Author here. This is ten years of home automation rules, led by one: nothing core should depend on a vendor's server. Setup core is Tasmota, MQTT and Node-RED on a Pi. I've given this talk a few times and started working on a third for the agentic era. What's the most pointless internet dependency you've found in a device?

▲

tomcatfish an hour ago | parent | next [-]

:( Your notes are probably more fun to read than the generic AI voice. Your actual notes are fun, but seeing the ~extra cruft from an AI writer in every line irritated me enough to quit before the end.

▲

diggernet 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Love your rules.

My personal situation imposes even stricter versions of your #1 and #2:

1. No network, no problem. Anything core to the house has to work with Wi-Fi or automation server shut down.

2. Smart functionality must not remove dumb functionality.

As one example: having a physical switch that controls a light and the switch can be operated by automation is good. Having automation control a light and the switch just tells automation what to do is bad.

This does make things hard sometimes. For instance, your sprinkler controller doesn't pass that bar. In fact the only one I've found so far that has a local API for automation plus full "dumb" on-device control (no Wi-Fi, no app) is RainMachine, and they are gone. If only OpenSprinkler hardware had a touch screen for local UI.

	▲	MostlyStable 21 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I tried to stick to this philosophy, specifically the part about it working even if my local automation server is down, for a long time. But I finally found an automation case where I wanted functionality where I could not simultaneously have the functionality and have the switch continue working when the server was off. Specifically, I wanted the switch to turn on different lights depending on the time of day. In the evenings in early morning I wanted it to turn on the dimmer floor lamps, and during the day, I wanted it to turn on the brighter Center room light. This was not possible without turning the switch from a light turning on device, to an automation activating device. I thought really long and hard about if I was worth the trade off, and in the end I decided that my automation server was only likely to be down for significant periods of time if the power was out and the lights weren't working anyways. If I run into a situation where this becomes a problem for me, I'll reconsider my decision. Which is a great thing about the local control. If I make a decision that I don't like I can just change it.
	▲	WalterBright 22 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The best devices have a local web interface so you can control them with your computer (like how you control your router). Unfortunately, almost no lan connected devices sport such an interface.

▲

WalterBright 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've bought multiple internet radios over the decades. The demise of them is always its dependency on a remote server which enables setting which stations you want to listen to.

The remote server always goes away after a couple years go by, and the radio is only capable of playing the stations that were set as presets. Then the preset radio stations go offline, or the URLs for them change.

▲

bluefirebrand an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Basically any appliance is completely ridiculous to require an internet connection imo. When are you going to need to use a stove or dishwasher without being home? What value do you actually get from having a smart fridge that you can view analytics about from your phone?

	▲	skittleson 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		the only useful thing about a smart fridge is whether if it fails.... i hope it would make a noise. One trick i used was a cheap ble temp sensor in the fridge that would report to the BLE adapter of a tasmota device that sends mqtt messages to grafana. then i would get alerts if it was open or something broken. happened a few times!

▲

guhcampos an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This is absolutely great stuff, but I think I caught you red-handed there. Alexa Routines break your fundamental rule!

	▲	skittleson 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Alexa is really convenient. i still think my rules still follow as long as core systems are still controllable offline. Which I really try to achieve through use of tablet on the wall (local wifi is still offline access in my head)