this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025

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Have we overcomplicated everything? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works

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[–] midori_matcha@lemmy.world 16 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's overcomplicated because it's not immediately easy to keep the smart functionality totally local to your own network.

Almost every company that sells an IoT product wants you to make online accounts, download their special app, sign up for subscriptions, download useless firmware updates, and have all the hardware connect externally with their mothership cloud servers in order to function, all because they want to run a data harvesting racket disguised as an "ecosystem".

I'd use mechanical switches in the house, but at the same time, yelling at Siri to turn on my lights for the third time is the closest thing we currently have to sexbot servants. I only have so many years left on this planet, and I wish to embrace the future now.

[–] Aux@feddit.uk 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Home Assistant + ZigBee devices.

[–] Fillicia@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago

If only ZigBee was reliable. I had to send back a wall switch because I deactivated the default on/off in favor of hassio handled response. When it lost ZigBee connectivity I couldn't put it in pairing mode because the on/off was deactivated and holding both wasn't recognized.

[–] Puzzlehead@reddthat.com 10 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

I will never use smart technology. I prefer analogue technology. Imagine using a subscription in your home for lights and TV and AC and heat and appliances and then boom, they decide to terminate your subscription and now your home is inaccessible for habitat.

[–] Ronno@feddit.nl 1 points 53 minutes ago

There are ways you can set up a smart home without subscriptions, for instance using Home Assistant. But most people somehow chose to be stuck in these cloud apps with subscriptions. Ring, with a subscription for a doorbell, is wild to me.

[–] Aux@feddit.uk 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You already have a subscription for water, electricity and heating. Your parents had and your grandparents too.

[–] mad_djinn@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

yeah, because those are necessary for survival? like, fundamental components of a comfortable modern life? being forced to subscribe to things that used to be one-and-done purchases is ridiculous attempt to make us rent our pleasures. have fun with that

[–] emberpunk@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago

And they're two different services that can't be comparer.. One for energy and other utilities, and the other a subscription to use software to turn on the lights lol

[–] Inkstainthebat@pawb.social 2 points 11 hours ago

Honestly I'm fine with smart technology. As long as I can homebrew it or something ;3

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I like smart tech, as long as I can make it work for me and not just another data vacuum for some faceless corporation. I've got Home Assistant handling a lot of my stuff now, and I'm moving things over to it and replacing corporate-app-only things with things that can work locally.

[–] DrDeadCrash@programming.dev 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm interested in doing this also. Is there a guide you're following, or would recommend?

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Home assistant has been on a push to be more user friendly. It's gotten quite good, over the last few years. It's not quite to mass deployment levels yet, but it's managed to wrap all the evil parts in easy to use interfaces.

The best bet, to play with it, would be a raspberry pi. There are premade images of home assistant available to install. Stick one on as SD card, and follow the prompts. You'll be amazed at what it can just find on your home network.

[–] DrDeadCrash@programming.dev 3 points 9 hours ago

Cool, I'll throw it on my pi4. Thanks!

[–] frezik@midwest.social 27 points 14 hours ago (17 children)

My rule for smarthome stuff is that it's self-hosted, and it has to have a low-tech way to use it. A light switch can be on Zigbee attached to my Home Assistant server, but it needs to function as just a light switch when the network is down.

Have some old stuff that doesn't follow these rules, but I'm slowly replacing them.

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

All fun and games until you get a power outage and one of your nodes doesn't boot properly which means no quorum to start HAOS which means no lights

But that's what flashlights are for :p

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

That's why my HAOS instance runs on bare metal 😁 (Lenovo M710q, G4560T, 4GB RAM)

[–] 7toed@midwest.social 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yeahh probably the smart move, I went ham acquiring some overkill hardware for relatively cheap, and now the power bill is making that evident 🫠

It has been fun playing with a setup like this, but you definitely don't need 128gb RAM to run the measly services I've got, though game servers would be a blast.. if I ever had time

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I'm slowly converting everything to run on these little 1 liter PCs. I have three so far (four if you count the Mac Mini NAS), and an Optiplex 7050 SFF that's been a bit hotrodded with a 300W XE3 PSU, Precision 3420 CPU cooler, & Noctua fans w/extra intake fan.

I like the Optiplex for obvious reasons, but it's a bit of a power hog with the i7-7700 and 48GB RAM. I haven't measured them individually, but if I had to guess, the Optiplex probably accounts for a solid 1/3 of the power usage in my entire homelab.

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[–] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

I don't agree with this... I use Govee everything and control it through Google .. I can't imagine forgetting a Google password. I don't care much about privacy on my lighting control. Yes everything is over complicated but pick a brand and a control device and you're fine. Before I consolidated I had 4 different lights and controlling apps and if I messed up a stored password I could easily reset one of them using an email addy ...mostly disposable ones

[–] Trollception@sh.itjust.works 17 points 16 hours ago (19 children)

I've had my Phillips hue bulbs for over 10 years now. I own like 20 bulbs and have only had a single failure. Never had any issues with the bulbs. Google Assistant however has let itself go.

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[–] lena@gregtech.eu 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

!lemmysilver

[–] edgesmash@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

!lemmysilver

[–] greenwood@midwest.social 31 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Mr. Bean demonstrating the principle of "it's not stupid if it works".

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