How a smarthome shouldn’t work

If you’ve to write a user guide for guests it isn’t worth to be called smarthome, what’s your opinion on it?!

Summed up well here:

But I agree with the article author, not everything will be intuitive or obvious to a stranger in your house. Some education is needed.

Yep, the need to write a guide means it’s very far from a ‘smart’ home.

I have mine almost transparent to a casual user - light switches are usable from my 1.5 year old (one switch per light with a simple press on, press off). Automations take all sorts of things into account (temperature, power, time, season etc) so there is very little control needed.

I rent out an airbnb studio and everything is based on a synced calendar so they don’t even need to know about it - it just works.

How do your guests know what to say to turn the lights on above the mirror? (assuming you have voice control).

I agree that automations should be seamless, but over rides often aren’t obvious.

Sounds great would you mind sharIng some of these automations in example

I definitely shy away from things like controlling bathroom lights, because, well, people have hands.