To just want to use a fucking light switch

@Begsthequestion

Why would anyone with the ability to flick a light switch install this tech instead?

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What happens if you want to switch a light on without speaking loud enough to disturb someone sleeping?

Wouldn’t turning on the light be just as disturbing to a sleeping person? Regardless of switch use or voice command? But you can always use the phone or tablet app to operate silently or use the voice command from a different room.

What happens if there's a flaw with the software or hardware one day, like a problem with your devices, or a bug or hack or bad update?

Don’t the impact would be huge

Can you still use the light switches manually, or would you need to get the candles out?

All light would cease to exist 😜 or everyone would just use the manual switches.

If I have to use my phone to control something… no thank you.

Our robot vacuum/mop has changed my life. We can control our heating remotely too. I don’t think we’re important enough to worry.

I'd love to have smart blinds. It would be fabulous to have blinds on a timer. I could open and close all the blinds with pre-programmed commands and I could sleep in without depriving plants of morning sun. I'm sure the price is more than I want to pay, though, especially as I have cats and I sometimes need to replace chewed blinds.

Call me old fashioned but I have no problem with getting up, walking two paces and pressing a switch. Honestly, I don't need my lights to switch on and off all the time when I am not there to press a switch. If we want lights on while we're on holiday we use plug in timers in a socket.

I would never trust an Alexa in the house. DH who has a relevant background is totally against using one.

I love my Alexa lights! Here’s a couple of ways I use them.

• Routines
• Morning kitchen a small light turns on low about 2 min before my alarm goes off -no big light and I can see what I’m doing
• Bedtime- one command and all my living room and any kitchen lights go off. A small bedroom lamp turns on and then over the next 10 minutes gets dimmer until it’s off. Just enough time to get into bed and get settled
• Evening- living room lamps turn on at dusk
• Travel - too many to count… I have music that plays for certain time periods, lights are turned on and turned off at different times
• Holidays -Christmas decorations (inside and out) set to go on and off at specific times, some of my lights get changed to decorative colors during the holidays
• Lights in general
• My back yard light switch is not convenient (in the garage not near the door) I hated that light. Now I just say ‘turn backyard on’
• Colors I can change the colors of different lights depending on activity
• inconvienent lights in general. Behind furniture, small lamp in my dining room table base, one that I’d have to get up and turn off after finally sitting down etc
• Smart things in general
• plugs to turn on small appliances like my space heater and to turn it back off on a timed schedule
• ‘window fan in the bedroom that I set to exhaust for an hour then to draw in cool air for an hour before bed
• Alexa is set up to ‘say good night’ to me to remind me to wrap it up and go to bed. It’s saved me from the ‘oh shit it’s 1am and I got sucked into a book and didn’t realize’ more than once.

I mostly have gone to routines so don’t have to command much. My next purchase will be Alexa enabled blinds. Mostly for travel but also because I feel like I spend half my life opening and closing blinds!

A couple of people mentioned teenagers and leaving on lights… just create a routine to turn them off at the same time late at night. Then you really don’t have to think about it.

Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for me as she gets better.

I refuse to get smart big appliances. Give me a basic knob washer and dryer and my oven is about 70 years old and still going strong. If I have to use my phone to control something… no thank you.

I suppose the same could be said about any new technology. Why would anyone want a newfangled automobile when the horse and buggy work just fine? What if it runs out of gas or has a some other mechanical problem? You'll be left stranded. It just seems lazy and unnecessary when old Bessie has always been reliable.

absolute nonsense

It includes any Internet device to be honest. There are lists of devices and their admin passwords available on the dark Web. Some devices do not allow you to change the default admin password either. It's like leaving your front door wide open.

I don't like Alexa full stop. It listens to you the whole time. So creepy.

But if you haven’t got a big light you have to stumble about in the dark after you’ve turned the last lamp out.

I suppose it depends on the size of the room, but it takes me about 30 seconds if that to switch on the three lamps in our living room, if we don't want to use the main light.

We haven’t got a big light in our sitting room. Alexa puts all the lamps off in a three word command. I wouldn’t be without it.

For the reason others have said - multiple lamps - you can do it from the app with no voice command

I (woman) just asked my Alexa about this and she said it’s bullshit. Which doesn’t surprise me since she’s been talking happily to me for the last 8 years or so.

Why would anyone with the ability to flick a light switch install this tech instead?

What happens if you want to switch a light on without speaking loud enough to disturb someone sleeping?

What happens if there's a flaw with the software or hardware one day, like a problem with your devices, or a bug or hack or bad update?

Can you still use the light switches manually, or would you need to get the candles out?

Sorry for all the questions but I always thought clapping to turn on and off lights was unnecessary for most ppl, so this is a bit baffling to me.

It's is not been mentioned Alexa (and similar) are set up to respond to male voices so are a woman (I assume) you are gonna be left in the dark!

That really is a genius reply thank you! My movement is usually restricted at times I’m usually struggling with speech, but it’s definitely worth a go.

(I’m now imagining myself trying to persuade Alexa to open the note on my phone to play it to Alexa…)

On a slightly more serious note, DH and I have been together so long that he can sense if I feel it’s Lamps not Big Light time and will sort it. The same way we can meet each others eyes in (for example) meetings with medical professionals and know what we are both thinking without even an eye twitch to give it away to others. Which leads me to conclude the only 100% reliable form of communication is human (I want to say “love” but that makes me want to throw up a bit as that’s quite mawkish )

There was that funny security breach with eufy a few years back wasn’t it? People found you could just type in the IP of the camera in VLC or something really basic and you could access the stream from anywhere, without any security information.

a big part of the problem is that people who are good at making cameras or other IoT equipment are not necessarily good at software, and very few are good at security. Good cybersecurity costs big £££.

I put PIR (movement activated) lights in all the rooms that I typically went into with my hands full (like the laundry) or that the kids never turned the lights off in (like the separate loo that has a door closer) and set alexa up to put on lamps in the hall and bedroom upstairs on command so I don't have to switch on and off as I move through the house and I have lamps that turn on at sunset in the main room so that if I'm out the dogs arent in blackness and I come home to a lit and warm house. It's made my life a bit more seamless..

That is somewhat ironic.

I work in highly technical stuff and even I can't be bothered with alexa turn the lights on.

It's tedious.

This includes ring doorbells too apparently.

We do have a couple of basic Alexas in our house, but we don't have them doing stuff like turn on/off the lights.

I use one in the kitchen as an egg/cookery timer, and to listen to the radio and sometimes some music. Little else, and I currently don't want to expand my uses of it. I'm happy as I am.

I can see its uses for people with medical conditions and disabilities. My own very elderly mother uses one to listen to the radio and to audiobooks, telling her the time etc. She has mobility issues and very poor eyesight now so it is helpful to her there.

The problem does come when Alexa drops out or loses contact with the WiFi though, but her carers can usually get it fixed again and they come in several times a day.

I think it's great. I like being able to issue one voice command and turn all of them off as I leave the house, or setting up light schedules while we are on holiday, or to tell them to turn off my youngest's light at his bedtime so he isn't reading late into the night. I like having an evening setting that dims all the lights to different levels to how I like them through all the downstairs. But, I mean, you either like it or you don't, there's no obligation.

This one always make sme giggle re smart tech not understand 😂 BBC3 clip