this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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A big problem is things tied unnecessarily to an internet service. We need to educate people that there may be alternatives and we need our purchasing decisions to support that. For example, most home automation stuff should NOT require or use any internet.
The article calls it “software tethering”. If any support commitments encourage manufacturers to stop that, we’ll all be better off. Let’s start with requiring users be clearly notified of software tethering, so they know what they’re buying
In October of last year my mom came home from the ICU, now unable to get out of bed. I replaced all the bulbs in the house with smart bulbs and put the fans on a little smart plug thing. It made me really like the idea of home smart home features, but I'm not techy. They're just Alexa enabled for her to use with the fire stick, and I use google home on my phone for em.
Can you offer any advice for ones that don't require internet? Every time our power goes out (any time there's a storm), I have to go around and reset them while they flash at me like the worst night club
Philips Hue have the ability to work without internet and it seems like a lot of people like them, though they are kind of expensive. I've used Sengled bulbs before and they were fine, not sure how well they work without internet. But I think for you the problem isn't the bulbs reliance on the internet, they just seem very forgetful. For both Hue and Sengled, when the power comes back on after being out, they just start working again on their own after about a minute. No need to reset anything.
The main non-techy issue even for locally controllable smart things is that the big voice assistants are all entirely internet dependent. So even though Hue bulbs are technically controllable locally if your internet is out, Alexa and Google Home both won't be able to do anything with them.
I believe some Echo devices can control Zigbee devices locally - however I didn’t really pay attention since I’m not interested in that