[EvanAnderson]

The "couple a stepper motor to a shaft" API is so much better than any "smart" appliance API.

Speaking more seriously, I wish classes of appliances would expose some simple analog and digital interface pins in a standardized configuration to let users choose whatever automation or monitoring hardware they want. HVAC equipment does this with standardized thermostat terminals. I'd love to see that on other types of appliances, too.

The manufacturer's crappy "app" that will inevitably be abandoned and require keeping some old phone / tablet in good "health" lest you lose the "smart" functionality (or worse, any use of) the appliance.

Then current way of putting the "smarts" inside the appliance is just planned obsolescence and a recipe for all of us being eyeball deep in ewaste.

[danudey]

It always kind of blows my mind that I keep seeing "smart TVs" which have a bunch of integration options for high-end AV installations (rich people's houses, etc.) but no API that you can integrate with to just handle toggling channels/inputs/power states/volumes.

(I did get my last Sony Bravia integrated with Homekit so that I could control inputs, volume, etc. via the Home app, but that's not really what I'm looking for).

Give me an HTTPS API, require me to authenticate devices on the TV itself before it accepts their commands, and just let me do whatever. Default it to off and make it a hidden setting, but yeah just let me do the thing without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars for some professional installation to integrate with hardware I don't have and can't afford.

[yegle]

I think the standard control for TV is the RS-232C port on the TV.

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/serial-projector-contr... from a quick search.

[mnw21cam]

One of the meeting rooms here at work has a couple of big panels for displaying presentations, and they're regularly misinterpreting noise on some line or other and changing their brightness/contrast/etc settings. It's highly annoying. I imagine there's some kind of data line plugged into the TVs which is picking up interference and causing them to freak out.

[EvanAnderson]

I inherited an old Sharp LCD TV that has a serial port. I did some digging and discovered I can power it on and off thru the serial port (amongst other commands). It serves a role in my home where it needs to be on part of the day. Turning it on and off via serial is very, very nice.

[lmz]

HDMI CEC could do something similar as well.

[GauntletWizard]

I'm surprised we haven't seen a cheap, USB powered Bluetooth RE-232C dongle for home assistant yet.

[05]

Esphome+hdmi breakout board+llm (or use an existing project like [0])

[0] https://github.com/Palakis/esphome-native-hdmi-cec

[manyatoms]

Say if we have a pi laying around, could we emulate this?

[ssl-3]

I guess we could.

Using a whole Raspberry Pi seems like overkill, though: Support for a wide variety of common USB serial chips is already built into esphome. https://esphome.io/components/usb_uart/

Just wire it up with a cheap dev board, build a firmware image for it, and that end of things is... done, right?

[closeparen]

In the professional A/V integration world, it's normal for displays and projectors to have serial port interfaces that can be driven by commands from e.g. a Crestron controller or video switcher. Just not as much of a home/consumer thing.

[wolvoleo]

Most LGs had a serial option, you can plug in a very specific USB to serial module in its USB port and then control it over serial with fairly generic commands.

Not sure if they still have this though. Mine does.

[dfxm12]

Smart TVs don't exist for your convenience. They exist to track your behavior and serve you ads. If they happen to have some hackability, it's an accident or happy coincidence.

[artisinal]

> Give me an HTTPS API, require me to authenticate devices on the TV itself before it accepts their commands

https://gist.github.com/kalleth/e10e8f3b8b7cb1bac21463b0073a...

[kiririn]

TVs running Roku or WebOS do have nice control APIs

https://developer.roku.com/dev/docs/external-control-api

https://github.com/chros73/bscpylgtv

[jayd16]

There's eARC for signalling through HDMI, there's good ol' IR blaster.

For the Bravia, which is probably Android, you can likely write an android service that connects to the web and handles things like volume and maybe channels.

[mikepurvis]

IR blasters are rough because there's no feedback. You're literally just shouting out commands into the void, and heaven forbid if it's something that's a toggle where you don't know which state you're starting from.

[lstodd]

It always blows my mind why those rich people even bother with TVs. I'm not rich by any measure, but still I can afford a projector, a screen and a couple KRK monitors.

[rendx]

It always blows my mind what ideas people have what "rich people" have or want.

I know a few 'filthy rich' people and some of them don't even own any TV or projector, because they're totally content with a laptop screen and don't want their kids to be exposed to TVs. You will not see their wealth unless you know where to look.

Once people have money, most of them begin to think about what actually serves them and what doesn't; if you can afford anything you want, you usually become more humble and selective. There's simply no point in owning things for the sake of owning them any more. Displaying your wealth usually has far more downsides than upsides. What we see is the outliers.

[kelnos]

> What we see is the outliers.

For every ostentatiously visibly rich person, there are 100 quiet ones shaking their heads.

[Alien1Being]

Truly rich people do not have TVs.

Or if they do own a ultra high end TV like a C Seed N1 they hide them away inconspicuously.

https://www.cseed.com/en/indoor-tv/c-seed-n1-tv.html

It is like eating cheap and nasty junk. If you are rich you avoid it or eat it discreetly...Or your acquaintances laugh at you.

[fy20]

If you want slightly more affordable (they have prices listed - starting at £6k for a 48" TV) there's also Bang & Olufsen:

https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/gb/televisions

[Nursie]

That's certainly a feature screen. Not sure it's inconspicuous!

I think I'd likely prefer one of those slightly more discrete OLEDs that rolls up into its box when not in use, like the LG Signature R...

[Guvante]

Multi use rooms require TVs.

Projectors cannot handle ambient light without being a fire hazard.

[ghaff]

>Multi use rooms require TVs

That seems an overstatement. I now have one in my entire house (don't have kids).

There's a fairly large TV panel on one wall in basically a sitting room. Otherwise I just use a computer. A relative basically has TVs in every room. I guess it maybe made sense when he was rebuilding anyway but it still seems excessive to me who might sit down to watch a movie or show but doesn't have live TV.

But, then, I don't have AC either in Massachusetts.

[Guvante]

I was responding to projectors...

[ghaff]

But you also seem to also be saying that a lot of rooms require TVs.

[lstodd]

If you are rich you have single-use rooms. Hell, even I have a sleeping room, a cat room and a hacking room. It's not that expensive. The cat room doubles as a mini-cinema.

Ambient light is dealt with having nice thick blackout drapes.

This is not some rocket science, it was done for like a hundred years.

edit: actually in my former apartment I just bought a roll-down projector screen that completely covered the window. pull down - zero ambient light even in full sunshine.

[vel0city]

Lots of people (even exceptionally wealthy ones) don't want to always have to go to the theater room to go watch something. Lots of people like having the TV on in the same way one might think about having a radio on, its not necessarily a thing they're exclusively focused on.

Take a look at this house:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5619-Walnut-Hill-Ln-Dalla...?

Sure, it has a theater room with probably an incredible projector I'd imagine. It also has a bar with a big TV behind it. It also has a game room with several TVs mounted on the walls. In both of those situations, you wouldn't really want a projection setup. A brighter TV wins out in the end.

I've seen lots of TVs mounted in outdoor living room/kitchen arrangements. They're common to find in living rooms even for people who have separate theater rooms. I've seen them mounted in garages. TVs have uses other than just pure cinematic experiences. And I say that as someone who has personally pushed TV watching to an exclusive space in my home and made a point to not have TVs everywhere. Other people like different things.

[ghaff]

A relative likes to have TV on as ambient background. Drives me a bit crazy but, hey, I'm a guest. Also used to drive me nuts when I was on group trips with a roommate and their first reaction on entering a room was to turn the TV on.

[Kirby64]

> If you are rich you have single-use rooms.

Yes, you might, but you can also have normal multi-use rooms. It's not like being rich somehow makes a 'standard' living room configuration with TV and couch gauche. The likely main difference is the couch is going to be way bigger and the TV is probably 100" inches.

Theater/cinema rooms are a very different experience (lights off, dedicated to watching the thing) compared to a standard lights on TV experience. Two different purposes.

[Guvante]

My point was it isn't as simple as projectors are better.

To be clear I only know this because I was totally going to swap to a projector once I bought a place only to realize they don't work well during the day.

[QuercusMax]

Exactly.

I don't want a "smart" washer / dryer / fridge / toaster. I want a standard interface I can build my own system around, or use someone else's that they've already built.

[Terr_]

I wish lock-in was as taboo as medieval Christian attitudes towards usury.

[inigyou]

But weren't medieval Christian attitudes towards usury a good thing?

[Terr_]

Well, whether is was good isn't really a yes-or-no answer, especially when it got tied together with religious persecution.

I don't think I'd like to reintroduce it exactly as it was, but it's a useful example because:

1. It demonstrates how a strong economic-norm can arise from popular concern that a certain "buyer/borrower beware" arrangement is too prone to abuse.

2. Being unusual to us, it's easier to see and consider, as opposed to existing norms we may take for granted as "just how things are."

3. Since it changed over time (albeit by going away) it indicates that change is possible, and shows those economic rules are socially-constructed.

[Rumudiez]

wouldn't treating lock-in as taboo be a good thing?

[inigyou]

We didn't treat medieval Christian attitudes as taboo

[IncreasePosts]

No, because who would lend money when they would just get the same amount back later, plus the risk of not getting repaid?

[inigyou]

Pretty sure that's the point.

[selcuka]

I guess usury is analogous to lock-in in your parent comment, not the Christian attitudes.

[BetterThanSober]

Not minmaxing rent-seeking behavior and vendor lock is a taboo in our contemporary late stage capitalism society

[amelius]

> Exactly. I don't want a "smart" washer / dryer / fridge / toaster. I want a standard interface I can build my own system around, or use someone else's that they've already built.

I also don't want a "smart" phone. Just give me a normal phone with a standard interface so I can build my own system around it.

[fsckboy]

>HVAC equipment does this with standardized thermostat terminals.

yes, they standardize thermostat terminals, but they should allow additional inputs such as a measure of radiant heat entering through the boundary surfaces. I have to change my thermostat far more because it's a sunny day than I need to because of different outdoor temperatures. Bear in mind, I shouldn't have to change my thermostat at all† (except perhaps between summer and winter)

† perhaps my biggest pet peeve, and I have many, is that 99% of the population—including engineers from top universities—believe that if you feel warm you should imediately max-out your A/C thermostat, and when you get cold you should shut it off. It's a thermostat, its job is to turn on-and-off to maintain a temperature. I never touch the one in my car and it works great. (as mentioned, I need to change the house thermostat, see solar radiance‡ above)

‡ I once had the pleasure to work with a great mechanical engineer, he designed climate systems for art museums and other public and billionaire buildings, and I described my radiant heat problem and he said "that would be super advanced, I've never heard of any systems that do that."⹋

⹋ another one of my pet peeves is footnotes. In general, they require a massive context shift, as if it's not a problem to keep your place while you look in another place. But notice how I've threaded mine so they do not require congnitive leaps.

[necovek]

Does the radiant heat not increase the room temperature, thus affecting the indoor temp sensor? Combining that input with outdoor temperature (and whole weather stations) is totally done.

Similarly, floor heating systems measure temperature of the radiating element (floor) and room temperature to decide if they switch heating on or off.

I generally combine shutters for large windows in controlling the temperature in my automation too (greenhouse effect).

[NoLinkToMe]

> Does the radiant heat not increase the room temperature, thus affecting the indoor temp sensor? C

Yes but the temperature of the air in your home is only one part of it. The other part is the temperature of the radiant heat.

I always understood that the temperature is measured in the shade, and that the difference between shade/sun on a sunny day can be very significant. A temperature of 22 degrees in the sun would feel like standing in the shade at 30 degrees.

Similarly in your home it could very well be that the air is your house is heated up to 22 degrees by the outside air and radiant heat, but additionally if you're under the radiant sun sitting next to a window it can feel much hotter.

Of course if the temperature meter itself is exposed to the radiant heat, it'll likely measure that directly. But mine for example is mounted under a table in a utility corner and gets virtually no radiant heat. I could mount it next to the window to get exposure to the radiant heat of the sun, but then if I'm sitting further away from the windows in the room I get no radiant heat but the sensor does, and it'll think the room is a lot hotter than the experience I'm having.

[fsckboy]

>Does the radiant heat not increase the room temperature, thus affecting the indoor temp sensor?

if that was true, I would not feel the need to adjust the thermostat, i'm basing this on the pattern I've noticed wrt feeling discomfort, and I remember temperature numbers. In general, I find A/C chilly below 75ish and warm (in a humid way) above 77ish so it stands out to me when i feel the need to push the system harder just to maintain comfort

[ssl-3]

That sounds neat.

But it's just a furnace (or just an aircon) that is controlled by a thermostat. In broad strokes, the combined system just turns things on and off (or speeds them up, or slows them down).

So what would it do with that information if it had it?

I mean: Suppose that the thermostat knows, however it knows this, that you're experiencing an uncomfortable level of warmth due to radiant heat in a particular room.

What does it do next? Make everything else in the house (or the zone) cooler to compensate? Something else, instead?

[cucumber3732842]

>HVAC equipment does this with standardized thermostat terminals.

The industry hates this and wants it gone because they want you locked into buying the rest of the stack from them and they want you shelling out $$$ for emergency repairs rather than jumpering it when it fails at a bad time.

[miki123211]

What I want instead is for devices to ship a (tiny) HTML/JS control panel (or its hash if ROM space is limited), using some specialized interface to make requests over BLE or a relay chosen by the user.

The reason we need an app in the first place is 1) customizability, 2) ability to access the device even when out of WiFi range, even when behind carrier-grade NAT and/or a restrictive firewall. A design where the device hosts a simple "server" that makes an outbound connection to a proxy of the user's choosing, likely provided by their smartphone vendor, to receive requests would solve both problems.

[ghaff]

When I had a kitchen fire, I told my electrician "no smart stuff" and he was happy to go along. (I had very little previously.) He did simplify and updated my electrical panel and switches which sort of accreted over time.

[Rebelgecko]

Nowadays it's surprisingly easy to vibecode replacements to some shitty OEM apps (and fix bugs while you're at it). I've had pretty good luck with BT devices, even ones that dont use standard GATTs

[inigyou]

Many smart meters have an LED that blinks every time you consume a watt-hour.

[EraYaN]

And if you happen to be in some parts of Europe they will have a 6 pin connector that will send out data telegrams with all the stuff from the meter. DSMR is the standard that defines it for the Netherlands and port is called P1, seems to be (slowly) spreading. And you can also (wirelessly) pair a gas meter to the electricity meter to read that as well, and the new ones give you up to date data every second. Regulators CAN just make this happen clearly.

[moebrowne]

They also often have a small magnet embedded in the rotor which can be picked up with a reed switch or hall-effect sensor

[atoav]

This is what drives me to sometimes DIY devices instead of buying them. There is so much crap on the market and it gets increasingly hard to tell where the catch is. Does it only work with the manufacturers weird cloud? Which feature(s) do work without? What settings are even possible?

Really simple appliances can be very hard to find, e.g. a desk fan that can be set to spin very slow. Most fans have 3 or 5 speed settings and the lowest is already tenfold too high for my taste. Solution? Get the dumbest fan you can find and speed control the motor yourself.