Another new and more information here : New Design Trend: People Downgrading 'Smart' Homes to Analog 'Dumb' Homes, Some with Landlines and Offline Appliances - Slashdot
And then there are some of us who never bought into āsmart homes.ā
People are so gullible.
1 Like
I canāt believe people are still using slashdot.
1 Like
Well ā¦ I am still using it like as a newspaper ! very good source of news and information !
Did you ever check out NewsNow? I find that useful.
Sorry I donāt have any thoughts on the Downgrading āSmart Homesāā¦ technology is fickle at best of times. My father was a mechanic and swears that things broke less in his day, and if they did break it was easy to fix. Nowadays, with electrics and computers, when things break itās a nuisance to fix.
I usually keep as much as I can mechanical, locks for example, no need for a āsmart lockā afaik they are easily hackable and iffy at best.
What do you know, I did have some thoughts on it.
1 Like
Hi, it doesnāt matter I just added because it says about āThis is a New Desifn Trendā, I just want to add news about Design and Graphic Design to this forum. About NewsNow ? I donāt know anything ! but I will check on the web and thanks for the info ! Hi Smurf and I checked the link, thanks so much this is going to be so useful for me ! and really appreciated !
Yeah, I never jumped on the smart home thing ā¦ especially āAlexa.ā I donāt want anyone listening in on my (admittedly mundane) life. And you canāt convince me they arenāt listening.
There have been a few times when Iāve been at the grocery store and thought it would be great to start preheating my oven. Aside from that, Iāve never felt like I was missing anything.
1 Like
Iāve never bought into the smart home thing either, and have avoided Alexa for similar reasons to yours. Thereās no way that I want a big tech company possibly listening in on what I say at home. Even if itās benign and they donāt actually listen in, the whole thing is creepy.
A few months ago, we bought a new refrigerator. The salesperson kept trying to upsell us on fridges that connected to the internet to do a variety of utterly unimportant tasks related to the food in them. I finally told the guy that I didnāt want my fridge connected to the internet, which caused a puzzled look on his face, as though I was telling him that I preferred riding in a horse-drawn carriage to riding in an automobile.
1 Like
This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.
Over the summer I replaced 12 of the light bulbs with smart lights. In theory, each one can be programmed and set to any color. Iād like to be able to alternate between bright lights for work situations, warm candlelight, and cool blues in the evening. You need their app to do this, and I havenāt been able to get the bluetooth to sync. I keep getting error messages, and tech support comes from unhelpful bots. The lights can still turn on at the light switch, but until I get it fixed, the lights flash on and off for 3 minutes every time I turn them on. So yeah, I can see why people are going back to the old ways.
3 Likes
I was just at the hardware store this weekend to pick up some new lightbulbs. The non-smart LED lightbulbs now have two switches: one for the color temperature and one for the wattage. At first, I was a little put off with yet another change in light bulbs, but I pretty quickly came to embrace this change. One thing I donāt like is having lights with different color temperature in the same room. The new bulbs make it easy to match color temperature throughout a room or a house. Hereās hoping theyāll last the 20 years the package claimed.
2 Likes
I hadnāt yet heard of āsmartā lightbulbs, but I have no use for them. During the day, I donāt need them. At night, I pefer warmer lights. When I want brighter lighting, I turn on more lamps. When I want the room a bit darker, I turn some of them off. Itās a simple, longterm, non-networked solution that works fine. No Bluetooth or apps needed, with the bonus of less less frustration.
2 Likes
I have to confess I donāt use smart lightbulbs either. Donāt have Alexa, turned off all the microphone listenting apps on my phone, pretty much turned on privacy on things like YouTube etc and never remember history - I reject all Website Cookies and all that jazz.
But I did once have a smart fridge, when we redid the kitchen a few years ago. It didnāt last long though, and weāve since gone back to a regular, non-internet fridge, which does a good job, but I miss the relationship I had built with my internet fridge, we did become friends and I was said to see it go.
You could set precise temperatures (save money), get alerts when the water filter needed changing, and even order a new one directly.
The real magic, though, was in the freezer section. It had double doors the left side could be set as a standard freezer, or adjusted to a lower temperature for deep-freezing meats to extend their shelf life. Each zone could be configured independently, which was incredibly handy.
We used the right side of the freezer for wine and beer, keeping them out of the main fridge. Weād set that zone to āroom temperatureā to save energy, then cool it down on Saturday nights when weād have a drink for movie night (though that habitās slipped a bit recently!).
When we went on holidays, there was even a āholiday modeā that reduced energy consumption while still keeping things fresh.
What really impressed me was how much longer food lasted. Milk and we buy real milk, not that watery stuff stayed good well past its use-by date. Fresh vegetables, too, stayed crisp much longer. All thanks to the fridgeās sensors managing the temperature zones perfectly.
And it gave water from the door, and you could set the perfect amount, 1 pint of water, and it filled it exactly. Want 3 litres of filtered water, no problem.
Want 100ml of water for something like cooking - not an issue.
I miss it.
4 Likes
I got a new phone service a couple weeks ago. I had to go back in when the new phone prompted me for some security reason or other (which turned out to be, "Oh we forgot to go through our new customer checklist with youā¦) Anyway, while there, to set up auto-pay I had to download their app. We couldnāt seem to get past one step in the process. The clerk was absolutely dumbfounded I had Location Services shut off. And that I turned it back off after the app was loaded.
4 Likes
I have a dumb apt. I highly doubt the landlord would ever fork out the money for anything smart. Thatās ok though ā¦ keeps the rent down 
I do have a smart TV though. Itās kind of cool that itās only plugged into the socket and I can stream anything I want. 
2 Likes