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Comment by aasarava | Hacker News Reader

> "SmartThings, released a similar statistic, noting ... users opening the app four times a day and receiving fifteen notifications per day."

This sounds like hell. I don't need my house sending me notifications throughout the day.

When I first bought a home, I was excited about adding automation to the various fixtures and devices. I quickly came the conclusion that the simple light switch is a pretty intuitive UI that doesn't need to be made more complicated. I'm going to bet that's the real reason home automation hasn't taken off.

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For me it isn't about replacing the ultra simple UI of something like a light switch, or getting a bunch of notifications. All of my automated light switches act exactly like regular light switches when you use them that way. But when I come home late at night to a dark house and hit the light switch just inside the door, not only does the laundry room light come on, but so do the lights on the path between the laundry and the kitchen. And when I'm watching a movie in the dark and hit pause, the lights between the movie room and the bathroom come up about 1/3 of the way (enough to find your way but not to blind you). It's completely unobtrusive, and generally does obvious stuff. It's a luxury for sure, but also very helpful. I agree I don't ever want to be getting 15 notifications a day from my house. I only want a notification if something exceptional happens and needs attention (e.g. I got one the other day reminding me to replace the furnace filter -- that's helpful and makes my life easier!).

Can you go into detail about your setup? Sounds awesome.

Its ridiculous how many companies are keeping the human in the feedback loop of the internet of things. Sending notifications to a phone is not automation.

Just imagine if your traction control system only alerted you to your loss of traction, or if your hvac system just told you it was too warm, instead of those systems acting autonomously to rectify their conditions.

The killer apps of the internet of things will not notify humans of changes in stimuli, but will take corrective actions taken in response to those stimuli.

But, its no surprise. Because, when the only tool you have is an iPhone, everything looks like a push notification.

> , but will take corrective actions taken in response to those stimuli.

Sometimes the hardest part is figuring out the correct response to make, the tech to do it is probably readily available.

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