Before smart homes are more than just a toy, they need to have functionality that is actually time saving.
I've messed with smart home stuff and so far the only thing that has been useful beyond being a toy is our robot vacuum, which I'm not sure is really classified as a smart home thing.
As someone that lives in California, something that could be an actual $$ and time saver rather than just a toy is if I could have a system that would open windows rather than turning on the AC when the outside temperature is low enough.
A simple example of useful stuff than can be done today but is annoying to set up is to have all the lights in a home turn off when everyone is gone, but switch back to their previous state when one or more people get home.
Another is to have blinds that open just before sunrise, so that you can sleep in darkness but wake up with the sun (especially useful if you're in a city). This is what I do myself, but it's a pain to change anything because the legacy motorized shades don't integrate with anything.
which I'm not sure is really classified as a smart home thing.
This is amusing to me, I think as soon as something becomes somewhat common it will no longer be classified as "smart home". Sort of like how the definition of AI is a moving target.
It's definitely a smart device. But to me a smart home has a central system that can monitor a variety of inputs and, in response, control a set of things to accomplish some goal.
We have a robot vacuum and robot mopper. Me going over and pressing the robot vacuum button, then once its done, placing the robot mopper in position and pressing the start button, is using smart devices but isn't a smart home. If I can tell a central system to "clean the kitchen" and it starts the vacuum, and when that's done dispatches the mopper, that's a smart home.
I know higher end iRobots can do this sort of thing in their dedicated app. And if you can control that via a smart home hub then that would be smart home functionality to me.
> it starts the vacuum, and when that's done dispatches the mopper
Great point -- outsourcing control leads to logic that can improve and be coordinated between unrelated systems.
> If I can tell a central system
Or better yet, not need to tell it, and have your kitchen cleaned while you're at work, possibly with a phone notification if you really want it. Probably just a passive history+status interface normally, though, once you trust it.
Obviously a vacuum cleaner could have heuristics to tell when you're out (clocks and radar etc) but that's just a dead-end solution when your thermostat and your lights and your curtains and your security system all want to know too.
It might not sound like a lot, but it saves us 15-20 minutes of cleaning per day. We have 3 kids and get about 1-2 hours of free time per night. So its 12-33% more time to spend doing whatever we want rather than cleaning the house.
Vacuuming every day strikes me as misguided, even if (especially if) you have allergies, because the residual dust never has a chance to settle. I'm speaking as someone who has issues with household dust much beyond most people, and who has found even a good air purifier to be counterproductive if used 100% of the time.
> they need to have functionality that is actually time saving.
Robot vacuums didn't achieve this for me, I'd have to spend more time removing "clutter" from the floor than I would vacuuming and half the time it'd get stuck on something anyway. Some of that clutter was me being messy, but some of it was things I liked to keep handy under the couch. As advanced as they are, they're still stupid machines that don't properly adapt to humans.
I've messed with smart home stuff and so far the only thing that has been useful beyond being a toy is our robot vacuum, which I'm not sure is really classified as a smart home thing.
As someone that lives in California, something that could be an actual $$ and time saver rather than just a toy is if I could have a system that would open windows rather than turning on the AC when the outside temperature is low enough.