Smart home products

[bernard]

Do you have any?

I am seriously considering getting the Alexa or Google Home. I'm not too worried about the spying because of Project Alias, which seems to be able to solve that.

I am in the camp that wants to at the same time go nuts with futuristic stuff and at the same time do a complete luddite withdrawal to the countryside. I don't like the middle position at all. I think tech like Tinder, Instragram, Facebook, food ordering service, is opium for the masses instead of freedom tech. However, stuff like smart home tech is truly liberating.

My first purchase is going to be IKEA smart lightning, which you can program to automatically change hue and brightness depending on the time. That's great for long winters with early dark outside. I don't like strong lights after dark. You can also shut it all down before going to bed easily. All kinds of stuff. Program it for "intimate time" for example.

I do want to get the Alexa and pair it with a smart coffee machine: "Alexa, make me a cup of coffee". That would be awesome. I also like the idea of being able to set appointments and take notes for Google Keep, just by using voice.

 

[mikey3times]

I have a thermostat and a bunch of smart light switches. I want to add a couple of leak sensors. I find voice control to be corny, but I get it.

I want to get a tunable white setup, but I am waiting for residential setups to advance a bit more. I’m waiting for some of the big names in lighting to offer a solid tunable solution.

 

[GNews]

Maybe i'm too old fashioned but I like good ol' closest to natural features as possible.

 

[SmokeTree]

I think that kind of thing is cool and I love the tech behind it, but honestly they might as well call it "hackable home". The thing is, many of those devices are mini computers running Linux or another OS. If a hacker can get access to that, they have a good platform to get into the rest of the network. The developers of many of these devices aren't really security experts and sometimes even make rookie mistakes (default passwords come to mind). Here's a recent article describing what I'm talking about: https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/w...ermostat-turns-out-it-s-been-hacked/922763894