[r3bl]

I use NFC tags as a trigger. I simply hover my phone over a tag and an action happens in the background. It feels much better than dealing with separate apps and always-on microphones.

> If IoT wants to move away from the current status as expensive, unreliable gimmicks, companies need to stop focusing on the idea of separate smart things and start thinking in terms of smart homes

Why would they do that? They do want to offer you a smart home, but a home that's entirely under their control, using either their own gadgets or compatible ones (so that they could charge other companies for the compatibility stickers).

There are plenty of protocols, and plenty of apps that support a protocol or two, but not every. Home Assistant and this project from Mozilla attempt to bridge that gap. I don't understand what Mozilla sees in an attempt to fight an established open source project like Home Assistant, but they probably have a reason or two. Such reasons are not yet obvious to me, so I'm going to continue using Home Assistant for my purposes. Every device I've purchased works locally, so I have one device that hosts the server, one interface that controls it (Progressive Web App, to be more precise), and NFC tags plastered over my apartment that trigger stuff without the need to even look at that one interface.

That's the sweet spot for me and it really feels like the future is already here. My choice of gadgets is rather limited (since I refuse to purchase any IoT device that can't be made to work locally), but so far I've yet to face a problem that I'm unable to find a solution for.

[wongarsu]

> I use NFC tags as a trigger. I simply hover my phone over a tag and an action happens in the background.

That reads like what you really want is a regular physical button or switch.

I think a lot of devices suffer because they try to fit the IoT label instead of just being a smart device without internet or even phone connectivity.

[r3bl]

You'd think so, but NFCs are far easier to program and re-program.

One of the NFC tags on my work desk triggers "focus mode". Lights change to bright white, a (non-local) radio station starts playing in the background, and the volume gets auto-adjusted to something bearable. That saves me like 20 clicks or so on two remotes.

It's all about those small victories that save me a few minutes each day, all without a need to route cables throughout the apartment. When I want to re-purpose an NFC tag, it takes me maybe 30 seconds to do so (instead of having to re-route the cables throughout my home). Physical buttons can do one task and one task only. NFC tags can trigger as many tasks on as many devices as I want them to.

If my Internet goes down, things still work. If I don't want to use my phone, I don't have to (I can achieve the same things from my laptop). I don't have to worry about turning shit off when I leave my home, Home Assistant does that for me (if an nmap scan doesn't detect any trusted device on my network). If a company whose gadget I'm using goes bankrupt, things are still perfectly usable.

[wongarsu]

There's nothing inherent about a button that prevents it from being programmable, and Phillips even has a battery-less remote that could as well be wall mounted.

[r3bl]

You mean like this one? https://www2.meethue.com/en-us/support/dimmer-switch

I know about it. I have it. I've used it as a trigger before. I've replaced it with NFCs because they are less of a hassle to repurpose. The dimmer still serves its original purpose, while NFC tags are used for everything else.

[aksss]

I mean, that's what insteon buttons with an isy994 are all about right? The button push just tells the controller "I was pushed" and whatever you tell the controller to do with that information is what gets done. The cool thing is you can have a bank of six buttons in a standard 1-gang box format. Seems easier and less complex than NFC and a phone, unless you're using the phone as a form of authentication (something possessed), whereas a physical button is like anonymous/no authentication.