Why dumb devices rule the smart home: a cautionary tale from Apple's HomeKit

[jay]

Fair enough. I read it again and the first sentence can be interpreted differently with the context you just offered.

I’ll just re-direct my sentiment to actual Apple haters, and retain my excitement for what I think will eventually be a great product.

[endoplasmic]

I backed this for a lot of the reasons you mentioned: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1425492550/sesame-your-key-reinvented/

[tgauchat (ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)]

The media apparently doesn’t have a clue as to what HomeKit really is, especially in relation to other platforms.

This Wired piece puts HomeKit in the same bucket as Brillo (ummm… Nope!) and claims you need to spend $1000 for a basic smart home.

Wired is for somewhat “gadget aware” consumers, isn’t it?

Here's What We Know About Apple's Plans for Smart Homes

[tonyfalcone (Ajf)]

JD if you don’t mind my asking, how do you type? Do you use Siri or any type of voice control to do things?

[JDRoberts]

@tonyfalcone

JD if you don’t mind my asking, how do you type? Do you use Siri or any type of voice control to do things?

It’s all voice. Voice dictation on the iPad, mostly. Dragon on the laptop occasionally. I can use a knuckle tap on the iPad for some things. Hey Siri to launch stuff. (My iPad is always plugged in.) Like most quads, I also use a switch device.

This Wall St Journal video shows how a person without functional hands uses a touchscreen.

http://tinyurl.com/nd6vxa3

Tecla Shield Reconnects Injured to Mobile Devices

Voice is the reason my posts tend to be longer than most people’s, but in short paragraphs. That’s a typical dictation style.

As far as voice command of devices goes, much discussion here:

Voice Command Solution - Discussion

Hey everyone, I am sure many of you have heard of Ivee (helloivee.com). I personally don’t own one, but it did make me do some thinking. For them to achieve integration with SmartThings, it would appear they have to communicate with the SmartThings cloud. Is this correct? Have we heard of any way to do this officially as of yet? Here is where I am going with this…: My dream would be to put 5+ Raspberry Pi’s in my house, with a good bi-directional mic, and a wifi dongle. Toss on a simple “always listening app” and basically build a voice recognition app using one of the many cloud-based voice recognition api’s. I look at the products like Ivee, and in some ways I feel that they are too ambitious with trying to integrate into 100 solutions, they are trying to do too much with having a pr…

[tonyfalcone (Ajf)]

Thanks JD, that’s pretty amazing stuff. I don’t use Siri that often, I still find it pretty lacking in many areas, especially when compared to Google Now, or (from what I’ve heard) Amazon’s Echo. But they’re saying Siri will be getting a big upgrade in iOS 9.

[JDRoberts]

Amazon Echo’s far field voice recognition is simply amazing (and I use a lot of voice recognition). Understands everybody who comes to the house across almost the whole first floor. It’s the main way we control lights now. Can’t wait for ST integration, several people are working on it.

First Methods for Integrating Echo and SmartThings

BREAKING NEWS AUGUST 21 Official Echo integration is here! And it works great! Please see the new FAQ devoted just to the official SmartThings/Echo integration: And below is the original FAQ showing the various kinds of integration available before the Official version was available. But unless you’re running your own server and want to hack a bunch of stuff, just look at the official one, it’s fantastic. I am quadriparetic, so voice control is very important to me. And I am amazed at the quality of the Amazon Echo farfield voice recognition technology. So I’ve been keeping a close eye on the current state of unofficial integration. I got mine for $99 through the invitation process. It was a several month wait and you needed to be a prime member. It is now available to anyone to o…

The Echo is a good example of an expensive, big, mains-powered device. That may well prove to be the future for many types of home automation. But it’s a real shift from the smaller-cheaper-battery-powered direction of the last few years.

[Glen_King]

@scottinpollock

IMHO, the ideal device is powered, with battery backup for at least a day or two (ideally a couple of weeks). While there is appeal for cheap, battery op’d devices, I am not sure I want to see the system designed around their limitations.

I would much prefer instant communication and programmable behavior that smarter, powered devices would bring. When you design for limited cloud traffic and limited power use by devices, you are depriving a home automation system of what it needs most to work well… immediate, and up to the second feedback.

Got no love for sitting in the driveway waiting for my presence sensor to log me home before opening the garage door. Before this was automated, I pressed a single button when I hit my street that had the door opened by the time I reached the driveway. This is hardly the improvement necessary to get the average Joe to install HA.

Sorry to necro… but this is a great post.

First: Certainly were I building new right now, I would seek powered sensors with battery backup. Changing batteries is a PITA; it is ultimately energy-inefficient with the cost of batteries.

Second, the garage door: it’s ridiculous to wait on a door to open because the automation has not yet kicked on! I’ve posted before about how automation is not necessarily smart. That would be one of those instances. ‘Smart’ is telling Alexa or google to open the garage door.

[Navat604 (R.)]

@Glen_King

Sorry to necro… but this is a great post.

First: Certainly were I building new right now, I would seek powered sensors with battery backup. Changing batteries is a PITA; it is ultimately energy-inefficient with the cost of batteries.

Second, the garage door: it’s ridiculous to wait on a door to open because the automation has not yet kicked on! I’ve posted before about how automation is not necessarily smart. That would be one of those instances. ‘Smart’ is telling Alexa or google to open the garage door.

Pretty sure you could do it now. Just a matter of how much are you willing to pay?