What will homes of 2020 be like?

From 30 years ago.

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We’re most likely gonna see more garbage such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Ring & similar spying on everyone. Oh, and more ads - any device having the hardware capability to display ads will eventually be “upgraded” to do so (smart TVs already do this).

Home automation will still suck, with most devices being locked into their own ecosystems and clouds and thus not being able to interoperate. Simple things such as turn on the lights when I get home (based on the phone connecting to the Wi-Fi) or turning off heating when a window sensor is triggered are still going to be impossible unless you’re willing to spend time managing a server and installing Home Assistant on it even though technically all the technology to achieve this has existed for decades.

That’s my prediction. Let’s see at the end of the year how accurate it is.

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Pretty spot on. Looking forward to drying my hair anywhere :sweat_smile:

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It’s surprisingly accurate, even down to the ‘power pads’ - just not quite in the walls just yet.

I also wasn’t aware Aerogel had been around for quite so long.

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I predict homes of 2020 will be… well just look around your own, why should I have to predict this stuff? It IS 2020! :smiley:

(in other news, we need programmes like Tomorrow’s World back again).

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Wobbly scenery and all. Click is good but… R-

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Alexa

Bach please!

Haha. With one hand pressed to the wall😂

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I really am going off Click these days. I think Spencer Kelly’s faux amazement at everything is becoming tiresome.

The worst segment recently was the Tesla v Lamborghini test. They raced the two cars in a straight line over a short distance, and the Tesla won. Everyone exudes shock and amazement, but surely they all knew what the result was going to be, otherwise they wouldn’t have set it up. :man_shrugging:

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Woof woof!

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That’s what surprised me. Even down to wireless streaming music from a “sound library.”

Sounds like you need Home Assistant…

I replaced all my hubs/apps etc with this hosted on a Raspberry Pi and firewalled in the same cupboard as my router… Everything but my Google Home is firewalled and can’t talk outside of the network, even then the Google Home is on a network with PiHole to block all ad traffic.

I got fed up of having 11 different apps for different aspects of my smart devices… One for my thermostat… One for my Ikea lights… One for my CCTV… Ughhh! This just talks to all the devices and moves the control to them and saves you having so much going on.

As above, I use a raspberry Pi to control all my items, blinds, bulbs, sensors, sonos etc.

Home Assistant looks interesting. I currently use HomeBridge and eDomoticz but its not the most stable (works probably 90%) of the time. I want 100%.

Can you access Home Assistant remotely?

Yep! So forward port 80 on your router, you’ll be able to access the interface, I’ve got it setup where my domain uses DDNS to sync to my home IP address and I can just navigate to it with ease (Also I use port 443 for SSL and have a cert for extra security)

It also means devices you wouldn’t be able to control outside the network normally (Like Ikea Tradfri lights) are now exposed outside the network, nice side effect

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Sounds great but the description gives me the fear… “Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts”.

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Yeah I’ve tried it but my point is that I shouldn’t have to set up & maintain yet another server (I do that at work all day and it’s the last thing I want to think about when I get home) especially when you consider the price of these smart home gadgets. HomeKit was supposed to be that, a universal standard everything supports… instead we get a disgusting UI and the protocol is so complex a basic thing like turning on lights sometimes takes several seconds (WTF is it doing, it can’t be that hard to send a packet to the light can it? :joy:).

For what it’s worth…

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I hope it’s simple to understand and do. For the less technically able [me] this is a challenge beyond consideration. Did you ever get an ice cream brain freeze? Well, it’s like that. R-

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Unless I’m mistaken this only defines how a controller device like a phone interacts with the smart device, but doesn’t define how smart devices can interact between themselves so a window sensor can tell the heating to turn off without having to rely on a central controller.

The other thing is complexity. HomeKit is sometimes slow or stalls because it’s an extremely over engineered protocol where as a single UDP packet (with a signature and/or encryption) would do for most things like turning lights on or off. I’m not sure this new protocol will be any better regarding this.

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Jealous. I used to have hair…

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