There’s been a lot of reporting in recent months around Apple’s efforts to expand its footprint in customers’ homes with in-development products like a
How long have people been trying to make smart homes a thing? I feel like this would have happened by now if there was a real mass market for them. It’s not like there is a huge technological impediment to achieving that vision, like there is for VR/AR. In other ways it’s just like VR, a cool idea that’s been around forever, but doesn’t seem to have widespread application or demand.
If apple is really working on this, I consider it further evidence that they are really really struggling to have a substantive vision of the future. Other than incremental improvement of existing products and financially beneficial business maneuvers, what have they done in the last decade other than try to grasp at old sci-fi notions of ‘the future’. I suspect that this can’t change until they get new leadership. Of course, they’ve largely achieved escape velocity in terms of revenue, and are so established now that the money machine will keep working for a long time, independent of any need to be actually visionary.
The biggest problem for smart homes for people who aren’t enormous nerds is that nothing works together with each other in a simple, coordinated way.
And, of course, one of Apple’s biggest strengths is that they’ve built a cohesive ecosystem that, usually, works just fine with limited fiddling.
Right now you’ve either got 14 apps for different shit, or you’ve built something like Home Assistant to try to glue together all this garbage into a coherent solution. I’ve gone that route, and it works mostly, usually, typically, fine-ish.
It’s a shit experience, still, because it’s a pile of random plugins and code from random people glued into something that can’t stop fucking with existing and working features and thus is perpetually in need of updates and maintenance and fiddling.
I wouldn’t bet against Apple being able to make a doorbell, security cameras, light switches, and a thermostat and then turning that into something that actually works properly in homekit, is kept updated, and is easy to configure and use and secure.
That’s really the missing piece that nobody seems to have been interested or willing to go after.
No, the biggest problem with smart homes is that honestly, a switch on the wall that always works, even when you don’t have your phone on you and even in the dark when you are half asleep is a pretty optimal interface for things like lights.
The problem with the idea of smart light switches is that they are only useful if you aren’t already in the room and turning on your light when you aren’t there is a pretty niche use case.
For me, one of my principles is that smart home stuff should work normally , with automation as a bonus. That means smart switches, not bulbs, and generally means no subscriptions or internet dependencies.
Some use cases for my smart switches are:
automatic timers for multiple rooms to make the house appear lived in, or to match my schedule
voice response, in case my hands are full r I don’t want to get up
easier dimming - I can say “set dining room light 20%” faster than I can get up, walk over, and futz with the switch
scenes, such as work mode, to set everything just the way I like it
For example, one of my automations is
half an hour after sunset, turn on dining room light to 50%
if weekday, set to 30% at 9pm, and turn on bedroom light
if weekend, do it an hour later
turn off dining room half an hour later
turn off bedroom light half an hour later
If I’m home, this matches my schedule. If I’m not, maybe I look like I am. Maybe you think this looks needlessly complicated but it’s convenient and it’s not something you can do without smart devices
I don’t doubt apple’s ability to make this work well. I do doubt that there is more than a niche market for it. I also think it’s boring, and for some reason, I still expect apple to do better.
Well no, it’s not enormous, but Amazon is selling a couple million ring doorbells a year, and a couple million more of their cameras.
It’s a sufficiently large market to hop into, especially if you can make a product that’s easier to deal with from an ecosystem perspective than the incumbents, which isn’t something I’d ever bet against Apple managing to pull off.
Having a Ring doorbell is a game changer. If you’ve never used one I understand the reticence.
I do think it will be standard thing in the future. It’s a basic quality of life improvement having a record of door interactions, being able to answer when you are away, even answering without going to the door. It’s easy to understand and appealing to most people.
Also true. I use it in a business setting and it sort of doubles as a security camera. I would love to have the same functionality at home but it would have to be self hosted. Super creepy for a company to be watching my house
In a business setting I assume you are in a country with a low level of privacy protection since I can’t imagine storing images of everyone walking past your door would be compatible with something like the GDPR.
From my understanding it depends on the area covered. Generally it is less of a problem if you e.g. just point it at the opposite wall in front of your apartment door or something similar restrictive and much more of a problem if you point it across the street. Commercial and residential use are also treated differently and there might also be additional problems due to usage of the recordings by Amazon or excessive storage durations.
The home automation field is potentially going through a revolution with the new Matter/Thread standard, that Apple helped define. Devices are much more likely to work together and they should not be calling home. Apple already has the Apple TV and whatever the speaker is that can act as automation hubs, and HomeKit software across their product line to provide nice dashboards, shared across your family, integrate with local Siri, etc.
I took a very cursory look at HomeKit a while ago and found its ability to create complex automations rather limited. For example, our washer & dryer are in our basement, and we can easily forget we have loads of laundry being washed/dryed when we get busy with the rest of our days.
We now have an automation that will text me and/or my wife when a laundry cycle finishes. But it only alerts us if we’re home, and only whoever is home so can go take care of it. If nobody is home when the cycle completes then it waits until one or both of us is home, and then it alerts us. It also won’t alert us overnight but will wait until morning. So if we start a load of laundry at 10pm it doesn’t wake us up at midnight but instead waits until 7am to alert us.
I’ve implemented this in both Home Assistant and Indigo without too much difficulty. Not sure how easy it would be to do in HomeKit though…
That’s one of the more complex automations I’ve created, but I have a few others that are up there as well.
How long have people been trying to make smart homes a thing? I feel like this would have happened by now if there was a real mass market for them. It’s not like there is a huge technological impediment to achieving that vision, like there is for VR/AR. In other ways it’s just like VR, a cool idea that’s been around forever, but doesn’t seem to have widespread application or demand.
If apple is really working on this, I consider it further evidence that they are really really struggling to have a substantive vision of the future. Other than incremental improvement of existing products and financially beneficial business maneuvers, what have they done in the last decade other than try to grasp at old sci-fi notions of ‘the future’. I suspect that this can’t change until they get new leadership. Of course, they’ve largely achieved escape velocity in terms of revenue, and are so established now that the money machine will keep working for a long time, independent of any need to be actually visionary.
The biggest problem for smart homes for people who aren’t enormous nerds is that nothing works together with each other in a simple, coordinated way.
And, of course, one of Apple’s biggest strengths is that they’ve built a cohesive ecosystem that, usually, works just fine with limited fiddling.
Right now you’ve either got 14 apps for different shit, or you’ve built something like Home Assistant to try to glue together all this garbage into a coherent solution. I’ve gone that route, and it works mostly, usually, typically, fine-ish.
It’s a shit experience, still, because it’s a pile of random plugins and code from random people glued into something that can’t stop fucking with existing and working features and thus is perpetually in need of updates and maintenance and fiddling.
I wouldn’t bet against Apple being able to make a doorbell, security cameras, light switches, and a thermostat and then turning that into something that actually works properly in homekit, is kept updated, and is easy to configure and use and secure.
That’s really the missing piece that nobody seems to have been interested or willing to go after.
The lack of cohesion and the fact that everyone who makes camera stuff is shady as shit.
No, the biggest problem with smart homes is that honestly, a switch on the wall that always works, even when you don’t have your phone on you and even in the dark when you are half asleep is a pretty optimal interface for things like lights.
If only they made smart switches you could use, perhaps?
100% agree that smart bulbs are incredibly stupid and you should go with a switch if you want to smartify shit.
The problem with the idea of smart light switches is that they are only useful if you aren’t already in the room and turning on your light when you aren’t there is a pretty niche use case.
For me, one of my principles is that smart home stuff should work normally , with automation as a bonus. That means smart switches, not bulbs, and generally means no subscriptions or internet dependencies.
Some use cases for my smart switches are:
For example, one of my automations is
If I’m home, this matches my schedule. If I’m not, maybe I look like I am. Maybe you think this looks needlessly complicated but it’s convenient and it’s not something you can do without smart devices
I use them to timeout lights all the time and schedule outdoor lights.
I don’t doubt apple’s ability to make this work well. I do doubt that there is more than a niche market for it. I also think it’s boring, and for some reason, I still expect apple to do better.
Well no, it’s not enormous, but Amazon is selling a couple million ring doorbells a year, and a couple million more of their cameras.
It’s a sufficiently large market to hop into, especially if you can make a product that’s easier to deal with from an ecosystem perspective than the incumbents, which isn’t something I’d ever bet against Apple managing to pull off.
Having a Ring doorbell is a game changer. If you’ve never used one I understand the reticence.
I do think it will be standard thing in the future. It’s a basic quality of life improvement having a record of door interactions, being able to answer when you are away, even answering without going to the door. It’s easy to understand and appealing to most people.
Ring is pretty Orwellian… Piping the stream from your door right to the police.
Also true. I use it in a business setting and it sort of doubles as a security camera. I would love to have the same functionality at home but it would have to be self hosted. Super creepy for a company to be watching my house
In a business setting I assume you are in a country with a low level of privacy protection since I can’t imagine storing images of everyone walking past your door would be compatible with something like the GDPR.
I’m in the USA, but I think they sell Ring and other video doorbells and security cameras in other countries, including Europe.
From my understanding it depends on the area covered. Generally it is less of a problem if you e.g. just point it at the opposite wall in front of your apartment door or something similar restrictive and much more of a problem if you point it across the street. Commercial and residential use are also treated differently and there might also be additional problems due to usage of the recordings by Amazon or excessive storage durations.
The home automation field is potentially going through a revolution with the new Matter/Thread standard, that Apple helped define. Devices are much more likely to work together and they should not be calling home. Apple already has the Apple TV and whatever the speaker is that can act as automation hubs, and HomeKit software across their product line to provide nice dashboards, shared across your family, integrate with local Siri, etc.
My HomeKit automation makes my friends who spend a ton of time researching and setting shit up look silly.
I hate saying it but my automation just works, and they’re still in the perpetual tinker stage.
I took a very cursory look at HomeKit a while ago and found its ability to create complex automations rather limited. For example, our washer & dryer are in our basement, and we can easily forget we have loads of laundry being washed/dryed when we get busy with the rest of our days.
We now have an automation that will text me and/or my wife when a laundry cycle finishes. But it only alerts us if we’re home, and only whoever is home so can go take care of it. If nobody is home when the cycle completes then it waits until one or both of us is home, and then it alerts us. It also won’t alert us overnight but will wait until morning. So if we start a load of laundry at 10pm it doesn’t wake us up at midnight but instead waits until 7am to alert us.
I’ve implemented this in both Home Assistant and Indigo without too much difficulty. Not sure how easy it would be to do in HomeKit though…
That’s one of the more complex automations I’ve created, but I have a few others that are up there as well.