP address, ‘peace of mind’ is only possible with a cloud service.

You can build an end simple end user system with DDNS and OpnenVPN on the home router without going with static IP or cloud based services (outside DDNS obviously)

Having done this, I can tell you many smart home users do not even know how to change the password on their WiFi router. Installing OpenVPN is a non-starter.

What if someone packaged openvpn on a $50 box with home assistant pre intalled and had gui wizards to set everything up? Seems pretty doable to me. Just needs a founder.

Definitely doable. Also really easy to knock off if it became succesful.

the harmony works with my firetv as well. So now I need to figure out how to get some bluetooth protocol to work. I need a good remote for the raspberry pi. I'd like alexa integration too.

Now this just sounds like a project. sigh.

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