Smart as in Home?

Use the software Marriage 1.0 SP 2 instead!

Last time I employed a maid the wife divorced me!

So that is what you call the girl.

I had other names.

Sounds like a good hobby for a controls freak expert.

I agree with kramarat.

If the truth hurts, maybe it should.

"Who is pro and contra and what is your opinion about this (new) rage?"

We are a massive power failure away from realizing that nobody knows how to do anything anymore...and that's a good enough reason for me to work my mind and body the old fashioned way...hard.

In addition to the programmable thermostat, we've got a smart electric meter. With it we could manage out electricity costs.

We don't.

Ah yes, the smart thermostat/smart electric meter combo. Allows the Electric company to shut down your air conditioner during the hottest part of the day in order to 'manage the civic load,' and as a by-product, baking your dog to death, or at least ill health from overheating. Save $100 a year on electric costs, spend $2-300 a year on vet visits, and lose your beloved companion several years early.

The Marquis De Sade couldn't have come up with a better plan, even if he got help from Machiavelli.

Not so. The power company has no control over my thermostat.

They have no control over individual circuits that control the AC, either.

Their meter feeds my breaker box, and reports usage back to the power company negating the need for human eyes that might spot an otherwise unreported problem.

That's all it can do.

I still think that more can go wrong, when it goes wrong. That is what I experienced here with some houses that have X10, Smart Home and Power Linc installed.

One bought a house with not one regular switch installed. It took a week to be able to switch all the lights on or off, since everything was controlled by an old Mac. For me it was pretty new too. In the beginning I had to switch off the breakers to just disconnect everything.

Personally, I am not very interested, just for the first and other reasons told in these posts. It is the same with everything: when too much involved, you become a slave of it. And what they call improvement and evolution is expensive to implement ($$$$)

GA

Control Freak!

You don't have to sacrifice a good PC. Buy a inexpensive tower to run the stuff. May be you have an old one you could use. Leave it on 24/7. Network to it with the one you use.

I'm sure there are companies that use their own hardware. Some industrial PC that would add a couple grand to the cost. Also increasing the cost to maintain it.

A PC,with OS, software, drivers and hardware changing permanently. not so interesting as long term investment.

When I can yell into the air, "Where are the damn scissors?", and the home automation systems tells me accurately...

Then I'll be interested.

How about the car keys?

This would be fairly easy to implement at my house. The system only needs to monitor me to find out where I started my search. Then, when in frustration, I ask the system for help, it would direct me to the first place I looked.

...that it has absolutely no idea?

the speach recognition is around long ago - only i don't feel comfy speaking [s]to[s] by myself out loud

i want to electify the window shade - only "i don't want to do it right now" (that condition might hold for very long)

probably mentioned this in here CR4 earlier - there is a trend for man to reduce it's "cold shock" when the winter arrives by turning the heat ON too much e.g. you'd consume/waste more power for heating at not so cold end months and relax your NRG waste at colder month at the beginning of the year - combining that with the fact that even 1 to 2 hour switch off the heating at the mid-day gives a reasonable saving on your NRG bill

defines enough reason to spend some time on these issues ... well i measured and marked the optimum spots for each heater ??? - the automation ended to that - keep the mid-day breaks occasinally ...

By fully automating the home environment, one of removing a great deal of the stimulus to marriage (at least from the wife's POV), since she no longer will have anything useful to rail against the husband for. Leave on the light switch? No, honey, that was HAL 9000.

Why ruin a perfectly venom filled marriage with all this nonsense?

What Solar Eagle stated has happened in bulk. Hackers learn how to break into a system not a house. I read about a security company where hackers could get in to any video camera that used that software.

This concept is even more foolish than keyless cars. Both technologies keep you wide open for trouble. With one you can't get into your car. The other robbers have access to your security system.

The old saying goes: "If you can't eat it, wear it, or make love to it, you don't need it."

Back during the energy crises of the seventies a lot of us went to wood heat. Then technology slowly crept in. Pellet stoves and natural gas were promoted as alternatives.

I've had two different programmable thermostats. They never turned on the heat when I wanted it and I got tired of fiddling with the pressure pads to override it. I went back to the button-style dial thermostat and have never looked back. I turn the heat up when I want and down when I want. It's right next to the lightswitch in a central location. We change the thermostat whenever we go to bed or leave the house. Before I had to climb up on the couch all the time.

My view? At the present state of the art, allowing outsiders access to the control of your home is idiocy. Hire a house sitter or better, a live in security officer.

You should have hired a butler too.

Work in a factory and then go home to live in one.....

Why?

Automation for its own sake is sorta messed up.

When I lived in San Leandro I wired up IR sensor light controls, and still had people cutting the yard at night, tripping the lights. They didn't care. So I wired up an 8032 board to sense the light controller and turn on the appropriate sprinkler zone. Did wonders to cut down on nighttime and daytime traffic that wasn't headed up the sidewalk to the front door.

Clever solution, I like it.

I wanted to place a brass plaque on the basement door titled "Engine Room". Kind of like you would have on a boat. Couldn't find one though.

A trophy shop could engrave one for you, nicely mounted on a walnut plaque.

We know the local owners of a business called "Brassfinders". When they had a yard sale we scored a plaque that said "Beware Of Occupant". It's posted by our front door.