The article discusses expectations for smart home announcements at the upcoming IFA tech show in Berlin. While companies may unveil new smart speakers, cameras and robot vacuums, the smart home remains fragmented as the Matter interoperability standard has yet to fully deliver on integrating devices. The author argues the industry needs to provide more utility than novelty by allowing different smart devices to work together seamlessly. Examples mentioned include lights notifying users of doorbell activity or a robot vacuum taking on multiple household chores autonomously. Overall, the smart home needs solutions that are essential rather than just novel if consumers are to see the value beyond the initial cool factor.
I have yet to see a “smart home” feature that’s worth the potential problems, let alone the cost.
Yeah, a well-integrated smart home can do some pretty cool stuff, but it also means putting my trust in corporations even more than I already have to. Plus, I’ll have to worry about each major appliance I own possibly being bricked due to a buggy software update or a malicious hacker.
Keep my home nice and dumb. Thanks.
All valid concerns, but if you really wanted to, you could roll your own home automation setup using something like a Raspberry Pi, and optionally Home Assistant, and keep it all offline so that it’s safe from hackers.
Yes, you can, but it can be a lot of effort and a lot of time spent researching and tinkering.
It’s fine if you want that to be your hobby, but it can be a heavy lift for the average person.
It’s surprisingly easy with Home Assistant. You really don’t need much tinkering, if any, to get the basics working quite reliably.
You can easily have a smart home without any data leaving your home network.
You need three things:
- Home Assistant software (free and open source)
- ZigBee (also free and open source) smart devices made by companies that comply with the ZigBee protocol
- Most importantly, a ZigBee controller.
There are several options available (Deconz Conbee II, etc), and this device gets plugged into the same machine Home Assistant is on, and it allows HA to control your ZigBee devices directly. No “hub” sending your data to a cloud server, everything is done on your local network. If the devices comply with the protocol, you don’t need their hub, even if they say it’s required.
I use Hue bulbs, but have no Hue hub. I use many Aqara devices, but don’t have an Aqara hub. It’s pretty great and works very well!
If it works for you and you’re happy with it, then ignore the haters (like me) and enjoy! 👍
