Smart home?

Knoyleo wrote:I think the only smart devices I have are my phone and a couple of sonos speakers. The phone I'm fine with, and while the Sonos speakers are nice speakers and the way they connect to stuff is generally very convenient, they can also be a massive pain in the arse. Like when you want to put the radio on, but there's an update due and the only thing the app will let you do is install the update. I just want to listen to the radio while I'm making tea and breakfast, not have to do that. They also didn't play nice with a previous router I had when we were with Virgin media. You'd open the app and it would show you one speaker but not the other, even when both were connected and playing music or sound from the TV. This problem has disappeared with a new router from Vodafone, but still annoying.

I have a smart meter, but I'm not counting that, as I really don't know what's smart about it.

Edit: oh yeah smart TV and set top box, mainly just used for the built in on demand apps.

I got a Sonos for the kitchen.

While the sound from it is nice I found it to be the most unreliable, finicky piece of gooseberry fool I've ever had to deal with. Constantly disappearing from the network. Got about two years of shitty, unreliable connection and poor app integration before I just sacked the thing off for my Echo Dot which was sitting doing nothing. Doesn't sounds as nice, but I've not had a single problem with it. It just works when I want it to.

Sonos are overpriced pieces of crap and I've been so soured on them I'm never giving them another penny.
I can't speak to other models, but the one I have has absolutely no kind of input other than the network. Like a 3.5mm aux/Line In jack input on the back would have killed them. At least then I could have used it as a dumb speaker. But no. Instead it's a strawberry floating paperweight.

Literally one phillips hue light in my daughters room. I can change the brightness or turn it off on my phone without having to go through every time she wants it changed.

Prototype wrote:Literally one phillips hue light in my daughters room. I can change the brightness or turn it off on my phone without having to go through every time she wants it changed.

Maybe she just wants to see you.

rinks wrote:

Prototype wrote:Literally one phillips hue light in my daughters room. I can change the brightness or turn it off on my phone without having to go through every time she wants it changed.

Maybe she just wants to see you.

Sometimes yes, most of the time no.

Trelliz wrote:

Dowbocop wrote:I can also say "Sex Mode": the bedroom will go purple and Careless Whisper will start playing - hasn't worked yet

Given that song's lyrics are all about infidelity I can see why.

He didn't say who he was having sex with.

I just see most of the stuff as a huge waste of electric.
I don't need my house to be run by a computer.

Winckle wrote:

Trelliz wrote:

Dowbocop wrote:I can also say "Sex Mode": the bedroom will go purple and Careless Whisper will start playing - hasn't worked yet

Given that song's lyrics are all about infidelity I can see why.

He didn't say who he was having trying sex with.

Nest hub, smart bulbs in the living room (one doesn't work due it being connected to a dimme rso need to fix that), smart speaker in each other room, camera for new employees / burglary risk / insurance, Chromecast Ultra.

I find it helps me avoid using a smartphone much more than it augments using one, because I don't. Mostly used for playing music, putting stuff on TV again without having to touch a phone or tablet, set reminders, book appointments, set timers for cooking, set alarms, play relaxing sounds for sleep etc and ask basic questions, directions, opening times, and other things that would put me on a smartphone and then once I'm there I'm strawberry floated thanks for evil by design and ADHD.

I think verbally as well, so saying things is just easier than doing them a lot of the time. It's also possible to ring the entire house as I sometimes misplace my phone or it's dead. My partner rang me from Korea once and it worked fine, again no matter where I was or what my phone was doing (Internet wise, that's off 100% of the time).

So in essence, it keeps me relatively hooked up to the world without having to have a smartphone in my hand 30% of the time, which can strawberry float off.

For those people who use a smartphone, all arguments with respect to websites/Google/Apple/whatever listening in are moot. If it can do that it's already doing that.

Plus it's processed locally and sent like any other Google search, unless you never use that, in which case fair enough, but I doubt it. You can delete your data, and if you are worried about getting hacked, you have bigger problems. It's a trade-off yeah. You can implement an LLM locally on a raspberry pi etc if you want to but centrally accessing all that stuff on your own infrastructure is a time sink I don't have. Maybe when I was 14.

I've set up an Alexa routine so my wife can turn her make up lamp on via voice. I've got it set up to say that she looks beautiful (because let's be honest, the whole Careless Whisper thing hasn't worked!), but I was wondering if I could make it say a random phrase from a text file full of nice things rather than the same thing every day. Don't know if anyone is aware of how to do this...

Dowbocop wrote:I've set up an Alexa routine so my wife can turn her make up lamp on via voice. I've got it set up to say that she looks beautiful (because let's be honest, the whole Careless Whisper thing hasn't worked!), but I was wondering if I could make it say a random phrase from a text file full of nice things rather than the same thing every day. Don't know if anyone is aware of how to do this...

Never used Alexa routines before, but can it do API requests? If so, there are loads of APIs around for silly stuff like this, or maybe even use ChatGPT.

I think you definitely don't want to wake up one day only to find your life locked in with chatGPT.