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Originally Posted by Apache
I have been using a Wi-Fi thermostat, in my store since 2010.
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It makes more sense when you maintain/control multiple locations. I had not considered that case.
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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I consider my home to be just as easy to break into by determined thieves as it was pre smart devices.
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You do have a point there. Why mess with hacking a smart device to break in when a rock thrown through a window will suffice?
I guess what I really don't like about many smart devices is that they rely not only on the internet, but on some third party server owned by some corporation. I don't like it, but I realize it is the only way for some devices. The devices I mentioned earlier - Alexa devices - certainly are going to require more intelligence/processing than what's contained in that little plastic thingy you place in your home. Unfortunately, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer when they initially supply a free web access account, that they later convert to a pay account. Can you say "RING doorbell"? Initially it's free, but pretty soon you have to start paying a monthly fee. You are totally dependent on a third party server in the cloud. If the internet goes down, or the manufacture goes out of business, there's nothing you can do. Your money was flushed down the toilet. There is no local control of the device.
[ edit: I just re-read what I typed below. It was meant to be an example of what I consider a "good" smart device. But it almost sounds like an advertisement as I re-read it. Not my original intent. But it's still a good example of what I think a smart device should be. ]
A good example of the kind of smart devices I prefer is my lawn sprinkler controller. You can create an account with the manufacture to control it remotely. But you don't have to. The thing hosts it's own complete webserver and implements all functions locally. So you can log into it's full interface directly from your LAN, with no outside internet connection being required. The manufacturer offers remote connectivity "from anywhere" via an smartphone app that can connect through their servers as a middleman to your device at home. But you can implement that same functionality yourself with a home-hosted VPN. Their smart phone app normally connects to their servers, but you can direct it to connect to any IP address you want - including directly over your home VPN. Many smart sprinkler controllers will default back to a "standard" watering schedule if they lose internet connectivity. The one I have operates completely locally, so it keeps running on it's custom programmed schedule whether internet is present or not. It has the ability to adjust watering day, times and durations based on weather forecasts (which it downloads from the internet). But if the internet goes away, you just lose those weather-based tweaks and it doesn't make any adjustments to you normally programmed schedule and runs it "as is". Personally, I don't use any of the internet-based weather tweaks except for the "freeze warning", which will shut down the system so you don't end up with frozen sprinkler lines. But since a weather forecast of "90% chance of rain" doesn't mean that it is guaranteed to rain, I use a physical rain sensor in my backyard hooked up to the controller that it uses to decide watering schedules depending on if it's raining or not. If push comes to shove, and your router goes down so your smart phone can't talk to the sprinkler controller, you can always plug your laptop into it (it has an ethernet jack). If that fails, you can program and control it via buttons and an LCD display on the front.
This sprinkler controller is what I call a good "smart" design. You CAN use the internet to facilitate things, but you don't have to. If the manufacturer goes out of business tomorrow my controller will still work to it's full capacity. It's a pretty smart little bugger, and it was only something like $49 in the end (because my city has huge rebates on your water bill if you install a smart sprinkler controller - my rebate was $150 IIRC!) This excellent controller came out being cheaper than a standard dumb controller because of the city rebate (I knew that when I bought it, which is why I bought it). Plus, it's got 16 zones - twice as many as I need (I bought the larger zone model for future expansion). You can use the extra zones to hook up lighting or some other 24vac thing if you want to. You can even tell it what to do verbally via Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant, although I haven't bothered to try and set that up yet.
https://rainmachine.com for anyone interested. I have the Pro-16 model.