I used to feel this way, but don't anymore. Smart devices don't all go out to the cloud; you can easily build a completely-local smart home that nobody on the Internet can control or monitor. This is the default in Apple's ecosystem (though they integrate with cloud services if you want), and you don't even have to use a major tech company's ecosystem. You can install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi and build your own local-only accessories with ESPHome and similar.
I find a mix of DIY and premade devices to be pretty good. I have all of my lights on Lutron Caseta (completely local, works when Internet is down) and can control them from my workstation, the wall, physical remotes, Apple devices, and Siri. I have Home Assistant bridged to Home Assistant, so can do things like control my workstation's LEDs from the Home app or Siri. Home Assistant has kind of interesting integrations, like something that reads the humidity sensor in my bathroom and the outdoor humidity to suggest how long the window needs to be opened to properly ventilate it after a shower.
I think the smart home is pretty OK. It gives you a single pane of glass to control all controllable devices, which ends up being quite worthwhile. (On a video call and need more light? Just switch them on from your computer. Too cold? Turn down the AC. No corporate tracking, just convenience.)
The worst thing that came from "the internet of things" is that people now assume that having great home automation equates to having to use cloud-connected devices that aren't really under your control. It just isn't so.
It would all be helped if the gov were to include a law forcing all IoT companies to support at least a minimum standard protocol so everything plugs together and make it possible for these things to work without downloading their app/signing up to an account. Also making it illegal for devices to phone home via the internet by default.
But then there's a lot of stuff that our governments could solve but they never will.
I tried a few of Amazon's Echo devices. I didn't spend much on them except for the big speaker. It used to be ok, but now it asks me to sign up for Unlimited music every single voice prompt. This exactly ended my desire to get anything else made by Amazon.
I used to have an Ecobee thermostat. A good idea, but it wouldn't work at all without a connection to their server. Their server uptime was a complete joke which made my thermostat useless.
I also had a few smart plugs for lamps.
I spent way too much time fiddling with all this garbage, so I trashed it all.
I fully respect when anyone decides they don't want smart devices, but all of your bullet points are quite easy to accomplish with off the shelf devices these days ("unnecessarily complicated" will always be debatable though).
All of my lights, outlets, and dozens of other niche things, never connect to the internet, and everything is fully functional when there's no internet connection.
Home Assistant with Zigbee devices is fantastic for avoiding vendor lock-in[0]. EspHome and Tasmota fill in nicely for if/when you want wifi devices.
Convenience. Some people don't desire it, and that's fine.
My wife said the same thing as you at first, and originally had no desire for any of it.
Instead of buying dimmer switches to replace the on/off wall switches, I got dimmers that go in the gang box behind the existing switches. I did this for her, because she preferred a real switch and now we can on/off with a real switch (as it worked originally) or control brightness/on/off with voice, app, or zigbee remotes.
Since I did this on all our wall switches, my wife went from using the real switches 100% of the time to now around 0-5% of the time. When we're away from home she always makes a comment on how annoying it is to NOT have it.
Asking for a brightness change while watching a movie or cooking with dirty hands, automatically tuning the lights to something warmer at night and brighter during the day, forgot to turn something off and you're already in bed, automatically turn on the lights inside the front door when we open it with an arm full of stuff, having energy monitoring, virtual 3-way switches without any re-wiring, adding additional lights to switches that don't have real switches, controlling the TV without a remote, the list goes on.
If the reliability of it all wasn't 99%+, I wouldn't want it. I keep it because everything "just works".
Personally think zwave to be the most entrenched (commercial real estate relies heavily on zwave). The “cool” smart products typically exist as Wi-Fi, bluetooth, and zigbee devices (in that order). The requirements for those turn me off but I have been very successful with zwave. It powers everything from locks and lights to doors gates and my sprinkler system. HVAC is controlled by zwave and I even have a keychain scene controller that acts as a key fob to my house. When it comes close, it associates and that event can trigger a rule set.
I’m using openHAB instead of HA for the tinkerability, but the new versions are pretty power user friendly
Personally, I've found Zigbee devices to be much easier to find, much more reliable than Bluetooth, and the entire sector seems to be heading towards Matter, Thread, and Zigbee anyways.
My battery powered Zigbee devices last at least a year without needing a recharge/replacement, which was a huge selling point (door/vibration sensors, temperature, etc), although zwave is similar if I understand correctly. Most of mine are on year 3 now and probably need new batteries soon.
My order of preference would be Matter, Zigbee, Wifi, and Bluetooth being a last resort option. Z-wave isn't on the list only because I decided against getting a controller for it.
I got a Hubitat box that has both Zwave and Zigbee. I've only ever used Zwave devices and they all work very well but I guess I have the option of Zigbee if I need it. I've avoided anything Wifi or Bluetooth. I don't really know what "Matter" is but I had thought it was a Google thing, which I would certainly avoid at all costs. Maybe I misunderstood it though.
That’s the thing you need four different methods to access the protocols you describe. Of those protocols you listed, zwave operates at the lowest frequency giving you the best coverage. And has all the same benefits of zigbee (auto healing, mesh network). So yeah there are options but some of them just make no sense (as you pointed out)
You can look at several types in that list that don't have wall power easily or always available. Door and window sensors, which could be solved similar to older alarm systems, but have a significantly lower barrier to entry being wireless. There are convenience and accessibility benefits to allowing wireless battery-powered switches to control your devices. Wi-Fi can be an answer for a lot of these but there are battery life and coverage benefits to the mesh behavior of these networks without needing to spend a lot to expand your Wi-Fi coverage.
Why would I plug sensors, that sip power, into a power point?
When I have humidity/temperature, light, motion, etc in every single room how many freaking power points am I meant to have in my house, aha. Maybe American houses have walls absolutely studded with power points but most other places don't.
Adding to this, I just don't see the use case for "smart" devices. The difference between me getting up and checking the thermometer vs checking the thermometer using my phone is 10 seconds, max.
We have a heat pump, so we change the temperature roughly twice a year: heating temperature in winter, air conditioning temperature in summer.
But my Ecobee reports the temperature in three rooms (and occupancy, which I tie into automating lights), outside temperature, outside and inside humidity, fan/heat/cool start/stop times, and some other more obscure metrics up to the mothership, and the excellent third-party website Beestat[1] tracks all of those using Ecobee's well-documented API. It lets me spot anomalies, and helps me understand if I've got the resistive heating configured to come on at the best time.
If we had time-of-day rates for electricity, it would optimize for those, but we don't have time-of-day-rates.
(If I had gas heat, or if I didn't work from home, I'd at least schedule temperature changes to set things cooler at night or when we're away -- maybe driven by the occupancy sensors! -- but apparently that's not effective with heat pumps.
I dipped my toe ever so cautiously into "smart home" territory last year, buying three "smart" lightbulbs at the Apple Store, but only talking to them over Bluetooth.
(At least, I think I'm only doing that: I suppose it's possible the software that talks to them via BT got them on my WiFi without my permission? Doubtful but hmmm...)
Anyway at some point there was a software update to the controller app and it couldn't find them. After much back and forth, I uninstalled that app, and the iPhone's iHome or whatever app then recognized two of them, but not the third. That one started freaking out and randomly turning itself on and off.
Now it's mostly off, but comes on for a bit about once a week. Yes, I'm lazy about changing lightbulbs.
All this drama for... freakin' lightbulbs that can change color. Doesn't make me want to further smartify my home.
I figure some simple fake LED candles are my future mood lighting. I'd spring for a Mathmos Lava Lamp[0] if they didn't look like sex toys.
I hope you're not serious about the sex toy thing lmao, I thought we were all over that sort of prudishness by now or is it a I don't eat hot dogs cause I'm a man sort of thing
- likely to stop working if the vendor goes bust, their business model changes, or they just feel like it
This is true of anything these days...hell even as someone who's into electronics/firmware development stuff and whatnot, I wouldn't even bother trying to fix a $20-50 (or even more) device, let alone the average person. Stuff is complicated enough these days that you pretty much have to become the expert on any device in order to fix it.
The Xiaomi zigbee stuff is pretty good/standard, amongst others. IoT can be great, I find the most useful thing is using cheap Xiaomi motion sensors with wifi led lights so that lights turn on/off based on presence in the room.
meh they don't have to be privacy destroying. Home automation forums on reddit have some pretty good lists of what to get and ones that are interoperable. I looked into it but I guess I'm just happy with switches and dumb thermostats.
I do not, nor will I ever use, any "smart" device. "Smart" devices are
- unnecessarily complicated
- privacy destroying
- overpriced
- vendor lock-in
- often infected with online ads you can't get rid of
- likely to stop working if the vendor goes bust, their business model changes, or they just feel like it
IMO, it is rarely or never a smart decision to get a "smart" device.