Enlightenment

The smartest house is designed with passive systems in mind. In the northern hemisphere the south and west are where you get hot summer sun. Deciduous trees planted on the southwest-west will block the summer evening sun, and then drop their leaves so you can still get winter sun.
- The wise house (as opposed to intelligent)

In reality all the smart devices were discontinued so they no longer work
- That's not true at all. They're still connected and part of a happy worldwide Botnet.
  They still work, but not as originally intended.
  
  they work, but for someone else

This is wonderful. To me, “smart” devices are usually things to be avoided. I interpret “smart” to mean additional cost, more points of failure, giving up my privacy to “register” the device, and possible future incompatibility (especially if the company fails or is bought out).
- I don't mind the smart home concept, but I find it falls apart at the planning and implementation level. People need to put more thought into what actually needs to be automated.
  The best example I can think of is one of the older "smart" devices: a coffee maker. I had an old coffee maker, and I used the auto on function all the time. But, when I wanted to wake up at at different time, I had to fiddle with the coffee maker. Wouldn't it be great if I could just tie it in with my phone's alarm?
  Eventually, the coffee maker broke. My first thought was "I bet someone makes a smart coffee maker", but then I remembered not having coffee because the very simple controller died. How long would a "smart" coffee maker actually last? So I bought the dumbest possible coffee maker and a smart switch.
  By identifying what part of the process actually needs to be automated, and buying devices that don't require internet connections, you can avoid almost all the common problems people have with smart homes.
- Smart home stuff can be incredibly fun and handy, but you have to go into it with a tinkering and very IT-centric mindset. If you've already got a homelab set up then running a home assistant VM/container is pretty dead simple. Beyond that, keep as local an ecosystem as you can to reduce friction and improve security. Set up proper vlans, etc. and most importantly, only make smart what you can either live without or effortlessly control WITHOUT the "smart features". My lights automatically turn on when I get home from work if it's dark- but if my server is down, I can still just hit a light switch. My camera doorbell still rings as long as the power isn't out, etc. Yeah it's work, to set up right, but well worth it if you enjoy tinkering.
- Stupid me just kind of assumed a smart device would be a simple thing that would accept API calls or something. But no, you need an app that sends a signal to China every 10 minutes and you need to link it to Google too. Even better when you have three devices of different brands
  
  A lot of smart devices are just an esp that basically does that. The zigbee and z-wave stuff isn't even internet connected. A usb dongle connected to a PC running smart home software locally controls it.
  It's weird that so much has sprung up around personal homes when businesses had bacnet for years and years. Most of that stuff is wired up with basic analog inputs and outputs.
  Personally, I like hardwired everything and would like to see more PoE stuff come out rather than wireless. I hate dealing with batteries because some people can't deal with running low voltage wires.
- Yes, "smart" here is like "turbo" for electric power tools whete it shows they are weak so they try to swope that under the rug with a cheap selling technique.
- At this point for me "smart/iot" means "possible hardware reclaiming project" thanks to how unsecure they are.

The light is controlled automatically by weather and time of day.
Points at window

boomer meme boomer meme boomer meme
- Anyone who understands tech meme
  
  I work in tech and I have a smart home w/ lights, switches, appliances and a controller. They are all on their own automation vlan that will never touch my home network. Sure "someone" is listening and can "hack" some of it. On the small, miniscule chance that happens I will deal with it. Until then the convenience is life changing.
  
  zigbee

It's just a matter of software vs hardware. I prefer hardware because it's easier and cheaper for me to fix. Others might find software easier and cheaper to fix. Horses for courses.

Zwave, zigbee, and VLANs
- Also, working physical interfaces for everything where possible.
  Lights that come on auto-magically are great, low light after bed time, that shuts itself off after you stumble back to bed, etc.
  But you also need to allow overrides, like someone double taps the lights on you override the automations for an hour or two to handle corner cases like when your 6 year old pukes all over the hall and bathroom and you need cleaning light not stumbling light.
  Also, light switches and lamps should work like light switches and lamps for guests, because these interfaces aren't bad, they work, well even.
  
  I completely agree. The most common "complaint" from guests in my old home was that the lights weren't turning on. They had turned it down to 0 by holding the button so clicking it was toggling between OFF and 0. Not really a smart home issue but it made me realize that the new system I'm speccing out needs to be invisible - it's a priority that things need to work "traditionally"
  I will have a few NSPanels for the bonus controls (HVAC and audio mostly) but the lights need to make sense to a layman - even without enabling a guest mode.

This is verrry close to ForwardsFromGrandma material.
- Yep, like for sure kernel of truth worth discussion and I don’t even disagree, but this is definitely an FFG template lol
  
  Nah, the template is more "Master Foo's Unix koans".

Sigh, I have to mention home assistant as the best way to not have your smart things phone home to the NSA/CCP joint data collection task force.

love my 1912 house with the button light switches and old fashioned everything
makes my life as a systems admin at a small shop bareable. I am by default the SME on all technology to my coworkers and it's draining. The old house is my true refuge. knowing it's been there for so long, unchanged for almost all of that time. It's something special. We had the outlets upgraded from knob and tube, but funny enough the electricians said it was basically perfect and the best they had seen, only one spot was a concern but it's nice not having to worry about overloading that old copper.
- I loved my 1900 house. When we moved in, our insurance company said they wouldnt insure us if the knob and tube running in the attic was active. Our inspector wrote up the report saying it was dead wire, just didnt take it out when they ran romex... fast forward to us selling the house. New inspector tells us that knob and tube IS active and we have to replace it to sell the house. Sigh.
  Another fun was trying to fix a door that didnt close right. Naturally i assumed the frame settled and wasnt square. Eventually started to get to work when i realized the frame WAS square, just about the only square joint in the house. But it mustve no been because the door was planed at an angle lol. That solid wood door replacement was hundreds of dollars, so it didn't get replaced
  
  the only knob and tube we have left is for the antique light fixtures. but at the exposure point it is transferred to romex and all of the lines have a GFCI outlet between the fuse box and the lines. The electrician said it's the acceptable solution since we didn't want to tear into the walls and ceilings