[Oblitio]

You might deprive yourself from an interesting experience i had:

My IoT light switches made the mental model of 'lightswitch on the door' to 'lightswitch were i need it'.

It also allows you to actually have a light atmosphere which enhances how you use light. This is a stark contrast to a friend of mine who sits in a very bright and uncomfortable room.

Using Alexa or Google for lights, timer and reminder also gave me insight on how much different/more natural a voice interface is and were we might be with this technology in a few years.

[mrweasel]

> 'lightswitch were i need it'.

That would certainly be a plus. I have at least one missing lightswitch in my kitchen, and adding it would be rather complicated. Still it seems like overkill to invest in IoT to solve the issue of my lightswitch being 1,5m from where I'd want it to be.

The whole "light atmosphere" is something I already have, I just have to go around and turn on the lamps manually. As for the Alexa, Google Assistent or even Siri integration... I trust none of the company behind those technologies enough that I'd allow them to have a microphone in my home, constantly listening. It is beyond creepy.

[Oblitio]

I'm a software engineer. Who else to play around with those type of things than us?

I 'setup' my lights and don't go around to switch them on. I just stop doing that. With hue i have always a specific scene active. For watching projector, eating, learning etc. I constantly play around with the lights. Its actually quite fun.

And yes of course i would love to have a local ML chip and some open language model. But i'm also running around with my smartphone. Friends work at mobile provider, they know were you are. The android os is 'trustworthy' but i still have a microphone in it and having it around me all day.

Knowing that those activation words can't just be deactivated, makes it, in my opinion, similiar if not more secure than my smartphone. So that wasn't a big deal for me either.