It's not often that the most privacy conscious choice is also the most reliable, easy to use, and flexible option for something, but Home Assistant checks all the boxes.
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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I just started using it myself here very recently and so far I've only set up one automation but it is very useful. What I am truly excited to see is the Works with Home Assistant program badge. That way I can look at a device that I'm interested in and see whether or not I should spend my money on it. I don't want anything to do with a device that I need a fucking cloud account for.
There shouldn’t be smarthomes. It’s a really bad idea.
It's okay if you're fully in control and it's built with redundancy.
Nah, I don’t think smarthomes are a technology that is good in the slightest.
The only benefits I’m aware of are automated operation of appliances and more efficient climate control. Both are basically ways to negatively impact people’s lives by increasing the amount of suffering that’s acceptable in daily life and make modular, unsustainable, climate vulnerable housing economically viable respectively.
I’m open to learning if there’s more, it’s just a repulsive, regressive, screw-turning concept on the face of it.
How can you hate on smart homes, when it's a concept in itself with 100 different use cases.
My home cuts of the power for my standby devices when I leave it and nobody's there. It makes sure everything is locked at night. It literally saves me 100's on heating.
My light dims and uses less power when the sun is down. Good for the eyes and the bill.
It can run my washing machine when power is cheapest.
So now, if it does all that, making sure less ressources are spent, both money and CO2, and privacy is good, then why on earth you even hate it, let alone have an opinion about it. Why you care?
I appreciate you on this one but I'm not sure if arguing with "stupid_asshole69" on the Internet is the best use of your time my friend 😜
I could see your point if we completely ignore the circumstances surrounding the technology. The best metaphor I can think of is star trek. It has to be envisioned as a post scarcity environment for the technology that’s portrayed to be positive and not some new kind of repression or extraction.
If we lived in a world where the labor saving technologies that comprise smarthomes weren’t used to justify getting worked to the bone even more than you already are or to make it acceptable for energy prices to do anything but rise or to continue to allow climate inappropriate bottom of the barrel housing to be built in places like phoenix then I’d have a different view.
I see smarthome technology as a relatively simple tool, but my understanding doesn’t stop at the recognition that “it’s a hammer”, it extends out to “who is swinging it?” and “why do my fingers hurt so much?”.
It’s just really easy to make that criticism of smarthomes because all their benefits are easily, cheaply and efficiently replicated:
Put your standby stuff on power strips and turn the little red switch off when you’re not using them. Alternately, don’t do this because they’re designed to be left on standby, the power drain is negligible (even if you completely dismiss my reply and block me, buy a kill-a-watt type meter so you can know for sure) and stuff like the ps4 can get fucked up if you turn it off without telling it you’re about to.
Make checking your doors part of your nightly routine. It doesn’t matter a bit if all the doors are locked if one of them is not quite shut or the electronic lock fails for some reason. Before you say you’ve never seen that happen, I have seen it happen hundreds of times in my workplace.
I’m willing to concede that minmaxing the hvac is something smarthome technology is good at, but it can be implemented by itself, apart from the smarthome ecosystem and can be replicated by opening and closing windows, putting on or taking off a coat or just - and I know I’ve ambiguously alluded to this already - not having a climate inappropriate home to start with.
You can get the same effect of dimming lights by switching from bright overheads to dim lamps instead. It’s really cozy.
A few summers ago our local power company sent around mailers asking us to “beat the peak”. We put the washing machine on one of those old electromechanical timers and set to go off in a few hours and turned it on. The dryer was harder, because it requires a button press but we just put up a clothesline in the yard instead of messing with some simple way to automate it. You don’t wanna be running that thing while no one’s around anyway.
All simple, sub 5 minute tasks that give a better understanding and arguably a better routine to the household and require little to no computing or automation. Except for not putting stickbuilt houses in places that they don’t make sense. I can’t help you there.
To reiterate: the technology itself isn’t the problem, it’s the world it’s a component of that makes me dislike it. In a just and sustainable world smarthome shit would be good.