Comment by MrJohz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrJohz | Hacker News Reader

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> For example the smart phone. A physical button or even alexa is easier to turn off the lights. A smart phone menu is just stupid.

I'm not sure that's true. A physical button only works if I'm near that button. Alexa only works if I'm near a microphone (and comfortable with that microphone). Whereas my smartphone is always in my pocket, and therefore always useful.

That's not to say a button isn't also useful - it's usually more convenient if I'm already next to that button, which makes it great for turning room lights on and off if I'm moving from room to room. But if I'm on the sofa and I want to dim the lights without having to get up, the smartphone, for me, seems like the most practical choice.

I suspect what seems like stupidity to you may often be people catering to those with different desires and needs. Just because a smartphone isn't a useful way of controlling lights for you, doesn't mean that it's a stupid design decision for everyone.

>Whereas my smartphone is always in my pocket, and therefore always useful.

Sure. Now how long does it take you? Take that phone out of your pocket, unlock it, open the lights app, skip past whatever update/ad/welcome screen, find the correct light button and press it. Anything on a smartphone takes substantially longer than a physical button.

Not to mention that the physical button tends to be more reliable at doing what it's supposed to. People still buy alarm clocks and then put their phone next to it at night.

> Now how long does it take you?

Rather less time than it takes you, apparently. My process is: pull phone from pocket, swipe down, tap button.

I don't need to unlock it as a discrete step because it did that automatically when it saw my face. I use the built-in smart-home management, so all the controls are available in the system-level control center widget -- which doesn't have any sort of junky updates / ads / welcomes.

It's certainly slower than pressing a physical button if I'm standing next to one. But it's genuinely faster than standing up and walking over to press said button.

>Not to mention that the physical button tends to be more reliable at doing what it's supposed to.

This is the big problem with "smart" devices. They take an existing reliable solution to a problem (e.g., flicking a switch to turn on a light), sprinkle on some nice-to-have whiz-bang features (e.g., doing it from afar), but compromising the initial reliable solution in the process.

If those extra features were strictly optional and additive, then it wouldn't be a problem. But that's not how it works in practice.

I completely agree, but like I said, I don't always have the physical button next to me. Having a device that can always do the same as that physical button (at the cost of being more complex to use and taking longer to do any individual action) is a worthwhile tradeoff in some situations.

It's not the right tradeoff for everyone or at all times (there's a good reason why physical switches are the default in most homes!) but it's a useful feature. It is by no means irrational, as the previous poster was suggesting: it was designed with a lot of rationality to suit a use-case that that poster may not have.

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