Exactly! I prefer the small power plugs that lets me control fans and other power systems as relays. Family has a habit if switching of light bulbs using light switches and i have not gotten the change approval to disable the physical switches in the house :)
For me the best solution was to use smart switches (mainly dimmers) and dumb lightbulbs. People can use the switches like any other if they want, but I can still have my automations and remote control.
As a another comment said, the smarter way to have a smart light is to replace the switch with a smart one or even better put a relay behind the existing dumb switch to smartify the switch. For me it's important to have a manual override; you shouldn't need an app for a thing as basic as turning the lights on.
Disabling the physical light switch should usually only come after setting up a different way of controlling the light by hand, without a phone.
Most likely there is some sort of motion or presence sensor that turns on the lights which then turn themselves off after some time or no more presence is detected.
There are also small wireless switches that could be used in place of the actual wall switch.
I have done so in my apartment for example. Since the bedroom light switch is for some reason outside of the room I taped it down and put a wireless switch in a more reasonable spot.
Another example is the hallway light, which only turns on by motion sensing when the sun is starting to go down.
The only rooms without a fully automated light on/off systems in our house are the bedrooms + living room.
And even the living room automatically adjusts lights based on the playing status of the AppleTV (playing = dim, pause = brighten up a bit).
Oh and the staircase, haven't found the motivation/courage to climb up 10m to the ceiling to switch out the ye olde light in there :D Maybe this year?
The Living room would need two presence sensors that talk to each other in a smart way (a big room, one isn't enough) and I haven't yet found the semi-manual way of adjusting the lights via phone/Siri to be too cumbersome to bother.
I can recommend Shelly for light switches over smart bulbs. It's a relay that fits inside the wall switch with zigbee to sit between the light and the switch.
They're not mutually exclusive. I have Shelly relays in my light fittings (not the switches) and use smart bulbs. When everything is working the wall switches just control stuff in HA. When HA is not working the switches control the relays in the Shelly directly, without HA.
This is the only solution I'm aware of that gets you all of:
* dimmable,
* colour temp and RGB control,
* regular switches that work as expected,
* no "forbidden" switches,
* lights always available for automations,
* lights go on and off with the switch when HA is down.
Philips Hue, and Zigbee direct-binding in general, can achieve this if you're willing to use their wall switches. Still works if the hub is offline.
Depends on your definition of "regular switches," I suppose -- but anyone with 3-way wiring (i.e. multiple light switches for a single socket) has given up on "up=on" for their switch.
That's what I am doing too, though I did have to drill out some wall to fit it, in some cases.
There is another option that I don't think many people are aware of: You can put a battery powered relay downstream of the (dumb) switch, and have it broadcast events when power comes on and off, to control other smart devices, which just have to listen for the events (via a broker like HA).
Please, don't be so negative about the rest of the world. No one has any idea what would have happened if the US did not create their country the way they did. This is the same level of under-appreciation of humans that the ancient aliens people have when they say its impossible for humans to have built the pyramids. Lets be constructive instead of just hating on everyone else please.
I was born in Europe. I know this for a fact. The difference in "can do" culture between old world and new world is everything. There's a reason Europe still doesn't have a self landing rocket. They aren't even trying. It's crabs in a bucket mentality writ large. I wish it weren't so. Yet it is.
It's partially true but it's not as true as doomers would like. It's not America: innovation=yes, Europe: innovation=no. Most of the American innovation came from a small number of very rich people. It has a lot of very poor people as a consequence.
> Most of the American innovation came from a small number of very rich people
Replace "came from" with "was purchased by" or "was copied by an entity with the resources to push the inventor out of the market" and you're getting a lot closer.
This encompasses rich people telling others what to do, and it also encompasses others doing work they think they can sell to rich people.
I think in Europe, people are just overall a bit more chill, and happy people don't feel the need to join the ultra-competitive scramble to the top, they're fine doing enough work but not an extreme amount.
I don't even agree with that. In many cases the rich people at best paid the salaries of other innovative people and then claimed the IP rights and the overwhelming share of the proceeds.
Elon didn't invent anything about rockets or electric cars. He hired (or perhaps just bought a company that had already hired) smart innovative people and got rich off them.
Pharmaceutical CEOs aren't innovating anything but they get rich off the innovations of others.
Most of the people who innovate or invent a new tool or product don't have the capital to mass produce and market it and end up selling their rights, which others benefit from.
Very few rich people are involved at all in innovations. Technology, which is less capital-intensive to scale than other fields, is an exception where several rich folks actually were involved - Steve Jobs' design sense, Larry and Sergei's PageRank algorithm, etc. but even then most of the people actually innovating new things don't get rich and watch others with more resources copy them, outmarket them, and take the money.
Well, ad are supposed to be different for children, right? So in theory we would get less ads by being ID'd as a child. Now, this would probably cause a new law where they would allow child ads...
Less no, different yes. Instead of dodgy meds and dating sites we'd have games and cosmetics and whatever other junk folks are punting at adolescents. If anything, I suspect there would be more ads.
Just attach a camera to your device and say you where recording in public just like them, no seam to have an issue with that. Your system was just measuring the distance to the target using lidar :)
My work outlook email reads 85k unread messages. Its the issue when you have been in ops related roles for a while in a enterprise. There is so much automated crap that gets sent your way. You can filter etc, but there is always one important thing that arrives from the same email which means i cant just push it to the trash... i mean archive folders. At this point my goal is to at least reach 100k before changing jobs.
Also, the name is.... Could they really not come up with something apart from a bluesky rip off? I understand they integrate with them etc, but still if you want to create a new app that you want actual people to use, then you need to be a little more creative. Thats ignoring the web design choices that others have commented on.
Hateful speech, really? If we called it Micro$hit maybe.... but if they are going to be buthurt because a bunch of gamers and sysadmins are annoyed at the horrific direction the company is taking, then they deserve it.
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