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Your not getting the weather forecast from your local network, so your put to at least 2 cloud dependencies. A really basic test it how much still works when the internet fails.

Because just that watering setup is the opposite of rock solid. If the electricity is on, and these several devices in your house didn’t fail, and you have internet, and the cloud service works, then you water your lawn unless the weather forecast says otherwise. Meanwhile a simple mechanical watering timer is basically if you have water pressure and the divide didn’t fail then it all just works.

Don’t get me wrong it can be fun to setup, but setting up and maintaining these “smart” systems end up sucking up more time than those home automation projects in theory save. At least compared to a simple mechanical timer.

When the internet fails, my garden won't get watered (though, I live in an area where it rains about 160 days a year), and I'll have to adjust my thermostat by turning it with my hand. When my cloud dependency fails, I'll use another of the 400 ways to get weather data. I've already switched weather providers several times. Don't worry about me; I'll make it through. ;)

> sucking up more time than those home automation projects in theory save

I guess? But it's fun. And I'd rather spend 10 hours automating something than 1 hour doing it. I'm not doing this to create free time, I'm doing it in my free time.

> When my cloud dependency fails, I'll use another of the 400 ways to get weather data. I've already switched weather providers several times. Don't worry about me; I'll make it through. ;)

> And I'd rather spend 10 hours automating something than 1 hour doing it. I'm not doing this to create free time, I'm doing it in my free time.

That’s exactly the point the original commenter was making. It’s a hobby, you do this because you enjoy it, and it’s not a general off-the-shelf solution that anyone can pick and plug it in. Nothing wrong with that, I enjoy the same stuff so I know where you’re coming from. But I’d be lying if I said it’s simple and robust like the mechanical timer thing.

Not to mention what happens when the power goes out, even momentarily. On Friday afternoon I lost power an hour before leaving for the airport. I was reasonably sure I could remember the light switch position to ensure lights were off, but the digital (non-networked) thermostat booted up when the power came back and has been heating my empty apartment all weekend long.

What hardware do you use? And how were you able to get hold of something that doesn't talk to the cloud? There's nothing like that in the shops here.

Most of my stuff is ZWave which is 100% local (big Zooz fan, and I hear that Inovelli is just as good). I have a bunch of Lutron switches too, and a couple Hue bulbs. Both of those will technically phone home, but you can cut off their WAN access and they still work just fine. I control everything with an old Mac Mini running Home Assistant.

The trick is, before you buy anything, look it up on Home Assistant. If its "class" is "local push", you're golden:

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...

You’re lucky or do Zwave in a small way. I spent a lot of money converting my last home to zwave and found tons of problems with it; incompatibility between the different devices from the same manufacturer; inconsistent implementation of standards by device type, etc. I am having a way better experience with Lutron Caseta (different problem is that I ran out of space on a single hub at 75 devices).

The other big problem with smart home is that every company wants to own the ecosystem. The technical term for that is “greedy bastards”. It’s not cloud; it’s cloud lock-in that’s the problem as I see it. This is the source not only of reliability problems but also of compatibility and interoperability problems.

When I started on my IoT journey I adopted a hard requirement that everything must “fail normal” - I don’t want a call in the middle of the night for tech support while I’m traveling on business, because my family can’t turn on the lights. Everything in my house fails normal- if the cloud or the internet goes away, the house becomes a dumb house and you can still turn on/off anything with a switch.

> The other big problem with smart home is that every company wants to own the ecosystem

Nah, standards assist everyone. Thus Matter[0] is becoming a thing. It will be supported by pretty much everyone (Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung SmartThings and the Zigbee Alliance).

"Fail normal" is a good thing to keep in mind nevertheless.

I am quite skeptical that "Matter" (formerly CHIP?) will fix anything.

https://xkcd.com/927/

Agree 100%. If I cut the Ethernet to my router with garden sheers, none of my automations run and I'm left with a bunch of normal light switches and locks, like any other house.

And I have about 20 ZWave devices. They've been super reliable, but, it's a small house, so I can't speak for what would happen if I quadrupled. My Caseta stuff has been just as reliable.

I have the same experience as you, but I use Zigbee stuff (a bit more future-proof and open, ZWave is proprietary). I also love the Sonoff line of devices with Espurna or Tasmota. Everything has been rock solid.

I have a similar experience with ZWave, and definitely recommend Inovelli (I'm also a Zooz fan).

I had everything on HA, but at the time they were changing _everything_ way too quickly for me. After the last time I'd lost my entire Zwave network setup, I figured it was a great time to try something now.

So, now it's a single ~1k line javascript file that handles all my automation, built atop zwave2mqtt (hoping to move to zwavejs soon - maybe over the holiday). It's simple, solid, and very easy to maintain.

I could use a UI, and occasionally dream of building one, but honestly I generally forget the place is automated. It all just sorta works.

That is exactly what I want to do for the same reason. Any chance you would be willing to share your JS code?

I'm not comfortable sharing the whole thing, since it's very specific to my house. But I may be able to come up with a much lighter version that could be shared.

No idea when I'll find the time, but if you want to email me (check my profile), I'll reach out when I find the chance to do so.

check out https://www.home-assistant.io/ Open source. You can be as fiddly or stable as you have tolerance for.

I run this too, nothing but positive things to say. I update it every once in a while, but I has been rock solid for years.

Any tips for those who want a simple stable setup?

Lutron Caseta. I personally like ZWave/ZigBee stuff more because it's more configurable and open, Lutron cannot be broken, even if you try.

You can even buy their pre-installed box, ready to go.

It has some warts, but my automation would not be viable without it. I specially like the NodeRED integration - even if I think that NodeRED is quite quirky and %#@!% sometimes, it's still neat to be able to write automations without programming much. I do plenty of that on my day job. Also a great visual aid to explain to non-technical people.

Philips Hue + Apple HomeKit with a dedicated hub (Apple TV or HomePod will do fine).

HomeKit stuff can be controlled remotely, but it doesn't "talk to the cloud" as much as IFTTT or Samsung SmartThings based stuff.

After you hit a wall with the Hue native automations + HomeKit, Home Assistant is pretty much the only relevant shop in town, maybe enhanced with NodeRED.

You can also reflash the firmware on a lot of smart plugs if they use ESP32, look up Tasmota.

I use Sonoff plugs, the first thing I do when I get one is solder headers on them and reflash their firmware - hey presto, no cloud

I use KNX for the "important" lights. KNX is very reliable and completely decentralized, so it continues to work evern if the server crashes, but it is also very expensive. For all the utility lights, I use ZigBee. For irrigation, wifi+mqtt. Everything is controlled by openHAB, i need to check out HomeAssistant in the near future.

I have three Nanoleaf Essentials bulbs. These are RGB LEDs which screw into ordinary A19 sockets. They work over Thread, so no connection to the Internet or my WiFi. My HomePod Mini is the Thread router.

The setup is very cool. I say "Hey Siri, good morning" before I get out of bed, and the lights turn on. Siri also understands more complicated requests like "set the center light to cyan" or "set all the lights to 50%." I also save configurations ("Scenes") and Siri can apply them by name.

Importantly the fixture has a physical switch and the bulbs reset to ordinary white after powering off, so the bulbs fail like an escalator if the WiFi is down.

No relation to any of these products, just a happy customer.

You describe it as some sort of heaven, and if that's your thing then (probably) good for you. It wouldn't be for me, I like actually doing things and see these automation as overpriced solution looking for problem that generation ago mostly didn't exist, while folks lived comparably happier lives.

Plus all the time invested into building and maintaining these setups can be measured by tons of fun/adventures missed in ones live. But that's my perspective, I incline more to OP' mindset of needing at most "plant timer".

I've really enjoyed every moment of setting it all up. It's like Legos, but useful when you're done. I don't really get any joy out of walking around to every wall and flipping switches. I don't mind it, but I don't enjoy it like you do. We just enjoy different things I guess. Nothing wrong with that though!

I agreed with the 'plant timer' mindset up until recently, when I bought some smart lights to hack for a demo at work. Now the idea that someone likes 'actually doing things' where things == 'getting up from the couch to flick a light switch in the other room' seems ridiculous.

If you make smart stuff a purely additive layer over your home rather than replacing existing tech with it, keep it out of the cloud, and have everything responding to predictable rules rather than apps/AI assistants, home automation is really wonderful.

I would definitely rather get up from the couch and flip a switch than open my smart phone, start an app, fumble through a nag screen telling me about recent updates to said app that auto-upgraded since last time I used it, turn on my lamp, get distracted by emails or some other red badge with a number calling for my attention before finally remembering that I just wanted to flip on the light so I could read my book.

Sure, but in my home, the light is already on.

My initial reaction to your first paragraph is "Preparation for your own death".

And I don't know where on the scale from "old man shouts at cloud" to "living consciously and connected to, and aware of, the world around you" this reaction sits. Even whether that scale has both end points being co-existent.

I find that pursuits intended to give myself more time for the things I enjoy eats into the time otherwise spent on things I enjoy - both in the setup and the maintenance (you already said it's reliable though, so maintenance may not be an issue).

To what end? is my question. Living in the perfect temperature works to narrow the temperature range in which you can comfortably operate. TV on, lights off, blinds closed... it just feels like the next step is automatic fecal extraction and progress towards the body types on the space ship in Wall-E.

To what end? To see if I can. And if you can, which in this case you could, it feels as if you're retro justifying the effort. Are you happy no longer having to do these mundane tasks? Living in algorithmic rhythms.

Feels like you can make the same argument about the washing machine, vacuum cleaner, and other housekeeping tools that made life easier a hundred years ago. Doing chores is not "living" and automating chores leaves more time for the wondrous and unique.

“Boats can float in water, but they can sink in it,too.”

Doing laundry, dishes etc involves real work and takes time.

Getting up from my chair and pressing a switch when I feel it is getting too dark is not really a chore. And it is probably good for my back.

I do have a couple of X10 switches but I mostly use them where I once was too cheap to put an extra cable. One died this year after only 20 years of service. Luckily I had a spare.

I also have a couple of electronic thermostats. I really hate having to replace batteries every few years. Now I set the day and night temperatures to a about the same. But I like that if I feel cold, I can manually turn up the heat and not having to remember to turn it back down. This should also be possible to implement mechanically.

I also have a drawer with some Zigbee smart home stuff and a CC2540 debugger to program a USB dongle to allow me turn off all the lamps in my living room. Which I will do whenever I feel like it. Because I have 5 lamps and if I turn them off 3 times a week for 20 years and I save 3 seconds per lamp minus 3 seconds to use some Zigbee switch, I will save 10 hours in total. If I have to find a phone or remote first, it will be a lot less. And I will probably spend a lot more than 10 hours before it all works. And I am not sure that it will work for 20 years, or that I can easily replace broken devices in 20 years.

Thermostats set to the right temperature/mode at night and in the morning depending on the forecast for the day.

I'm trying to understand how that could work. My old style thermostat maintains my apartment at a constant temperature based ... what temperature I set it to. If I wanted fancier, might have more sensory, fans or whatever to keep temperature average between floor and ceiling. But I can't see how outside temperature gives you any significant value compared to knowing changing in the inside temperature you're controlled.

Yeah, I mostly have automation so that I can turn the temperature down at night. I'm a big fan of sleeping in cold air. Even significantly colder air. When it's warm out, the AC kicks on. When it's cold, the heat just turns down.

Apart from that, I could just set my thermostat to heat-cool between 70-74 at all times. But then if it's 40 degrees out and I'm cooking a roast all day, the thermostat right next to my kitchen could kick the air conditioning on, which could actually damage it. So... I automate it; heat when it's cold, AC when it's hot. :shrug:

A regular digital thermostat has settings for turning down the heat at night, and turning it back up in the morning, etc.

>But what's important is that it's all rock solid and 100% reliable,

There will come soft rains.

If you are connected to the internet, then your setup is not 100% rock solid and reliable.

No setup is.

How many nines of reliability does your home automation setup need anyway?

Depends what the failure mode is.

To date the only light switch downtime I've had was related to power outages and bulb failures.