by al_borland | 2025-11-21 06:24:17+00:00
1. I do have a smart garage door (came with the house). That said, I bought traditional remotes and use those 98% of the time. The app is nice to give me assurance that the door is closed. This has been pretty stable.

2. I feel like after the novelty of being able to changes colors/temps wears off, they’d be the same almost all the time, at which point buying the correct temperature bulb for the fixture would have the same net effect without any setup.

3. I got a wireless light switch for a lamp across the room in a place I lived over 15 years ago. No internet or accounts required. Getting smart bulbs just for adding switches seems like over-engineering.

5. I bought a smart plug as a way to dip my toe in the water (I was going to try it on the Christmas tree a few years back). I waited for Matter so I didn’t have to deal with a bunch of apps. I needed the vendor app anyway (and an account) just to set it up. Strike 1. When my phone upgraded it stopped working in Apple Home. Strike 2. I’ve tried to reset it up several times now and it doesn’t work, it only works in the vendor app. Strike 3. The vendor app is slower and uglier than Apple Home. Strike 4. It has not been a pleasant dip. My dad has a lot of smart home stuff and had a lot of stuff like this happen, and dismisses it because he thinks it’s cool. To me, seamless operation and stability is cool. Smart home stuff just isn’t there.

6. Water leak sensors are something I’ve thought about and looked at. Every one I saw had a loud siren on it. I don’t think I want that. I just want a notification.

8. I’ve actually been looking at going the other way on my thermostat. I have to replace the batteries in my basic programmable thermostat every year. It’s a minor annoyance. I have been debating getting an old school mechanical thermostat so I never have to change the battery again, since I don’t use the programmable stuff anyway. I’m always home and always want it the same temp. With the smart ones, I’ve been seeing articles about companies going out of business and killing access. I don’t want to have to buy a new thermostat because the company that made it decided to shut down some servers. The mechanical one will work for decades with no fuss.

10. I stayed in an AirBnB that had a bathroom fan tied to a humidity sensor. I can’t remember the exact issues we had, but I remember it driving everyone nuts, where it was the topic of several dinner conversations.

Some stuff can be neat, if it works, but from what I’ve seen that’s a big IF. And it seems to require constant vigilance and maintenance to keep it going. Every OS or firmware update is a risk. Are the use cases worth the hassle? For me, the answer is mostly no. Especially if it also has the potential to shorten the usable life of a product. A refrigerator might last 20 years. I bet a refrigerator with a big display will not last 20 years. Maybe the actual refrigerator part will, but how long before that screen on the front is useless?

The doorbell that came with my house is probably 40 years old and it works fine. All it has to do is make 2 wires touch briefly. For people who bought smart doorbells, how often will they need to upgrade them? The Diderot effect is in play, and then on top of that, the lifespan of all these things shortens to tech lifecycles instead of appliance or hardware lifecycles.

All of this doesn’t even touch on the privacy nightmare that a lot of these things introduce. The aforementioned smart refrigerator takes pictures inside the fridge, sometimes of the people opening it. I saw an article as well where there was talk of displaying digital ads in the kitchen via these screens. Smart TVs track what you watch and who knows what else, so they can display ads. I believe I read Vizio is losing money selling TVs, but more than makes up for it with all the ads they push to those TVs. These devices are turning the customers into the product. My home should be a sanctuary away from all of that. With my TV I don’t connect it to the network, but when buying smart home stuff, they don’t work at all without the internet, so they have you.

Using Home Assistant helps with some stuff, but the average consumer isn’t doing that. That’s also one more thing to add to the overall project that needs maintenance. Having a smart home is a hobby, and I’m not looking for my door locks and lightbulbs to become a hobby.