(Probably Stupid) Smart Home Question

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by PS90

Obviously, there are people who do think that turning a switch on or off
with an app or your voice IS worth it, or this entire industry would have fizzled-out a few years ago.

It's more like a lot of people are invested in the technology (emotionally, financially, etc)...
and needing for it to eventually being worth it down at the residential consumer level.

There was a time that a similar argument was over BetaMax or VHS.
Which one of those won?

[Nonesuch]

Unless you really cheap out, your "smart" light switches will work just fine as a normal light switch, you can walk over and turn it on manually if you're feeling like a Luddite. Or you can tie it into occupancy sensors, alarm systems, etc.

Originally Posted by MrRational

It's more like a lot of people are invested in the technology (emotionally, financially, etc)... and needing for it to eventually being worth it down at the residential consumer level.

There are legitimate applications for "home automation" (which covers a lot more ground than just having app/voice control over a couple of light bulbs).

Originally Posted by turf3

What do you want to do with these supercalifragilistic-expialidocious computerized-smartphone-linked-WiFi light switches that you can't do by simply walking over to the light switch and turning it on or off?

Sure, when you're building a new house, you can design in multi-way switches so the control for lights is where it needs to be, but it's not so easy in an existing house. Old houses often have sub-optimal switch placement, sometimes even dangerously so -- at my old place, the only switch for the lights on the basement stairs was located at the bottom. Not great when going down with a big laundry basket.

I have exterior lighting all around the house, but the switches are in weird spots. By replacing these with "smart" switches, I can hit one button and instantly switch from "elegant accent lighting" to "full prison yard". I can have this happen automatically, for example when a vehicle is detected on the driveway after sunset, or anytime the fire/alarm is triggered.

While the cheapest solutions are "cloud tethered" and only work via the Internet, there are approaches which avoid this and don't share your information with Amazon & Google.

[javatom]

Ben there, done that. Now I make my houses as stupid as possible. All the time I used to spend setting up, trouble shooting and repairing, I now spend by sipping a cool beverage on my porch.