Lightwave and the risks of smart devices?

[u587162]

I'm renovating a home in which the project stalled for a good few years. I bought lots of Lightwave sockets before a major price increase in 2016 and never opened them. They cost about £17 each on amazon. Link is here:
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005TI0SZ0/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Now 2021, I feel I am installing old technology and don't know whether to install them or not. I haven't bought any of their light switches. I will need some 70 sockets for the whole house, I probably have maybe 20 of them. My questions are:

1) I was a shareholder in Lightwave before they were delisted on the London Stock Exchange. They were small before and probably smaller now and much bigger players around. If they went bust or got taken over and the servers shut down, will be sockets continue to work as dumb sockets

2. With the real risk that any small smart home product manufacturer going bust, isn't it a better idea to stick to the big boys like Google, Samsung etc as they are unlikely to stop supporting their product?

3. Should I sell my old box and unused sockets on ebay (new versions are selling for £50+ where as I bought my older versions for £18 each)

4. Does anyone know of a situation with my old sockets whereby something to do with the coil inside would go wrong with high wattage appliance either burning the sockets out or making them not function properly? I remember reading about this.

 

[bernardgreen]

and the servers shut down, will be sockets continue to work as dumb sockets

Sorry to be blunt but depending on a remote server to control the appliances in one's home is far from being "smart".

 

[u587162]

Smart means remote access and for that, unless I am mistaken you need a remote server (there is no home wifi server solution). If the remote server is down, it should still work as a dumb terminal.

I know you probably devise your own esoteric solutions from what I remember reading from your posts in the past, but not everyone is able to or willing to do that.

 

[bernardgreen]

Yes I did design a bespoke controller for the lighting in my cottage, the prime reason was to avoid having to run mains rated cables down walls to switches. It was relatively easy to expand the system to include some extra functions such as timed security lighting, porch light switching on when the door bell is pressed after dark and similar.

 

[muggles]

Amazon are taking the lead as the big player in smart homes at present, at least as far as what might be called "consumer" products go. Samsung are pulling out of the smart home market, so there goes your theory on big players As for your particular installation, I've had good success with the BG Smart Sockets. They work perfectly with Amazon Echo and yes, you can still switch them on and off manually if your Internet goes down.

 

[u587162]

Amazon are taking the lead as the big player in smart homes at present, at least as far as what might be called "consumer" products go. Samsung are pulling out of the smart home market, so there goes your theory on big players As for your particular installation, I've had good success with the BG Smart Sockets. They work perfectly with Amazon Echo and yes, you can still switch them on and off manually if your Internet goes down.

What's your source on this, I cant seem to find any news that Samsung is pulling out.

 

[ericmark]

I used Energenie MiHome, in the main OK, however had to reduce light switches to 3 from 5 as seemed to interfere with each other, and had one socket start switching on/off like a flasher unit, removing and returning power does seem to correct faults, however they default off, not a good idea for freezer supply.

The plug in adaptor can be got as energy monitor as well, so you can see remotely if using power, but the standard sockets don't tell you if on or off, so in general the plug in adaptors are better than swapping sockets.

Mine should be IFTTT and I can see the advantage, however I have used it manually to date, the only thing where I have really used the internet control is in the summer, I have a cheap air conditioning unit, type which normally has pipe out of window, although I have it going up the chimney so don't need to leave a window open, and although thermostatic cooling control the fan runs all the time it is switched on, so I have it plugged into an energy monitoring wifi switching adaptor, and before I return home I look at the temperature on the TRV heads and if high switch it on so return to a cooler house than it would otherwise be.

When I look at the sockets already fitted, I realise in the main plug in timers would do same job, and more reliable, so in hind sight a waste of time, there are one or two places where it would help, outside lights for example, so I can switch on from the car without having cats switch them on, on my to do list, but in the main it seems the sockets are a waste of money.

The light switches are used daily, I use a remote control or PC to turn bedroom lights on/off, as never bothers with two way lighting so I can turn off from in my bed, and I use a 4 outlet smart extension lead to turn on decorative lights in living room, I removed the main light smart switch, mainly due to Nest Mini which when asked to turn off music would say turning off 5 switches and plunge us into darkness, but when asked to turn on lights said I don't know how to do that yet.

We may have laughed at the Santander Bank advert, but in real terms the Nest Mini does do daft things, without asking it to do anything it will say sorry something went wrong try again. Think it gets lonely if you don't use it and wants to remind you it's there. With no radio reception were we live they are great, but don't trust them.

 

[u587162]

I cant see any advantage of having smart sockets everywhere in the house replacing standard sockets. There are some things which you will always leave ON and that includes the fridge freezer. Personally I think smart light switches are where the real value is.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I cant see any advantage of having smart sockets everywhere in the house replacing standard sockets. There are some things which you will always leave ON and that includes the fridge freezer. Personally I think smart light switches are where the real value is.

I bought 8x cheap, plug in adaptors. They are Amazon compatible and work with other remote servers, so less chance of them becoming unusable/obsolete. I do find them absolutely great for automation - switching things on and off remotely, or on at dusk and off at set times, or on and off at set times, even conditional operation. Each adaptor also has a manual over ride button on the side of it.

I certainly would not use them for anything crucial, because if your internet fails, they don't perform. I also once had three of them simultaneously crash and lock-up in their last instructed operation, all working on the same instructions. I had to power them down, to recover them.

They can also fail to operate, if they are in marginal range of your wifi. The server only sends its instruction a limited number of times (?), before it gives up trying. I had to add a wifi repeater outdoors, to extend range out to my garage, to control a Smart Plug in there.

 

[muggles]

What's your source on this, I cant seem to find any news that Samsung is pulling out.

Mostly my source is Paul Hibbert's video on the subject but he generally seems to know what he's talking about with these things

 

[u587162]

There was a time in my teens, when I would spend (waste) trying to modify my PC and make it load faster and overclock it etc. A bit like a boy racer and his go faster stripes. As you mature and get older, you realise there's more to life than that. I haven't built a PC from scratch in over 20 years, everything is so cheap its easy to buy it whole.

When the internet of things came about 5-7 years ago and the thought of home automation filled the air with this utopian idea that you can just put your feet up and everything will self-automate, you wake up now and realise after (in my case losing a good few grand investing in Den automation through SIES tax saving investments) and realising that these myriad of tech wannabe startups are here today and gone tomorrow. Those fancy sockets and switches may work for a few months and then kaput you have to change them.

When technology improves, what are you going to do, change all the sockets again for version 2.0 because 1.9 doesn't do what 2.0 offers? We had the same old traditional switches for 40 years in mum's house, never changed.

I'm spending thousands on my own high end home now and whilst I will use my Fibaro or Vera controller that I got from Vesternet at some point, I think trying to run too many automations in a giddy teenage excited way, is foolish. I fear that if something happens to me, my wife (totally useless at technology - wants a fancy expensive iphone but only makes use of 1% of the features) and my very young kids wont understand how to operate the house and why the house operates itself in a manner which makes no sense to them but to only me who might no longer be around.

I think I have to write a "how to use the house" manual when I'm done with my automation setup.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I'm spending thousands on my own high end home now and whilst I will use my Fibaro or Vera controller that I got from Vesternet at some point, I think trying to run too many automations in a giddy teenage excited way, is foolish. I fear that if something happens to me, my wife (totally useless at technology - wants a fancy expensive iphone but only makes use of 1% of the features) and my very young kids wont understand how to operate the house and why the house operates itself in a manner which makes no sense to them but to only me who might no longer be around.

I think I have to write a "how to use the house" manual when I'm done with my automation setup.

New partner 12 months ago and had an appointment to go into hospital, her a complete stranger to the area - and that is exactly what I did, typing out a several pages of how to work the house, where to find the shops, where to find things in the house, where to find the buses and where they go.

 

[Alec_t]

my very young kids wont understand how to operate the house

Believe me, they will! It's mainly us old fogies who have problems with tech.

 

[Why Not Indeed]

2. With the real risk that any small smart home product manufacturer going bust, isn't it a better idea to stick to the big boys like Google, Samsung etc as they are unlikely to stop supporting their product?

Bad example - Google is is *notorious* for killing off products that don't....well....who knows why they choose what gets the chop, but there are sites dedicated to tracking them, eg https://killedbygoogle.com/ .
Either build it yourself, or accept the risk that whoever's servers your house relies on could just disappear with little or no notice. Or start charging you £5/month per socket.

 

[u587162]

How is it even sustainable for the likes of these manufacturers to operate and fund a service without a monthly fee. They can’t keep relying on selling new tech, that can only go so far before a lab even larger customer base needs supporting from faulty products to tech support.

As for younger kids getting smarter, that is true to an extent. But to the untrained eye, if you wrote a custom script for your zig bee Vera controller that did something so esoteric, your child or wife who grows up to be a doctor or lawyer won’t have the time or inclination to figure out why the boiler comes on each time you open a window or why when the doorbell rings after 11pm your neighbour complains of flashing lights in your home resembling a discotheque (to scare off an intruder).

Exaggerated scenarios of course but you get my drift.

My biggest source of happiness in all of this is the idea of a star-trek style ability to talk to Alexa. 6 years ago I was searching for devices to put into my ceiling to achieve the same thing and now we have a product that does it for less than £20 (echo dot).