Gadgets and tech used to be fun and cool. In the far-too-distant past, products would be released that could do something tech couldn’t do before, or faster, or were just neat. Commodore 64s and Nintendo Entertainment Systems gave way to Sega Genesises, which gave way to PlayStation’s, which gave way to supercomputers in our pockets that could surf the internet and play all our music.
But somewhere along the way, tech became a nightmare. To use a product, you had to sell your data to the advertising company. The web, which was fucking awesome in the 1990s, became even more a nightmare: first predatory companies vacuuming all the data available, then social media networks abetting genocides. It all just feels bad, man.
The past decade or so has also opened up a new market of gadgets and tech: the so-called smart home. Sure, it’s a tale as old as tech, but new technologies have opened up vast new possibilities to set up automations around your lights, appliances, doorbell.
And, of course, it’s a privacy nightmare. At least the way the major vendors would prefer you go about it. If you want to use your furnace, you need to tell the advertising company what temperature you set your thermostat. You want to lock your doors, you have to shout at the bookstore. Despite buying the products, you barely own them in any normal usage of the term. At any moment, they can disable your device by taking down the server that allows it to operate. Or just cut you off if you try to use it in a way they don’t like. And on top of it, thanks to all that data, you’ve also become the product instead of the customer.
We have a few so-called smart devices: a couple wifi-enabled lightbulbs, a doorbell with a handy video camera (I would never have this if it weren’t so goddamned useful), and a Nest Thermostat that conveyed with the property. Currently all tied together in the advertising company’s app and services.
I’ve decided that now may be the time to try and break free. Try being the operative word. I have no idea how this experiment is going to go. But, I ordered an old office computer, and it is my plan to install Home Assistant on it. Home Assistant is an open-source, self-hosted smart home system, akin to Google Home, or Apple HomeKit, or whatever Amazon calls theirs. But instead of relying on finicky tech companies, I’m going to rely on open source contributors and commenters on message boards.
And I’ll try to document what I am doing and how it’s working on the blog. Because for some reason I think somebody out there may get some bit of entertainment or, god forbid, information from my experience.
We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully the server hardware arrives soon and is in working shape. And hopefully I can figure out how to make it all work.
More:
- Part 2: The mistake
- Part 3: I will be your server today
