Curious what people’s thoughts are on this. I cry for the health of this Z-Wave mesh though… Also motion detection and contact detection virtual switches/variables/toggles will go a long way in this setup. I also imagine Zwavejs2mqtt exposes that fade on off toggle.
My favorite bit was them assuming smart bulbs would work with a dimmer not designed specifically to do that. Definitely should’ve listened to his guy and went with inovelli IMO.
Etertaining watching the struggle of the project knowing we’ve all been there, very curious how they’re going to handle occupancy vs motion
A person of his status in the tech field mixed with his following; this may be a major turning point for smart homes, either for the good or for the bad. Depending on what happens I could see this making an entire generation either think SH is a gimmick or really has some potential and room for growth, I hope the former of course not only for the sake of the CORE team but also for the sake of the industry. I know the timing is awful, but Linus would be a very interesting whale to catch for this venture we are on, just look at what he did with Framework or even what he did with GE/JASCO just by explaining what happened on a podcast.
I started out with zwave devices but very quickly discovered all these little “problems” with them. I had bought some GE/Jasco plugs and fan controllers but soon discovered that they do not all work the same and that the firmware was different on some of them and of course no way to update them.
I also have an Ecolink contact sensor (DWZWAVE2.5-ECO) which is totally useless as you cannot factory reset it unless you have the original hub it was paired to as you have to exclude it from that hub. No factory reset available on the device itself! Ran into this little gem when I bought my HE hub and tried to include it - https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=Join_and_Reset_Instructions#Ecolink. As my other hub was dead, there was no way for me to salvage this device. This device is STILL being sold with this flaw - https://www.zwaveproducts.com/products/dwzwave2-5-eco-ecolink-z-wave-plus-door-window-sensor-dwzwave2-5-eco.
Luckily I discovered all of this before I got too deep down the rabbit hole and I have since switched exclusively to Lutron for my lights/fans and zigbee for everything else and I have been extremely happy - even more so after I discovered Node-Red and zigbee2mqtt!
The smart home still isn’t for everybody. If you want it to just work and make sense it isn’t for you. Even with matter making on the promises we are already seeing how some manufactures will make their devices work only with their hub on a matter network (ya kinda confusing). You need to understand how things work so that when they don’t work you can understand why.
It was at the point in the video when they said they were turning off the motion detection from HA but the switch wasn’t turning it off that I realized they had an issue with the mesh or the configuration. They kept yelling at jasco when it was not jasco’s fault.
There are a lot of bad devices out there, but before going out and dropping 10k (which they claim) on devices I expect they did their research to know that was a smart choice.
They haven’t even reached the point of troubleshooting zwave mesh issues or zigbee wireless interference. That is going to make for some interesting rant videos.
I made it to 2:38 and clicked stop. Sorry guys. That’s 2:38 that I’ll never get back.
Back to work for me.
Yeah I get that his mannerisms and humor can be a bit divisive, but generally he knows what he is doing and IMO is a positive and powerful force in the tech industry. A whole generation of tech enthusiasts, including me, grew up watching this guy so when he talks about something, especially in a negative context (usually around right to repair or anti-consumer practices), it tends to make waves, you only need to watch the video to the end to see the example of that.
He also has a tendency to go all in on stuff he is passionate about, which is a double edged sword in this case. As most of you probably are aware, buying or building a home is stressful enough, not to mention doing it in this economy, then mix that with the idea that you just wasted $10,000 CA on smart switches (that metric still seems crazy to me for those switches, but they reference it multiple times) because you were told they were the best, then come across these problems and be met with “oh we don’t give out firmware to the public”. I totally understand how he is feeling, I just don’t think he has enough knowledgeable people around him to know what to look for and how to solve. In the end you find out they were very close, but the fragmented nature of the HA industry right now is not doing any favors.
Now yeah I can see people responding with “Sucks to suck, should have done more research”, but at least from a Oh-La standpoint, you guys could use this as a testing ground for what kinds of issues someone might run into and if those issues are addressed with CORE (which I think it is safe to say is yes). Additionally, you could go one step further and potentially use this as a networking opportunity.
I don’t know, just my 2c, but again there is only so much time in the day so I get that everyone has their own filter.
I admit, i do find their organization a bit stressful and unprofessional. I’ll try and give it a go later.