this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Can you manage your house with a local, no-cloud voice assistant? Mostly, yes. (arstechnica.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago (5 children)

I've been doing home automation for awhile now. Voice assistant is never anything I would consider. What problem does it solve that a button doesn't do with less hassle?

Also, note automation. The whole point is for the house to do its thing with minimal interaction based on triggers and states. Everyone leaves? Turn off the lights, lock the doors, turn down the heat. TV comes on after dusk? Dim the living room lights if they are on. Going down the basement stairs? Turn on the lights. Cat just used the litter box? Turn on the hepa filter for a bit.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

What problem does it solve that a button doesn’t do with less hassle?

I'd sure like to know how you got your automation to function 100% perfectly based on simple triggers and states.

TV comes on after dusk?

What if the TV comes on in the late afternoon and normally its bright enough that it needs to close the drapes but today it's cloudy so you'd like them to be open instead so the room isn't pitch black? Or maybe you'd like to watch the backyard for some reason?

"House...open the living room drapes."

There's ALWAYS edge cases where Voice Control is useful to backstop "dumb" automatons built on triggers and states.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes:

  1. I don't have an automation ready to go to do exactly the sequence of things I want to currently do.

  2. I'm warm in bed and I'm lazy and I don't have a phone or computer handy.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

This is exactly me. I use voice command for the laziness feature. I don't often have my phone right at hand. And I just need to turn the lights up to 100%.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

It's pretty handy for things like being able to just say "hey Google, unlock the door" when I'm carrying a dozen bags of groceries.

I use automations as well, but sometimes I need something done outside of my otherwise-considered parameters. And it's easier to just yell your wish into being than to take out your phone, open an app, select the device, then pick your command.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Telling your house to go to sleep when you’re ready is much easier than stopping the cuddle with your wife or animals to press a button.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I push the 'go to bed' button on my phone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Gotta stop the cuddle to do that.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Heat pumps are more efficient maintaining the same temp over the course of the day rather than heating in bursts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have baseboard electric

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

I have a heat pump.