Comment by 542354234235

>As in a lot of home automation actually makes things worse. Replacing a convenient light switch with an app? 100% terrible idea and actually makes things inconvenient, don't automate those.

But this isn’t automating anything, you are still just manually controlling things. I lights in my office automated, so that they do different things based on the time of day, room occupancy, door open or closed, etc. The lights follow circadian rhythm to be cool during the day and warm after dark. When it is close to bedtime, I run one command that changes the behavior of many things in the house, including turning off certain appliances and changing light behaviors. That includes the bedroom only turning on a red light under the bed when the door opens so we can find our way to the bed without waking the other person, and other rooms only turning on a very low level “night light” for moving through the house comfortably for a glass of water or something.

Everything can be overridden with manual input at light switches or app commands, and each behavior will turn off automatic control for a set period so it doesn’t fight me when I set something myself. That is home automation, not being able to turn your living room lights on by yelling at Alexa.