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I spent my weekend rewiring a bunch of things in my parents’ house to add HomeKit support.
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Installing wall plugs and smart bulbs is still easy, but the real change will require a mass replacement of switches & outlets. The current options are too expensive and too hard to install.
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Additionally, Amazon’s ‘smart home’ stuff for Alexa is years behind Google’s, which is definitively worse than HomeKit
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Every single vendor wants to push you to use their app and their ecosystem, which are all worse, uglier, and less functional than the platform vendors.
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It’ll take a very long time before everyone lives in even a casually intelligent, much less a ‘smart’ home — and the movement will have to come from new construction not retrofit
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The benefits are massive, though — I really hope more people get to have even the basics soon, it’s hugely energy efficient and tbh just plain nice… coming home to a lit house without leaving the lights on is really pleasant.