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by devwastaken 392 days ago
smart homes dont work because wifi doesnt work. almost every user is running low quality hardware or does not deploy a meshing AP to reach the devices. the devices are not resilient to lost packets and high latency

just change a wifi ssid with smart devices in a home and watch it all crumble. users want nothing more than to get rid of “smart” once they realize its not smart enough to figure out how to change wifi networks.

endless “updates”, rent seeking, breaking changes, account setup - its not worth it.
6 comments
alwa 391 days ago
You should check out Home Assistant and the vast range of ecosystems it integrates with! There a dazzling range of radio standards and manufacturers that have considered the problems you’re describing.

You could (and I understand many people do) run an entire smart home without any WiFi at all, if you’d like.

Home Assistant is free and open-source, and I understand from his comment above that their founder generously donated the project to a non-profit foundation to sustain it that way for the future.

Which is awfully reassuring with respect to the rent-seeking incentives you’re worried about.

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stavros 392 days ago
You don't have to use WiFi, this whole argument is just invalid. Use Zigbee instead.
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magicalhippo 391 days ago
Only my "smart" water heater communicates over wifi. The rest use Z-wave or Zigbee. I know at least Z-wave has from the start had the ability for devices to be programmed to operate without the controller.

So if the controller falls out or you don't have one you can still have your buttons toggle lights etc. Controller or no controller, in either case it works just fine without wifi.

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XorNot 391 days ago
Who is "just" changing their Wifi SSIDs?

Like my parents wifi SSID was set when I was in high school and 20 years later it's the same.

But if it did change, all the devices just setup a temporary AP and wait to be told the new one and the password (the temporary AP is also password protected).

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Hikikomori 392 days ago
There are WiFi alternatives.
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Calwestjobs 392 days ago
when you last complained about Torvalds rent seeking lol.
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