back to article Today's smart home devices are too dumb to succeed

At the end of 2012, working hard on my own connected lighting startup, MooresCloud, I got very excited to find out that Philips planned to launch Hue, the company's own full-spectrum connected lights. I bought a ‘starter pack’ of three soon after release, and played with them for weeks. It immediately became clear that Philips …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the point of this article is?

    "But the connected world should be asking less of us - not more - doing more thinking, and leaving us to think deeper thoughts"

    My deeper thought is write less shit articles Mr Pesce,

    I feel the first line reveals your true intent on writing the article:

    "At the end of 2012, working hard on my own connected lighting startup, MooresCloud"

    Do you think El Reg readers are all easily influenced marketing bods who will swallow your load?

    If so I think you may have misjudged your audience.

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: And the point of this article is?

      Blimey

    2. Mark 85

      Re: And the point of this article is?

      Indeed, it has the feel, but he makes valid points. Why should we have to reset everything on IoT? Power failure? Turn of the switch? Unplug it and move it? It's all connected so it should boot back to where it was.

      Having said that, no I am not buying any IoT item. Lights, toasters, refrigerators, etc.... no...no... and no.

      1. VinceH

        Re: And the point of this article is?

        My reading of it suggested the point was "I've bought into iOUT* lighting... and now I've realised that not only was there no problem for it to solve, but it's actually more of a problem to use."

        I didn't pick up on that opening sentence - or I'd forgotten it by the time I'd reached the end, until reading the comments!

        * iOUT: Internet of Useless (or Unwanted) Things.

  2. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Thumb Up

    On the other hand...

    This is useful info.

    ...fully saturated colours - particularly greens - make people look like zombies

    Getting rid of unwanted guests, Walking Dead parties etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alien

      Re: On the other hand...

      Never assume you know how people are going to use your [product] or bake those assumptions into its operation ...paraphrased from somewhere, TAoUP perhaps?

  3. Ray Foulkes

    Wake up app number 487 please...

    It's going to get worse, much worse as every manufacturer battles to be "the one controlling everything" (and thereby calling all the shots and creaming off the maximum $$). The consequence is that everybody will have dozens of "apps" because they didn't all choose the fruit factory to automate their home. Every time you leave the house for a few hours you will spend your time with the lighting app, the security app, the central heating app, the dog food dispenser app, the cooker app, the doorbell app instead of going to YOUR app and clicking "I'm going out for the day" - previously having decided just what should happen in those circumstances. This article is just skating across the very top of a big problem (unless everyone chooses i-house of course).

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Shh.

      It's all a conspiracy to keep us in our houses and away from street demonstrations. We will end up doing everything at home, work, social (facebork) and shopping (ebay, amazon et al), because we can't leave because if we do, the house reboots and nobody wants that.

  4. Fraggle850

    Some good points made

    Phillips UI/UX design is rubbish. I bought a Phillips multi room audio system a few years back and whilst the functionality is great the UI/UX side is often poorly thought out and frustrating. It seems they've not improved since. I can only assume they let engineers test it rather than members of the public.

    Having some experience of home automation I can vouch for the points made. There is an open source project to try and unify HA kit via a single UI, OpenHAB. It's promising but, IMHO, not for public consumption - too much esoteric configuration to be done.

    I suspect that, at best, we'll end up with a mess of products that are compatible with just Apple kit or just Samsung kit, etc. This may be an improvement over the current mess but it will still be a pain as the behemoths try to lock users and manufacturers into their particular ecosystem.

    Standards? We've heard of them. Apparently you can never have too many when it comes to home automation. Is a unified, extensible, open protocol too much to ask? Can you imagine if the web/net had been built like this? It would never have gained the adoption that it now enjoys.

    Even when manufacturers do use an open protocol such as SOAP, they don't seem to want to share the actual commands that can be sent across it. Ridiculous.

    I'll forgive the guy a minor plug as this stuff needs to be resolved and is therefore worth discussing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Some good points made

      I've yet to see a single example which persuades me I should give a shit about any of this IoT garbage - and this article with it's agonising over the precise hue of a light fitting, FFS, certainly doesn't change that. In general it just seems to be an expensive, complicated and insecure way of solving problems I don't have.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Some good points made

        >agonising over the precise hue of a light fitting, FFS, certainly doesn't change that.

        He wasn't talking about the precise hue, he wasn't talking about a massive difference in colour temperature. The wrong colour temperature can be agony, and worse can upset your circadian rhythms. There is plenty of peer-reviewed evidence that ill-considered lighting can damage your health, sleep patterns, concentration and has been linked to cancers.

    2. Charles 9

      Re: Some good points made

      "Is a unified, extensible, open protocol too much to ask?"

      HELL YEAH it's too much to ask because ALL the companies know to control the hub is to control the home. IOW, they're in such intense mutual competition that cooperation is out of the question. As the saying goes, there can be only one. The game is zero-sum here, so the companies are trying to be the ones who can control everyone else. Most likely scenarios will be (1) an outside who ONLY makes control units figures out how to control everyone else in spite of different protocols and becomes the king of the house or (2) the whole mess collapses in a stew of incompatible standards and consumer disgust over the whole thing.

      PS. As for the whole smart light thing, I don't see the point of it myself for general use. I like to have real set-it-and-forget-it lights that I can just stick in and leave for a year or three. Controllable lights like this I'd reserve for specialist purposes like presentation lighting.

      1. Fraggle850

        Re: Some good points made

        Re: HELL YEAH, I concur with your assessment and fully expect it to fail to gain mainstream traction precisely because of this, as you say in point 2.

        Personally I'm not that fussed about having a smart home but I have previously worked with people who are physically incapable of getting up to hit the light switch, or who struggle to use a standard remote control. Giving such end-users the ability to do things we take for granted is a real boon but the actual doing of it is a total pain due to the current and increasing mess of protocols.

  5. Chris G

    Simples

    Don't buy any of this connected crap

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Simples

      I have a good idea to avoid all the cognitive load of having to remember which app to use, or which bulb is in which socket: why not have separate physical controls on each device?

      For example, the bulb could have a colour temperature adjuster knob. How much more expensive would it be to add that?

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: Simples

        If I care about the colour temperature of a lamp I buy a lamp in that desired colour. The switch on the wall (or sometimes the light fitting) turns it on, and if necessary at some later time, off. A dimmer is an optional, but for me unused, option.

        I for one am utterly pissed off peeved by the current philosophy that lamps are used for nothing more than decorative elements; 'accents' instead of things designed to let me see what the hell I'm doing. IOT lightbulbs pander to this onanistic dream of interior decorator and architects.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So. you bought

    all of this crap without doing ANY basic research and then get sand in your tampon because it fails to work how YOU want it to. Here's a tip, go design it yourself then or shut up fucking moaning.

    Christ, last thing i need on a monday morning.

    1. Thorne

      Re: So. you bought

      Yes but they could at least stick in a chip to store state between power cycles.

      It is pretty piss poor design

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So. you bought

      Have an upvote for the words 'sand in your tampon'. for a monday mornnig this is a really fine quote even though it is a tad sexist.

  7. DropBear
    Boffin

    I can only assume the "turn on when power returns" thing is there to let your bulb emulate a traditional one - ie. let you control it by light switch; the poor bastard has no way to tell whether it just got powered on because an outage ended or you flicked the switch. A central control hub may or may not help here (you have to wait for it to boot after an outage - so what do you do as a bulb when you get powered up? If it's not replying, don't turn on? That's a slippery slope right there...). Of course, there is nothing preventing them to add a setting that would define what to do on power-up (unless there already is one...).

    Regarding intelligence - that's utter nonsense. You'd need a proper, fully functional and self-aware AI integrated with everything happening in the house including the (correctly populated) personal calendars of the entire family to actually take sensible decisions by context; anything less will just leave you with a bunch of "scenarios" - glorified batches of commands - which will always be slightly off for anything but the most stupidly straightforward actions, prompting you to rectify undesired side-effects manually; where's the fun in that?

    As it is, the most we can hope for is the ability to pre-heat one's home or check that all lights are indeed off remotely - whether that justifies the security risk it introduces is left for each of us individually to decide...

    1. TheOtherHobbes

      >You'd need a proper, fully functional and self-aware AI integrated with everything happening in the house

      Yes indeed - that's when the IOT stuff will finally become useful. Should be around 2035, at a guess.

      The current app fad is a passing phase. It's not until you can start talking to the house AI and have it understand what you mean - with optional fine control from a tablet that displays the controls you need automatically - that automation is going to start living up to its potential.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        First step is a standardised storage attached to the router, and a standardised scripting language and SQL database as part of the router firmware, there's not much that can be done without that. Otherwise you'd need an Apple TV to control Apple's lightbulbs, a Samsung box for Samsung's stuff, a Google box for Google's stuff, etc etc etc... I doubt most people want a string of boxes under the telly with power supplies, each with their own settings, and so on.

  8. Goblin
    Coat

    LAMP NOT BULB!

    Bulbs grow, lamps glow.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamp_%28electrical_component%29

    Also if its an LED is not a bulb or lamp...

    *leaves*

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: LAMP NOT BULB!

      Bulbs grow, lamps glow.

      So what do lightbulbs do?

    2. Joel 1

      @Goblin

      "Bulbs grow, lamps glow."

      Lamps glow if they have a source of illumination inside them - you can plug in your electric lamps and turn them on as much as you like, but without a lightbulb, they will glow not at all.

      If you are looking at oil lamps (or lanterns) then substitute wick and oil for bulb and electricity...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Goblin

        And PS, the round, stemmy shape is the reason they're called bulbs, much like how onion (bulbs) look. We normally call lights by their shape, thus fluorescent tubes and so on.

  9. NPattie

    White light explained

    The decision to go to white light was taken very consciously and is primarily to do with safety and security. When power is cut the Philips Hue light goes back to bright white light because the previous state or scene might be / is very likely not suitable for a potential emergency case. Other use cases to support this decision are driven by users that may not have access to your Philips Hue lighting system e.g. the cleaning lady does not have access to your Hue with her smart device; so when she starts cleaning she power switches the light; if this powers to the previous scene which could be a romantic pink or a very dimmed down relax scene it is impossible for her do what she came for. So we chose for these non-connected users especillay young children, baby sitters, etc… to get white light. Our final decision to go to white after a power cut is also strongly supported by our home placement tests in New York, Berlin, Tokyo and Shanghai. Consumers in all regions confirmed that the best of all options is to go back to white light.

    1. David Roberts

      Re: White light explained

      Also covers the probably common use case:

      I can't find my phone!

      Well, turn the lights up, stupid.

      Oh fsck!!

    2. Jediben

      Re: White light explained

      Pwned!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: White light explained

      No, the best option would be to switch on to the last known state and add in a "safety" feature in case you really DO need a white light. Say, switching it on TWICE in quick succession. I don't know how it is east of the Atlantic, but West most people are encouraged to turn off their house lights in the event of a power failure. This is because when the power comes back on, there's the risk of a surge which can blow the lights; keeping them off helps prevent this.

  10. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "I purchased a Beurer connected scale, which dutifully records my weight, BMI and percentage body fat to my iPhone and HealthKit."

    Some people are beyond help.

  11. NPattie

    The white light explained

    The decision to go to white light was taken very consciously and is primarily to do with safety and security. When power is cut the Philisp Hue light goes back to bright white light because the previous state or scene might be / is very likely not suitable for a potential emergency case.

    Other use cases to support this decision are driven by users that don't have access to your Philips Hue lighting system e.g. the cleaning lady does not have access; so when she starts cleaning she power switches the light; if this powers to the previous scene which could be a romantic pink or a very dimmed down relax scene it is diffuicult for her do what she came for. So we chose for these non-connected users, especially young children, baby sitters, etc… to get white light.

    Our final decision to go to white after a power cut is also strongly supported by our home placement tests in New York, Berlin, Tokyo and Shanghai. Consumers in all regions confirmed that the best of all options is to go back to white light.

    1. dotdavid

      Re: The white light explained

      If the bulb is so smart why can't it have this as a customisable user setting then? Then those that want mood lighting in an emergency (or much more likely non-emergency) can have it.

    2. druck Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: The white light explained

      I can understand the logic, but a better solution would be to remember it's previous setting after a power interruptions, but allow a quick toggle of the switch to change to white light when it's needed urgently.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: The white light explained

        That was exactly what I was thinking. You should be able to design a circuit that can recognize a "blink" off then quickly back on and see this as a safety signal and switch full white. Then a normal cycle takes it right back to the last known state before then.

    3. Steve 13

      Re: The white light explained

      A better solution would be to have gimmics like coloured and colour changing bulbs as a secondary lighting device, not a primary one. When I want white light, I switch on the primary lighting circuit, and when the cleaner comes she does the same thing.

      When I want mood lighting I turn on the lamp, and I expect it to remember what it's settings were, not have to be reset every time it's used.

      I've got a number of LED lighting strips and bulbs, some remember there settings, others don't. I find the ones that remember the settings to be much more useful.

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: The white light explained

      "Consumers in all regions confirmed that the best of all options is to go back to white light."

      Consumers in all regions confirmed that the best availablle option is to go back to white light.

      FTFY :-)

      Most people here in the UK don't seem to like the harsh white light which seems to be preferred in Japan.

      I am curious though. If there's a power failure, do the lightbulb settings just revert to default ready for next switch on or does it actually light up too? Assuming a short power cut just after I leave for work, can I look forward to my house spending the whole day lit up like the Blackpool illuminations? Or do they stay off until commanded to switch on?

  12. Sliver

    This is a non-issue and bad example

    I have an extensive Hue setup with mobile controllers in each room set to control that rooms lights. The switch to white state is for convenience, safety and security - and was 'designed that way'.

    These bulbs are not smart in any way. However when combined with a smartphone and apps such as IFTTT, geo-fencing and timers they are truly amazing. The challenge is making devices like this work for everybody rather than just somebody with tech skills and a PhD.

    These work perfectly - even for my 2 year old.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      So, what you're actually saying is that you're happy with this situation

      That is your prerogative.

      What the author is saying is that he is not happy with this situation. That is his prerogative.

      Personally, I agree with the author. This situation is not only unpleasant, but also unacceptable. It's not like Flash memory is a new, untested technology. It is extremely simple to integrate a flash chip to store the settings and operate off that.

      But aside from the decision to go to white state or not, I welcome the article because it describes exactly what the situation is concerning the management of it all : chaotic.

      Thank you, but I'll stick with switches for the moment. That is an interface that is simple, understandable, does not require a bloody smartphone and even works in the dark.

  13. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Debugging intelligence

    It seems to me that devices will become too 'intelligent' for us to debug long before thay are 'intelligent' enough to rule the world.

    Here's hoping, anyway.

    1. Trollslayer

      Re: Debugging intelligence

      Then they start debugging us.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: Debugging intelligence

        E.g. abolish our need for vitamins: that random set of organic compounds that our cells need but cannot synthesise from plain food.

        Then we could enjoy junk food and tell the diet freaks to get lost.

  14. InNY

    Fuhgeddaboutit

    Being pedantic, but there's an 'h' in there.

    Leaving Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboutit

    It's pronounced Fuh'-gedd-a-bou'-tit (or -it) depending if you live in Park Slope or Crown Heights. If you happen to live at the bottom of Myrtle or in the Flatbush area then the hard 'dd' is softened slightly.

  15. Sureo

    Interface

    The best interface for all those smart gadgets might be voice command.

    "Computer - turn on kitchen lights, start coffee maker, run the toaster"

    "Dave, the toaster is jammed and is catching fire"

    "Computer - call the fire department!"

    1. WereWoof

      Re: Interface

      Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.

    2. Graham Lockley

      Re: Interface

      "Computer - call the fire department!"

      I'm sorry Dave.....

  16. elaar

    The Philips Hue bulbs reset with power-loss for the reason that if the bridge dies, or you have lost your mobile, then they will still function as a normal light, using the normal light switch.

    So there is method to the madness, but I agree, there should be a way to make them sync back up to the bridge (and all data stored on the bridge, as you don't want the added cost of flash/eeprom etc. on each bulb).

    You picked a fairly bad example, as Philips are pretty good, providing APIs and good developer docs.

    Ideally, there needs to be cross compatibility and standards (such as what they did with DLNA), otherwise you're going to get many different eco-systems, all with incompatible peripherals, meaning you will forever be locked into an individual companies IoT project.

    1. Charles 9

      "Ideally, there needs to be cross compatibility and standards (such as what they did with DLNA), otherwise you're going to get many different eco-systems, all with incompatible peripherals, meaning you will forever be locked into an individual companies IoT project."

      I think that's the entire point. There can be only one in this case, so everyone's fighting to be the one hub to rule them all.

      1. elaar

        There can be multiple gateways for different systems, not ideal but it would work. As long as they all use the same controller (whether that be a webpage or mobile phone apps). It would be nice if someone created an open source controller, and all manufacturers created APIs so that the controller could have snap-ins (for want of a better word).

        I can't see the problem with manufacturers doing that, they make their money on the hardware (especially the hub/gateway).

        1. Fraggle850

          I'd refer you to OpenHAB for an open source solution as a work in progress. Probably don't need a PHD to set it up but still probably beyond the ability/attention span of the average Joe.

        2. Charles 9

          "I can't see the problem with manufacturers doing that, they make their money on the hardware (especially the hub/gateway)."

          And therein lies the problem. They want it to be THEIR hub in charge of the house, so the manufacturers don't want to cooperate with each other, lest they're considered Giving Information To The Enemy. Basically put, the competition is cut-throat. If they can't win, they'd rather NO ONE win since that means back to the status quo where they were actually doing all right.

        3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          so that the controller could have snap-ins

          ...or plug-ins,even . Plug in light-bulbs, now THAT'S innovation :-)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      >there should be a way to make them sync back up to the bridge

      Only if that happens before switching on -- I don't want a light that I've set to be a nice warm colour to turn on bright harsh white and then switch to its proper setting.

      >you don't want the added cost of flash/eeprom etc. on each bulb

      The amount of flash needed for storing this amount of information is very cheap -- less than $0.08 for a 2kbit EEPROM in production quantities from Digi-key, for example -- if it's not already stored in the memory of the MCU used to communicate with the bridge. So, poor excuse.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just one more reason...

    ...why the not ready for prime time IoT is a bad joke.

    1. Fraggle850

      Re: Just one more reason...

      It will continue to be a bad joke until they get their shit together and introduce a sensible, open, standards-based protocol.

  18. DCLXV

    IoT is like smartphones

    Clever ideas thought up years ago by die-hard nerds (or hackers, as anyone who owns a soldering iron likes to be called these days) that languished because they weren't really applicable to the needs of the herd.

    Then the ideas are brought into vogue by the first person who succeeds at making a reasonably-reliable facsimile of the original design, with shiny packaging and clever marketing to convince idiots that they really need this thing they never realized they needed.

    Some call this lunacy capitalism.

  19. Deryk Barker

    I refuse

    to have anything to do with any system/device that thinks it knows better than I do.

    This is why I will never use any product from Apple.

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