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Comment by newaccount74 | Hacker News Reader

I've never seen a "smart" lighting system that was meaningfully better than a light switch.

Every place I've been to that had fancy ways to control the lighting was just annoying. In school and uni teachers had issues dimming the lights, people who have smart lights at home can't figure out how to turn on/off some of the lights, you can't turn off flickering lights because they are motion activated...

My favorite "smart" solution was a light that went out while you were sitting on the toilet, because the timer was set to a minute or so, and the motion sensor to activate it was outside the stall...

Just use normal light switches, if something goes wrong everyone can look up on youtube how to fix them in 10 minutes.

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I remember stopping at this gas station a few years ago and using the restroom.

I walk an and it's completely dark. I start looking for the switch and the light turns on automatically after a few seconds. I guess it's motion based.

I start to pee (this is a toilet, not a pissoir) and I guess I'm very still or what, the light turns off and it's of course pitch dark because I've closed and locked the door. So now I'm trying to jiggle left and right to turn on the light, but still keep my aim fixed in the bowl. Try doing that and you'll see how hard it is.

The light turns back on eventually. Complete disaster if you ask me.

You need to jiggle just your head :)

Had two places where i was regularly going out get stingy with the toilet light timer. One fixed it after I (and probably a lot of other people) complained. The other was still too short last time i've been there.

There are loads of examples of smart lighting systems that are more efficient than a light switch. You didn't notice them, because the lighting was doing exactly what you expected it to. You only notice the instances where the system is badly calibrated or had a poor control system and it annoyed you.

For me that's basically the definition of good automation. If its really good you don't engage with it at all. The lights come on when people want lights, they turn off or dim when they want less light. The heating keeps things at a comfortable temperature. The unfortunate thing is that a bunch of vendors have come along and because its easier rebranded "automation" to mean "awkward light switch which requires having a conversation with a computer".

> The lights come on when people want lights, they turn off or dim when they want less light.

How do you imagine that to work?

I prefer the lights off, my coworkers want the lights on, so when I'm alone I leave the lights off, when the others come into the office they turn them on. This situation is very easy to deal with because fortunately we have normal light switches in the office.

There is no way that automation could improve this situation, unless they install cameras with facial recognition to see who is in the office today and send everyone questionnaires to ask about their preferred lighting levels.

You literally can’t. Some form of automatic lighting control is required by code in most commercial or public buildings.

Clearly there aren't huge consequences for breaking that rule, considering this school...

They had a compliant system that stopped working, that's not the same. If you didn't design it to comply in the first place you wouldn't get a building permit.

Motion-activated lights in corridors, hallways and stairwells seem fine.

My apartment building has this, and it's better than needing to press a button while carrying shopping bags etc. Visitors also don't need to work out which button to press -- I once rang someone's doorbell, thinking the switch would turn on hallway lights.

I see you too studied at the IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark ;-)

Happens also at Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Nederlands ;)

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