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by nerdsniper 28 days ago
OTOH it would be super cool if we normalized wiring light sockets, outlets, and wall switches with low-voltage ethernet cable and had a simple way for mass-produced lightbulbs to plug into a wired network.

Too many problems to count:

- High voltage and low voltage wiring should generally be kept separated for safety reasons. Light sockets could probably be moved to low-voltage-only to power just LED bulbs but this wouldn't work for wall outlets which need to be 120-240V. Plus I like having the option to install 120V halogen bulbs wherever color rendering really matters!

- We'd also have to "normalize" having a separate network just for IoT stuff that only communicated in/out of its own LAN boundary via an actually-secure gateway with generic open protocols. (Pipe dream without government enforced standards similar to or piggy-backing on building codes)

- (Most) electricians notoriously suck at understanding low-voltage wiring.

- Probably more that I'm too lazy to think about but these two are already show stoppers for the next 10-30 years.