No Working at Home

After my extended diatribe on automation and the 'Post-Work' society over the last few weeks, it has occurred to me to question the role of home automation in this transition.  After all, this blog started because of my interest in smart home technology and the promise of consumer level IoT.  So how does a connected home fit into this transition?   How does having a automated light switches and thermostats and shelf-top voice assistants help get us (me) towards a 'Life Well Lived'?

The Ocarina of Control

The inspiration for this week's post comes from a reddit post. Or repost that got better traction.  For those of you who don't follow links in articles (shame on you... so I'll embed it below), these show a video/animated gif of a guy who can control his home through the tunes he plays on an Ocarina.  And that is trés cool.

But how long will he live with it?

Our intrepid YouTuber, 'Sufficiently Advanced', no doubt did this for a few reasons:

• As an exercise in programming
• To see if he could
• To jump on the 'Breath of the Wild' coat tails (which he admits in the video comments)
• Because it is insanely cool

However, I argue that he did not do it because it is PRACTICAL.  For most of us, home automation is not about being cool (or at least not only about being cool... in the same sense that squealing the tires is cool), it's about making our homes easier to live in.  Setting aside the massive security breach around whistling at the window, this project does not make living easier.

Remote Control or Automation

Using an Ocarina to control your home requires you to 1) have an Ocarina, 2) know how to play an Ocarina, and 3) hope no one else with those first two requirements know where you live.  Even with all three of those met, it is nothing more than a fancy remote control for the home.  In fact, most 'Smart' home systems are nothing more than fancy remote controls, albeit with app-to-hub authentication and fewer wires hanging around.  It reminds me of a post I wrote for Qioto last September that focused on the mental progression of a smarthome DIYer.  Because you won't click on that either, the TL;DR is:

The ultimate goal should be for the home to know what you want without having to reach in your pocket for anything, but that not all home systems are right for that level of automation.

It is not yelling at Alexa or the Google Assistant to "Turn on the Kitchen Lights."  That is useful, but not automated.  Instead, the system should know that you are in the kitchen and that it is dark outside so it should turn on the lights for you.  Then turn them off when you leave (or maybe a minute or two after you leave).

Not Quite There

To do that requires that there be motion sensors and smart switches and a controlling hub, all of which exist, but none of which really work 100% reliably.  The motion sensor needs to be in the right place, or there needs to be many of them to cover the area.  All of the lights need to be connected to smart switches and those all need to be linked to the motion sensors and a sunrise-sunset timer via the hub to make that work.  Alternatively, this can be worked out by location mapping our phone locations within the home, but GPS doesn't work well inside and the consumer version only resolves to about five meters (and Wi-Fi location mapping is not really there yet).

All of these things will become easier.  Many of the better systems (ones where the owners can afford to hire professionals to constantly troubleshoot it) can do it already.  Even the DIY systems say they can do it, but my experience is that they can only do it in very controlled conditions.

Until the reliability of smart home systems improves, take your smartphone (or Ocarina) with you.  It's dangerous to go alone.

Qioto

Source

Today, I want to take a second to make a more personal post.  This will be less about the Internet of Things (however I choose to define it) and more about this blog and IoT information resources.  Fair warning.

Straight Outta Nowhere

A couple of months ago, I received direct message via twitter from some dude asking if I was interested in writing for his up and coming website.  After some back and forth, I decided that, yes, I have the time for this.  More importantly, as I learned more about what they were trying to do, I realized that I wanted to write for Qioto whether I had the time or not.  (Then I was employed, so time really was an issue.  Now I'm not traditionally employed and the actual writing is not much of an issue.)

Home Chain

Blockchain This

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Blockchain recently because there have been several articles about how it might be the answer to Internet of Things security concerns among many, many other things.  Companies with names like Microsoft, Intel and IBM have started whole divisions and more, betting big that Blockchain style distributed security is how the world will work.  It is the ultimate panacea that will save us all from ourselves.

That's (Smart) Entertainment, Part 2: Devices

Previously, On the Internet of Schmoid...

Last week, I blew through nearly seven hundred words to come to the inescapable conclusion that WiFi changed the world.  That Sonos was the first real example of how the Internet of Things was going to change the custom installation world.  And all of that was really earth shaking news to all of you.  But only if you haven't ventured out of your 1990's home theater watching endless loops of the Matrix in the last two decades.  So, um yeah.  Let's move on.

This week, I'm going to step out on a limb and make some actual hard core recommendations.  Two to be precise: Harmony and Chromecast.  Whether these are things that you should buy for yourself or not, that I leave up to you, but they should be part of the consideration set.  The reason I'm going to focus on these two devices in not because they offer the best picture or sound or are even best in their class.  What's more important it that they changed how people think about their entertainment control.

Smart Power

Only As Smart As What It Eats

One of the basics of any Smart Home that is often just assumed is that all of our switches and bulbs and voice activated toilet brushes run on electricity.  To take it farther, most of them control electricity whether by turning a light on or off, activating an appliance or changing your home's temperature when a presence is detected.  All of these things are either starting or stopping the flow of electrons through out your home.  These electrons are the food that your house eats.

But Schmoid, I can hear you say, electrons are electrons.  There aren't some that are better for your home than others, right?  There aren't high protein electrons or gluten-free electrons.  There's just electrons and they don't change on any level whether they were generated by burning coal or exposing photo-voltaic panels to sunlight.  You are correct, I reply.  But electrons aren't the only aspect here.  There's also 'Smart'.

Applied Appliances

Big and Manual

Those big home appliances: the washer, the dryer, the refrigerator, the range and the dishwasher.  They seem such natural devices to connect to a home network and then out to the internet.  After all, they are big and stationary and plugged in and perform tasks that take significant time.  Would it not be great if, when connected, they did... what?

And that's the challenge: the use case.  There is not one that is truly compelling for any of these.  The manual nature of the tasks that these appliances help perform force us to be present at them, using them, monitoring them.  There is no robotic arm that will move the laundry from the washer to the drier and then fold your clothes and put them away for you.  The dishes still need to be loaded and then unloaded.  The same with the food in the refrigerator.  All of these things require us to be there and be doing.  The result is that it is just as easy (easier?) to press the buttons on the appliance as it is to reach into a pocket, open an app, wait for it to load and then do exactly. the. same. thing.

Walking the Open Path

Not an Apology

The a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post bagging on SmartThings.  While I stand by what I wrote there, I want to clear up any misconceptions that I might have created.

I am a SmartThings fan.  It is as a fan that I feel compelled to point out issues when I see them in the hopes that I can remain a fan.  Stability issues and developer complaints are not fun and no one on any side of the community (corporate, developer, end-user) wants them.  On the other hand, these issues are the result of one of the core reasons that I am a fan of SmartThings: openness.