I once had an engineering professor who told what is probably an apocryphal story of a mechanical engineering professor back in the 1950s who kept an aquarium with goldfish in the lab. To pass the course, you had to build one device that added value to the aquarium (light, heat, pump, feeder, whatever) and leave it running for one week unattended. There was only one requirement to pass: “Don’t kill the fish.”
Like I said, probably not a true story, but it made the point. We used to run DKTF tests on new systems/devices in beta…could it run hands off for a week with no catastrophic failures.
I suggest giving a plastic toy fish to everyone who decides how the engineering budget gets spent, and then to all the engineers, as a reminder that “reliable” doesn’t mean the same thing as “will work OK again if you reinstall.”
The first priority of any home automation system should be the simplest:
Don’t Kill the Fish.
