I’ve removed all of the “smart” features from the lighting in my house. What a relief. I can now turn lights on and off any time I want, by just flipping a switch. No cursing or magic vocal incantations necessary.

@jack OMG I’ve spent the entire night trying to get homebridge running on a Pi. Whyyyy

@yaykyle Oooh cool, how'd it go? Wait DON'T TELL ME!

@jack at this point I should give up. I could probably use the exercise

@jack I've never understood the desire for smart lights. I don't see how it is anything other than worse.

@jack YES! I have been completely soured on the entire IoT idea by the couple of Wemo switches and bulbs I got—not because they are buggy and unpredictable (they are!), but because they were enough to make me realize that a simple light switch is a really good solution to the problem of turning a light on and off, and that technology that gets in the way of that is wasteful and silly.

@unoabraham I still use it for a bedroom fan and one basement light that's hard to get at. Otherwise, I tired of repeatedly asking Alexa to turn on the lights while standing right next to the light switch :)

@jack my real trick has been crafting rules in home assistant, so that i don’t have to do anything. I try to craft rules that anticipate my needs. this required creating a few "presence" sensors, but that's okay.

@jack I never understood people’s need to voice command everything :) I prefer not to talk too much, never mind talking to stupid assistants. And if I have to tell something to turn my lights on, might as well do it myself.

I have a few smart lights and things, but always drive them from a phone or some other device. Like @sergio\_101 said, automation (as in schedules, turning devices on/off based on other sensors, etc) is great.

@yaykyle homebridge (as in the node js project) is a terrible collection of code, so it doesn’t surprise me it’s taking forever to actually get going.

@oyam Agreed. Automation based on sensors, etc. makes more sense to me than voice commands all the time. // @sergio\_101

@jack @oyam I finally got it to a mostly working state. This doesn’t offer more features than Google Mini but now I can speak more commands via Siri.

I’m still excited about assistants but it’s definitely early days yet!

@jack the other trick is.. in my basement, i have four different light sources.. being able to say “Alexa, turn off basement" when I am going to bed, and see from the extra light in the back yard that i left them all on is priceless.

@unoabraham I’m sure there are upsides. I just don’t see how having to dig around in apps to turn my lights on is a good thing. :)

@ryanbooker No apps. It's all Alexa turn on the TV, turn off the bedroom fan/AC, increase the volume, cast on home theater PJ, etc. That's a lot faster than any app or remote.

And voice search on the likes of Netflix and Prime Video is another winner... play Deception and it saves a lot of time in scrolling, typing, searching, etc.

@unoabraham if you know you want to ‘play deception’ that is .... and that the voice bot understands you

@JohnPhilpin With testing I have found that the voice assistants perform best when in proximity (no more than a couple of feet). So I got more of the budget Alexa Dots and Google Minis.

I also use a lot of motion sensors and time and location based rules too. Setup does take time, but totally worth it when done.

For example we don't use a night lamp anymore, the light turns on by itself when I go to grab a glass of water from the refrigerator, and then turns off after 30 seconds. I have set this up to only run between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Small things like this certainly add up, I've noticed a 15-20% savings on the power, especially during the summer when the AC gets used a lot more. Anything that is not in use, and depending on the sensors, gets powered down in 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

@unoabraham 🙇 I lack that level of patience

@unoabraham This is not be an issue if your bulbs are incandescent or halogen, but LEDs and fluorescents lose a bit of their lifespan each time they are turned on and off. Not sure how it effects the total enviro/cost calculus, but something to think about.

@JohnPhilpin I too lack the patience as well as the coding chops. Most of it has been set up with the help of wonderful communities (similar to what we have here) at home automation forums where folks share the code and even their configuration files.

@Bruce I have switched to LEDs 100% and yes while initially expensive, in the long run they have turned out cheaper thanks to their long life span and more importantly the decreased ambient heat and temperature that requires less cooling.

Previously it was all halogen and while more brighter, they also produced a lot of heat requiring more cooling.

I have been very happy with LEDs since switching to them a couple of years ago.

I need to read about the decreased lifespan with frequent turning on and off though. Was not aware of this. Thanks!

@unoabraham I will be back to you if I decide to head that way - thankyou