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Comment by throwaway100773 | Hacker News Reader

It’s this type of garbage that has turned me into a luddite when it comes to smart home type technology. Lack of interoperability, inability to understand easily whats actually going on and massive privacy invasion causes me to look for dumb devices whenever possible - I know how to deal with them, I can have other people fix them when something goes wrong, and there’s just less ongoing maintenance. I’m sure this isn’t a novel idea though.

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While the interoperability of IoT devices sure does suck there a projects like Home Assistant[1] which make this less of a pain my advice is stick to locally controlled devices that follow existing standards (ZigBee, Zwave, WiFi) and shit like this can't happen.

There are of course alternatives that have been around for decades like Control 4 but they cost serious money.

1. https://www.home-assistant.io/

The Charter devices in question here do support ZigBee, but they deliberately locked other standard-adhering vendors out.

There are standards that are being worked on.

My criteria is: all the logic must be contained within my home, the devices must adhere to some open standard, they must be repairable and modifiable to some degree.

I can’t think of a single piece of consumer electronic on the market today that meets your criteria

mysensors.org devices, but old 433mhz with rflink does a good enough job as well.

Oh there are masses of zigbee enabled components that are perfectly compliant with those constraints. From big labels to Chinese knock offs. Sure the Sonoses of the world have much more visibility and don’t but who searches will find :-)

Indeed - ZigBee is quite good for this. I know from experience that a Philips Hue bridge will gladly pair with and manage non-Philips bulbs (e.g. I have some IKEA ones in addition to Hue), and similarly that Philips bulbs work fine with a non-Philips bridge. You can also block the Hue bridge's access to the Internet and it continues to work fine.

How about the zwave alliance systems?

Sonoff devices don't do this out of the box, but with some basic equipment you can flash [open source firmware][1] on them and make them work even better than stock, and no packets leave the LAN.

[1]: https://github.com/arendst/Tasmota

You're right. I have the same criteria so I rarely buy electronics.

The Zigbee protocol the devices use is a standard, but from what I picked up from between the lines of the article is that the firm locked the devices because of liability fears. If someone DIY's their alarm system and then it fails to work during an actual home-invasion, they don't want to be sued.

Surely a reasonable solution to this kind of problem is to change the law if necessary so that businesses aren't on the hook for damages that weren't their fault? I suspect this may be a particularly US-based problem anyway given the excessively litigious environment that seems to persist there.

The idea that we're deliberately bricking useful technology devices because of lawyers is abhorrent. Realistically, their owners are probably then dumping them in many cases rather than sending them for any useful form of recycling, which is hugely wasteful. You'd think with the increasing awareness of issues like environmental protection and right to repair, we'd have been more enlightened by now.

I think you’re right but this would require and thoughtful and functional Congress.

it's pretty functional and thoughtful for the wealthy. instead we need a congress responsive to the long-term common interests of the citizenry and not beholden to the singular interests of the rich.

Guillotines don't need a network connection.

They should still be responsible for damages if they were their fault, though. Just like you shouldn't lose the warranty on your car because you get the tyres changed at an independent garage.

These standards won't be adopted by the market for at least 10 years, because it's not in anyone's financial interest to do so.

The hub manufacturers all want to lock people into a proprietary garden, even if they're using open protocols, so they can sell accessories and "Certified for X" marks.

The only thing that would really push adoption would be a killer paid service that ran on top of one of the open platforms.

Expect after 10 years everyone will be fed up with sunsetting and interoperability issues that standards-compliance will be a product feature.

But then again it took 20 years + the EU to nudge the market towards USB connector chargers?

I can't even imagine a scenario where I'd want a "smart home".

When I leave a room, I turn the light off. When I enter it, I turn it on.

When I leave the house, I turn the heat off. When I enter it, I turn it on. If I had pets, I'd just dial it down to "pet comfort" level while away.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: I do have a Roomba and think it's great. I hit the button when I'm about to go out for an hour, and there's a clean floor when I get back. I appreciate that. No internet required as well.

> I can't even imagine a scenario where I'd want a "smart home".

You get hit by a truck on the way to work and you're not longer able bodied enough to do these things.

Fair enough, but these things aren't marketed as assistive devices.

I have smart lights in the bedroom. They come automatically as a light-alarm and it's fantastic. It would be hard to go back to waking up in the dark and turning on a massively bright light.

It's also remote controlled at night so I can turn it off from bed. These are all useful features.

> It would be hard to go back to waking up in the dark and turning on a massively bright light.

That's why we invented the sun.

I wake up before the sun comes up and go to bed long after it's gone down.

It doesn't have to be "smart" or internet-connected to be remotely operable.

Turn on the heating/cooling on your way home from work.

Energising white light in the morning, soft warm lighting in the evening.

Shutters that close when the sun hits them in the summer to reduce the AC bill.

Turn on the dehumidifier if the humidity > 60%

So so many applications. Granted most of this is "nice to have" but this is also why it's not a big deal if it goes down every once in a while.

> Turn on the dehumidifier if the humidity > 60%

Humidifiers with humidity sensors are not “smart” anymore than a furnace hooked up to a thermostat. I got one in 1987 or so.

All of these things can be done without internet connectivity.

Here's my (unsolved) use case for a smart home: I've got three heat pumps and a whole house generator; if the generator is on, I don't want all three running at the same time (too much load), and generally, I'd like the set points adjusted, because I value saving fuel (the tank needs to last until the next filling, and I don't know how long the outage will be) over comfort. I've also got a hot water recirculator that I'd like to turn off when the well pump isn't powered (it's not on the same circuit as the house) or is otherwise not providing water pressure --- after a water leak, the previous recirculator burned its bearings moving air instead of water, and it was expensive to replace.

Also, I'd love to run the HVAC fans to equalize temperatures when some rooms are much cooler than others.

Assuming all those devices have means to communicate state and receive commands, that would be easy enough to do with Home Assistant.

This type of scenario shouldn't require "smart" home hardware - Traditionally situations like this were addressed by wired/wireless SCADA networks or BACnet or similar protocols.

The only issue is that these things are typically designed to be engineered along with the systems they control, and are difficult for the average user to implement or use.

The thing is, "smart" home hardware is a lot less expensive and more accessible than SCADA or BACnet. I can go out and buy any number of home thermostats, and some of them are even capable of properly supporting all the functions; unfortunately I ended up with the Nest, because it has the best support for enabling both auxiliary heat and emergency heat; but it doesn't have support for interfacing via LAN, and Google rescinded the APIs. Also, the physical interface is infuriating, but it's better than the awful honeywell touchscreen garbage the previous homeowner had installed.

None of it is "necessary", but having my locks, garage doors, HVAC, doorbell[1], most of my media players, and most of my lights integrated with Home Assistant provides all sorts of convenience.

It all works "offline" (in reality, as long as the house has power, it all works, I just can't connect to it if I'm not home).

[1] The doorbell is a "dumb" doorbell that triggers an IO pin on an ESP8266.

Likewise. Last time we renovated, we avoided "smart" technologies like the plague. No regrets, and so far no obvious disadvantages either, but apparently many dodged bullets when it comes to longevity, privacy, security, etc.

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