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Comment by truculation | Hacker News Reader

Yes I would like a Starship Enterprise-style computer in my house. Who wouldn't? But it has to be the the ad-free version that works for me. It won't monitor the activities of my family and then sell the anonymized data to selected third parties. Then supply the de-anonymized data to government agencies and school boards at the drop of a hat for 'safe-guarding' or 'anti-terrorism' purposes.

In the meantime I recognise that there's some health value to getting up periodically to flick switches.

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> Yes I would like a Starship Enterprise-style computer in my house. Who wouldn't?

I wouldn't. What's the point exactly? Take smart lights, what are they for?? When I enter the room I switch lights on, when I leave the room I switch lights off.

I'm not sure when I would need to switch lights on while already in the room. I never stay in the same room for so long that the sun sets while I'm still there not moving.

At night in the bedroom there are switches near the bed (attached to the wall, which can't get lost, contrary to a remote, and don't need sound, contrary to voice control).

My point is, we tend to accept technology even when it doesn't solve any problem we are actually having.

> When I enter the room I switch lights on, when I leave the room I switch lights off.

There have been more than a few times in the last month where my hands were disgusting enough (pets, kids, etc.) that touching light switches, knobs, etc. meant I had to retrace my steps with cleaning supplies.

You still have elbows, a nose and a chin to switch the light on/off.

And how do you use a remote with greasy hands? You have to clean that afterwards.

I use them when I can, but motion sensors in public bathrooms don't have this issue. Well designed public bathrooms don't require you to touch anything in the room. A similar setup at home would be beneficial to households prone to biohazards, which most are in different seasons of life.

I can understand that for a public restroom the motion sensors are a good addition. For a home setup, what do you do when you sit in the couch, or at your desk. Do you wave to the sensor every five minutes, just to leave the light on? I cannot imagine I would ever want that.

Well people can do what they like, but I'd enjoy the public restroom setup in my bathroom, especially if it is a half bathroom (toilet and sink but no shower or tub). It probably makes sense in kitchens, garages, and utility rooms. Living rooms and bedrooms shouldn't run on motion sensors, at least not always.

Both flat and regular light switches allow for the use of elbows or, in a pinch, noses.

What if it were inexpensive, kept the physical controls and actually worked well?

I'm not in any rush to automate lights, but there are lots of people that would appreciate things like an "arrival mode" for their lighting, where lights switched on when they arrived at the house. Not really a big deal, but say you have poor night vision and reduced mobility.

Agree for reduced mobility, but re:poor night vision, I can do most things in my home in pitch darkness, as well as open the door from the outside: selecting the proper key from the key ring in my pocket, "feeling" the keyhole and inserting the key without looking at anything. Whenever I change the key cylinder I verify I can still do it with the new key.

This used to fascinate my wife. Now it just upsets her, she thinks I'm showing off to the kids. I'm not; I'm training for when the sun dies.

I can do the same. Although the 'open' or 'lock up' door in total darkness skill never fascinated my wife, ever. I always got the "just turn on a light..." whine instead.

> an "arrival mode" for their lighting,

Which can be obtained with a basic 'motion sensor' light switch for one critical light near the door, with no need for internet connectivity or smart-phone apps.

Turning lights off remotely is nice when you intended to go back to a room, but got ready for bed instead. You could turn it off with an app or a voice command, but instead you have to get up and walk to the far side of the house to turn it off.

Having to get out of bed and go turn the switch off with your hand builds character.

> I wouldn't. What's the point exactly?

If the smart house/ambient computing stuff ever works as described, it will be really useful for people with disabilities.

Then there's the ST:TNG episode "Contagion" where the crew spends the entire hour futzing around with the Enterprise's computer only to come to the conclusion of "let's reboot it!"

Sigh.

Was it running a Windows update ;-) : "do not power off your computer" = "tough tits if you were packing up your laptop to go home matey, one of those soi-disant 'updates' is actually a virus scan, which will take hours if you're lucky, or I might just bork the whole frickin' thing, we'll see..."

No one's going to build this for you. If you want an assistant built around your needs... start building. AI is not going to magically make a piece of software work the way each and every person on Earth would like, but making one for yourself is far more possible. :)

"anonymized data"

That's if you're lucky. I don't want to sound paranoid but if there are sensors in your house its only a matter of time before someone wants to use them.

I think this is kinda possible - if you hook up a raspberry pi with a bunch of relay switches. I think there's a speech-recognition project from Mozilla that's actually trained on the pi.

I vaguely considered it - but honestly, what's the point? Light switches are excellent tech. I think I'll go for a home computer the day somebody makes a roomba that can pick up trash, and clean the bathroom. Before that, all the really time-consuming stuff has to be done manually anyway.

For speech recognition, in android, you can use google now, then with the app tasker you can send the recognised text to your mqtt broker and from there it's easy.

I'm doing that with some relays and LIFX bulbs using Openhab.

That solution fails the stated requisite of not monitoring you.

https://snips.ai/ ?

This is an interesting voice assistance project that does not rely on calling out to third-party services:

https://snips.ai/

That's exactly what I was thinking about, actually!

I would absolutely never install a non open-source monitoring device in my house - and I frankly think it's insane that people pay money to do so. It's really nice to know that when this technology matures, and becomes the kind of thing everybody has, I'm not going to have to be a luddite.

There is two projects that make a step forward the privacy direction: Mark II [0] and Project Things [1] by Mozilla. There are of course not as developed as the big ones, but it's refreshing.

[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aiforeveryone/mycroft-m... [1] https://iot.mozilla.org/

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