Comment on How AI broke the smart home in 2025
Tinidril@midwest.social 2 days ago
The smart home has been broken for over a decade. From day one the goal was always to lock in users to an ecosystem and invade their privacy. Actually providing useful and reliable products didn’t even register as a goal.
The one way to do decent home automation is with locally run He Assistant and Zigbee or Z-Wave. It should only rely on the Internet for resources that are truly non-local like weather reports.
Thread/Matter might also be becoming an option. At this point I’m still watching to see what they do with it.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Yeah, Home Assistant is the way to go, but it’s been a slow progression because every company is more interested in proprietary lock-in than trying to push for standards like Z-Wave. It’s cloud-based bullshit everywhere, which is exactly the wrong kind of thing for in-home privacy. There needs to be a better push for standard APIs and internal wireless protocols.
This shit should be fucking easy. HVAC systems are still wired like it’s the 1930s, and all it takes is one company to just swoop in and create an all-in-one solution that uses standards and monitors inside/outdoor/room temps, humidity, occupancy, etc. It could control smart vents to close off rooms that aren’t in use, turn on humidity systems when it’s too low and isn’t too cold outside, hook into other rules from HA.
Doing the right thing could earn them millions, but nobody wants to bother actually doing it.