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Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

I really wonder what people that are interested in home automation are trying to solve. DIY I understand, as it's cool electronics tinkering, and home automation can be a fun project. But for people that just buy it and customize it, I have no clue what the end goal is.

Is the big issue to stop pushing the normal light switch button? Is that a huge chore? If I think home automation what I have wishes about is something putting my dishes or clothes in machines and then putting them back, cleaning floors, things like that.

Automating turning a light, playing music or whatever are just a 2 second thing, that's very down the list of my home tasks to automate.

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I’m old enough to remember the first iteration of this home control trend: multi-room wired speakers.

I can’t count the times when I was in high school and had to let some dad demo their multiple speaker setup.

It never worked all that well, volume levels were off, and there was often an echo of music coming from some empty room.

I’m reminded of this every time someone calls out to their home assistant in my presence to do something like change the music on their tinny bluetooth speaker that’s already being controlled from their phone, which is sitting in plain sight.

There’s an element of performance in it. Look at how far I’ve come, etc. I don’t care for it but it’s a general, atavistic trait we probably share as humans to one degree or another.

> Is the big issue to stop pushing the normal light switch button? Is that a huge chore?

It does kinda suck, to be honest. Especially when the lights in question are downstairs, and I'm not. After the kids are done turning on every last light in the house, walking from place to place and turning off 40 different lights is tedious. Hitting the scene button at the top of the stairs to turn off the entire downstairs, on the other hand, I can do without slowing down.

The extra automation possibilities are nice, too. Even just little things like having the front lights turn on automatically when you arrive home at night.

The robotic vacuums are nice, too, now that you mention it. Kind of expensive but definitely a quality of life improvement.

But if I could have only one bit of home automation, it would be the door locks and garage doors. Those were the first things I made remote controllable and I wouldn't willingly give them up.

I got smart light switches for security reasons so I can have timed lights when on vacation and make it look like we’re home. A smart thermostat to save a bit on HVAC cost, and an alexa that is exclusively used as kitchen timer and weather quick checks. But i similarly couldn’t find rational reasons to go further into home automation outside of the itch to tinker with more tech.

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