What is my vision on a smart home?

[slate cargo]

https://joostlek.dev/what-is-a-smart-home/
So I just finally revived my website and wrote an article about what my vision is for a smart home. I talk about what a smart home is, how software will work in it, and how I want to decrease phone usage!

[dawn sandal]

I pretty much agree with everything, the only one that gives me pause is it shouldn't look smart but I think that is aesthetic choice more than anything. I don't mind, smart products doing smart things, but I do agree that I shouldn't need the smart thing for the house to do something. Like a nice google hub device sitting on the side table adds a lot of functionality in presenting info but then disappearing back into the home and doesn't stand out.

I have said it many times, I think that dashboards are the worst thing to happen to smart homes for people. It allows a giant crutch for people to actually finish automating things and they end up with a remote controlled house. Instead of them presenting information that is useful, they become buttons for people to use to do things that with a sensor could happen automatically. If you need manual control and there are times that you do something like a smart switch or better a scene controller is way better than a big ugly tablet on the wall. Adding an ESP32 with Bermuda behind a couch if you carry your phone with you or wear a smart watch also opens a lot of possibilities as knowing who is in a room is a game changed when used as conditions, a little to slow to turn lights on but turning them off if you have pets or fans on where mmwave can fail.

I am also all about using smart services to automate things well outside of the home, rather then me have to remember things on that front I have been playing with n8n but lately end up pushing a lot of the automations in it to just use home assistant instead. Though it does make interfacing with local AI really easy for tasks outside of home automation. I am trying to offload a lot of my mental load of remembering things, to the automation or at least just the mental info dump into obsidian.

[dapper widget]

Not to hijack this thread, but any reason you've used Bermuda over ESPresense? I've been playing with ESPresense for a while, but I get overwhelmed and set it aside until the next time, rinse repeat

@slate cargo Great article!

[dawn sandal]

it works with esphome, so you don't need to dedicate a whole esp32 to Espresence. It also uses the same method for tracking so its been just as accurate though it does seem easier to configure

[dapper widget]

That's enough for me to give it a shot, thanks

As far as the actual goals laid out in the post, I am always going to need physical switches and a dashboard to get buy-in from the rest of my family, but I could certainly do a lot more in the automation department which may help change their minds

I cannot envision a future where my lights don't have switches 😎

[dawn sandal]

@slate cargo, I am sure you are aware of this channel but I think his channel shares a lot of our feelings around the smart home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVdlLWA9LPI

[shrewd nimbus]

Meanwhile I’m trying to balance the wife approval factor (which button do I push to turn off that fan?) and the child attention factor (what happens if I push this button repeatedly?)

[slate cargo]

Both are challenges i dont have yet, but trying to find out what problems they have can be fun

I think a smart home should still be logical, like you shouldn't do some button morse codes to do something, or at least, dont expect someone other than you to understand it

[deep oyster]

Neither are automation. They are remote control.

Automation happens automatically. No button pushing involved.

[slate cargo]

I would argue that fans are one of these things that is harder to recognize as sometimes you just want a breeze

[dawn sandal]

Not if you just leave them on all the time. I don't think I have turned my livingroom or bedroom fan off in over a year other than to dust them.

[slate cargo]

Oh but we do have different definitions of a fan

In the Netherlands we hardly see a ceiling fan

[dapper widget]

We have different definitions of fun 🤣

[slate cargo]

I like to see it as a challenge, how do I make my house user-friendly as possible

I guess it's also because that's my aim when I work on home assistant

[dapper widget]

I just mean the range of those outcomes when a child is involved is vast and variable, definitely a challenge

[dawn sandal]

An input_boolean called child lock that disables all buttons and voice control. Though maybe a strech goal with voice pe to train different voices to it so it disreguards the child.

[slate cargo]

How old is the child

Because if they have a need to control the house it would be different than if they are just there to play around

[dapper widget]

5

So pretty much on the cusp of understanding probably

She likes to yell things at Siri (which as we all know is terrible)

[shrewd nimbus]

Is there a tantrum_lock to control turning off the fan without complaining kids?

[slate cargo]

You could look into a way to make automations throttle

as in, make them wait a little after executing and make sure they can't fire in parallel

Or have a way where the second push would disregard what they were asking the button to do and turn off

so if they wanted to turn on a light and they press the button 4 times, just turn it off

for a minute or so

I would guess that things like that would teach them that you would only need to press a light button once

[dawn sandal]

I still have an automation that skips "baby shark" and "the song that never ends" because my ex would repeatedly play them to annoy me