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Home automation - why? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I am failing to see the interest in having tons of IOT devices to manage, connect, segment, etc… Why would someone want to do it? To be clear, I have friends deep in it but… I still don’t understand. Can anyone try to explain the magic I am failing to see?

Edit: Thank you all for sharing your experiences! The ones I found more interesting are those that can easily translate in reducing or tracking consumption. The rest I hear but makes more sense when I look at it from an hobbyist perspective.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I personally don't have any of that but here's what I would like to use it for. When I go away for, say, two weeks, I'd like to be able to randomly flick lights and TV on and off in my apartment to seem like someone's home. Currently I do it by plugging floor lamps into timered power socket controllers, but they aren't internet enabled so all I can do is program them to come on and off at specified times during the day, which an observant burglar could figure out.

I would also like to save on gas bills and turn the heating off when I go away. But if it's winter time and I go away for 2 weeks, I hate coming back to a cold flat that take ages to warm up to comfortable temperatures. I'd like to be able to turn the heating off when I leave, and then back on, say, a whole day before I come back.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

That latter one can be accomplished by plenty of different WiFi thermostats. That's become such an integral part of things that I hardly think of it as any kind of home automation anymore. Damned if I want to get up at night to go adjust the thermostat when it's too hot or cold.