Comment by trey-jones | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trey-jones | Hacker News Reader

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I think there are a lot of factors at play. I have had an Amazon Tap for about a year, and 99% of the usage is just to play music. And I work in technology. I have used the Alexa app on my phone probably 3-5 times since first setting it up. At that time, I installed a couple of skills:

Pandora

Jeopardy (which I played often for a while, but then stopped)

Some Bed Time story skill, which is awesome and hilarious and I should know what it is so I can recommend it.

Nest, which never worked because I guess you have to use Heat/Cool mode on your thermostat which is dumb.

I think probably:

1) I installed more skills than the average user on initial setup (expected median: 0)

2) Most users open the app at a similar frequency to me.

3) The primary use of the device for most users is music.

4) Some people don't use them at all after the first week.

As far as development of skills, I know at some point they were offering "Amazon Swag (apparel)" in exchange for uploading your first Skill. Come on people, I've got mouths to feed here!

>> Nest, which never worked because I guess you have to use Heat/Cool mode on your thermostat which is dumb.

I have mine on "Heat" mode right now and it works fine. I think the problem is the name of your Nest. Mine was originally "Dining Room" (I only have one thermostat, so that was a dumb name, but recommended by Nest). I changed it to "Home" since I got the Echo, and it works fine.

Yep, my usage is about the same. I would say 99% of the time I am just using it to play music and then the other 1% is just asking it simple things like the weather or what time it is.

I installed a couple goofy skills but rarely use them. I did set it up with a custom skill to control my Roku by voice, but I don't think I have used it since I got it working.

I found it to be a game changer with respect to smart home.

Most of my stuff was underutilized, i.e., Nest, Wemo, Harmony Hub. Since I got my Echos, I've accelerated my timeline to put more smart switches throughout the house.

My favorite routine with the dark winter mornings is to use a single voice command to turn on my main floor lights and tell me the temperature outside as I groggily take my dogs downstairs to go outside. The temperature announcement lets me know whether my dogs need their coats on. It was especially useful today, as it was -23C this morning.

Hey, can I ask which smart switches are you using? I have been searching for a smart switch that:

1) Can have up to 3 individual switches in a single outlet. 2) Can work with just a single hot wire (no neutral). 3) Can be queried about it's status (on/off) back to the gateway.

There are a bunch of Chinese ones that meet 1 and 2. But I haven't found 3 so far.

I currently have 3 WeMo on/off light switches and a couple of plug in light switches.

I am planning to get some Z-wave light switches for my 3-ways (Zooz seems to make the switches that work the way I want).

1) Can you clarify this question - I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. By outlet are you referring to a junction box or an electrical outlet (plug)?

2) Wemos require hot, neutral and ground. AFAIK, most smart switches at the very least want a neutral wire.

3) Wemos don't need a gateway (wifi), but they know their status.

If I could do it all over again, I probably would have skipped Wemo and went with Zwave instead.

I mean juction box. I already have switches that control three lights (https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q2vZH.jpg)

The neutral wire requirement is really a killer for me, as I'm not going to rewire me entire house. There are some switches that only require the hot wire (they pass a very small load to the light, but not enough to lit up even very efficient leds).

As of the gateway I don't really care the interface. I'm prepared to write code myself or whatever is needed.

Ok, now that I see a photo. I don't know if there are any vendors that have single junction box switches that control three lights. In general though, the smart switches tend to be deep and don't leave a lot of room in the junction box.

Are you sure you don't have a neutral wire in the junction box? In my junction boxes, the neutral wires weren't used for the old school switches but are capped in the back of the junction box.

Regarding the interface, the Wemos are not very reliable because they are wifi. I used to use X10 and they were way more robust than the Wemos. You might want to check X10 if you're going to code yourself. The hardware tends to be a lot cheaper than the newer switches.

Yeah, I would be all over that if my home was newer and had wiring to support it. Right now I don't think there are many options with the way older homes were wired.

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