Weekly Journal 143 - Home Automation

This has been one of those weeks where I didn’t have time to work on my personal projects at all for various reasons. I did find the time to watch a few neat YouTube videos and I wanted to share one of those here.

Home Automation

I have been wanting to get more into home automation and incorporating “smart” devices like light switches and lights that I can combine with scripts and programs. However, when I look at most of the consumer devices on the market they all require signing up for some sort of cloud service account and they want to gather data from the devices in my home and sell it. Jeff Geerling published an excellent video this past week that sums up the issues with smart devices.

I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement at several points in the video. Similar to Jeff, I think I would only trust devices that I either build myself, devices that have full function without internet access. I’m also very much against devices that break the normal use of a device. Jeff’s example is “smart” light switches that only work with an app after they are installed vs. a smart switch that works in conjunction with the normal light switch. If I’m standing next to the switch, I just want to flip it on or off without needing to use my phone.

This is where I wish I knew more about electronics so that I could build more devices myself.