Den Automation Raised Millions To 'Reinvent' the Light Switch. Now It's Lights Out For Startup (theregister.co.uk) 115
Den Automation, the once-promising UK smart home startup that raised nearly $5.8 million via equity crowdfunding and boasted former Amstrad chief Bob Watkins as CEO, has agreed to go into liquidation, The Register reported Tuesday. From the report: Documents seen by this publication show Wilkin Chapman Business Solutions Limited has been appointed as liquidators, with Ian Michael Rose and Karen Tracey Potts the named practitioners. UK law prioritizes creditors according to a set order. Liquidators take precedence and shareholders get the leftover scraps. It's therefore extremely unlikely that any of the 1,104 investors who backed the company on Seedrs will see much -- or any -- of a return on their investment. Den Automation was founded in 2014 by Yasser Khattak, a 17-year-old wunderkind from Maidstone, Kent, who came up with the idea for the business while studying for his A Levels. Khattak subsequently dropped out to focus on the business full time. The concept behind Den Automation was simple. It built "smart" light switches and wall sockets that were visually indistinguishable from their "dumb" equivalents and could be installed by a layman, rather than a trained electrician.
Never heard of them (Score:3)
Anyone who's more familiar with the company think that someone else will scoop up the assets and properties and release a similar product or is this just another one of those crowdfunding outfits that mainly existed to bilk consumers based on impossible outcomes and massive amounts of hype?
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Not much of a story.
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I fail to see what is new about the product.
A switch has two states On or Off. This state is based on if there is power to the circuit or not. You can have this switch pushed by hand or with a relay (you could use a transistor too) making it smart, is just adding a cheap Wi-Fi devices like a Raspberry Pi with it, to trigger the relay.
We have had versions of this for decades now. Some use to be controlled with Serial/Parallel connection. The electronics knowlege to build one, is something an armature can
Re:Never heard of them (Score:4, Insightful)
" The electronics knowlege to build one, is something an armature can do."
Better leave the spelling of "amateur" to the professionals, I guess. An armature is part of an electric motor.
"If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important."
Can you spot the flaw in your sig? Probably not.
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A switch has two states On or Off. This state is based on if there is power to the circuit or not.
Well, except for 2-way systems where you have two switches controlling the same circuit. Oh, and there are dimmers as well (including 2-way ones).
Things that are "good enough" (Score:4, Insightful)
Light switches
Refrigerators
Toilets (for the most part)
Chairs
etc....
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For those who don't want to put their lights in control of a computer system but would still like to have some control over the light frequency, there is the excellent Philips A19 Sceneswitch Colour [amazon.ca].
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These guys only existed because in 2014, they failed at google-fu, and managed to find some investors that were even less informed than they were.
Boy, isn't dat da trufe!
Good inventions are where you go "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?"
This was about as far away from that as you could get.
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Boy, isn't dat da trufe!
Anyone else read that in Chang's voice?
Which toilets (Score:2)
Toilets
Which toilets though?
If you are saying Japanese toilets, I might agree. They are much more sanitary. I don't know if they do also this, but enough sensors to tell when a flush has fully cleared the device, would also be a good idea.
But most toilets are not at all like that, and are thus inferior to what could be.
Everything else on your list I kind of agree with, though a new chair design is always interesting to contemplate...
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Speaking of which, nature is calling....
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are thus inferior to what could be.
"good enough" sort of implies that this inferiority is acceptable given the requirements and circumstances. For some folks, the occasional need to flush twice is a small price to pay for a toilet that doesn't require sensors and electricity to operate and won't give you Washlet Syndrome...
Re:Things that are "good enough" (Score:4, Interesting)
On many occasions I have asked my team members this simple question: Do you know why light switches still exist?
Because they work. You know with absolute certainty one of two things will happen when you flip the switch. Either the light will turn on, or the light will turn off. This is why, with only small modifications, light switches have remained the same since their inception.
This conversation inevitably comes up when having to deal with the crapfest foisted on us by the overpaid developers from Microsoft/Adobe/et al. Simplicity is the key and a light switch is the ultimate simplicity. It works.
Developers, including web developers, should learn from light switches.
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A *good* smart switch could enhance that.
Step 1: Don't get rid of the "flipping the switch toggles the light state" logic
Step 2: Add any computerized controls you want to supplement that behavior, rather than replace it. Effectively creating a 3-way light switch where the second "virtual" switch is controlled by software (or the 3rd switch I suppose, assuming the smart-switch is compatible with 3-way installations, and I can't imagine why it wouldn't be)
The extra logic doesn't *have* to be in the light swi
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>Step 1: Don't get rid of the "flipping the switch toggles the light state" logic
toggling is the *wrong* behavior.
Rather, "assume the behavior of the switch position when it moves."
So if you come into a remotely dark room, with the switch up, you'd flip down and back up.
(Unless you're one of the folks that finds the toggle of multi-switch circuits intuitive, rather than causing pause . . .)
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Why would you flip the switch twice? It's a toggle - if flipping it once does anything, it changes the current state. If it *doesn't* do anything, then something somewhere is broken.
Now, if you've got 3-way switches included in a switch-bank, then yeah, it can be confusing. But that's relatively uncommon.
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because it is ingrained in us to turn a switch up for light, and down to have it off.
If I walk into a room I think is dim, I'm going to flip up. I'd be surprised to find the light decreased in response . . .
typosquat cognitive bleed (Score:2)
That's an arbitrary labeling preference. For a single-switch circuit: "flip up" is indistinguishable from "toggle"; "flip down" is also indistinguishable from "toggle".
An impartial observer could not determine whether you think you are flipping up/down or whether you think you are toggling. They are indistinguishable.
As a control graph, you have two state vertices (on and off) connected by two edges (toggle-down and toggle-up). There's exactly one o
PS: typosquat cognitive bleed (Score:2)
I was trying to figure out the critical failure mode as I typed, but it didn't come to me until the moment I pressed "submit".
Let's suppose your living-room flasher circuit (for summoning your sexy neighbor) has two or more bulbs, but you can only see one of these bulbs from the switch you normally control, and one day that bulb is burned out, and your control algorithm is relative to your present assessment of the current state of the circuit. You could quite possibly summon your sexy neighbor at an inoppo
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Except any computerized controls needs either a wired or wireless connection if you want to do any kind of centralized control. Wired means retrofitting in existing buildings, which is expensive and will probably make any cost- or environmental savings moot. For new construction, it will add significantly to the cost of the building for very modest savings in a standard residential house. Wireless means it will suddenly stop working for no reason when you get a new router, or it will become part of a spambo
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Ethernet Over Powerline seems to me a natural fit for smart devices. It was largely abandoned as wifi became faster and cheaper, but it's a natural fit for low-bandwidth "peripherals", and can easily be isolated. There can be some circuit-hopping issues, but an EOP-compatible circuit panel refit should resolve them if necessary.
As for wifi - it is more vulnerable (and temperamental) than a wired connection - but it's not actually that bad so long as you don't do anything as phenomenally stupid as connect
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You sound like George Costanza....
Do you have any thoughts on toilet paper?
Re: Things that are "good enough" (Score:3)
Google âoekosher light switchesâ and weep.
Mechanical/optical devices with a randomizer so that the act of flipping a light switch is indeterminate, and thus doesnâ(TM)t violate proscriptions against âoesparking a fireâ on the Sabbath.
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I lament every time I see a Kosher anything. What fucking year is it? People still believe magic sky friends give a shit whether they flip a light switch? Holy shitberries.
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What you ask for has been available for a long time. Unfortunately, product quality goes up with volume sold. There is a pretty small number of people willing to set up a self-contained home automation system.
The reason the current generation of cloud-controlled devices exists is because the market is much larger. Amazon and Google will gladly do the infrastructure work if they see the ability to both control the market and sell hundreds of millions of devices. However, they get to make all the choices and
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Toilets (for the most part)
You've never been to Japan. The western toilet is no where near good enough.
Chairs
This is an interesting one given the health problems caused by sitting.
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"Refrigerators"
I had an old one with a foot pedal to open it when you had both hands full.
They don't make that anymore.
Re:Things that are "good enough" (mostly) (Score:2)
These things are good enough--for most situations.
Light switches are "good enough," until you need one in a location where there's no easy way to run wiring, or when you need more than two different switches controlling the same light. For these situations, a "smart" switch can be a good solution.
Refrigerators? Really? These have changed a lot in recent years. Most in-door ice makers don't work all that well, they are horrendously noisy, and they need frequent repairs. Bottom-freezer models with French door
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They already exist. This video [youtube.com] is five years old, but there are better stabilized spoons out there.
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>Why does my toilet break every couple of years, with the control valve needing replacement?
Assuming you don't have serious hard water problems (in which case regularly cleaning or replacing the valve is your only realistic option)? Probably because you keep replacing the busted valve with another cheap one instead of paying 5x as much for a quality valve that will last. And don't imagine that flushometers don't also fail - there's just a lot fewer of them at the extreme low end - probably because they
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Why oh why oh why should a refrigerator cost $3000? There is probably way too much labor in the construction of one, and I'll bet it's in building the heat exchangers and compressor
As a guy who just bought a fridge, it looked to me like the $3000 models had the same or similar compressors ad radiators as the $500 ones. The expensive ones were all further along the "smart" curve. Wifi with an app to show me actual temperatures. Door alarms. A tinted window in one of the doors that, when knocked on twice, lights a light so the jars of milk and the like can be viewed. Automatic water filter monitoring and reordering.
Layman instead of electrician? (Score:3)
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It's hard to do DIY wiring in Britain. Most of the world standardized on Green for ground. Britain "standardized" on Green for power, and then switched to Green for Ground and then Green/Yellow for ground. Britain also went with 240 VAC 30 Amp outlets that can power a small stove. Historically, they connected all the outlets in the house in a big loop, thus making every outlet double-fed. Double-fed outlets only work well when the connections are good, and this needs to be verified whenever the outlets
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-MR. skeptical.
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It was designed to be inexpensive and easy to retrofit into an eighteenth century house. 240V meant that there only needs to be one wiring scheme and only one hot wire. A 30 amp ring meant thinner wire, one main fuse, and fused plugs. The plug was specifically designed to fall with the connectors facing upwards and to be stepped on.
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My question is: was the system in Britain designed to be overly robust but dangerous for the DIYer as happenstance, or to purposefully keep electricians rolling in business.
Happenstance. That's an easy one. There's legitimate reasons to ring your light switches, such as reducing cost after a war at a time when copper was really expensive. As for green for ground, well Britians system existed before the IEC standardised the colour green for ground.
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It's hard to do DIY wiring in Britain. Most of the world standardized on Green for ground. Britain "standardized" on Green for power, and then switched to Green for Ground and then Green/Yellow for ground. Britain also went with 240 VAC 30 Amp outlets that can power a small stove.
Well, what do you expect from a country that measures speed in KPH, distances in miles, milk in liters, beer in pints, burgers in grams, and bodyweight in stone? You're all kinds of messed up right there....
Re:Layman instead of electrician? (Score:4, Informative)
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Been there several times, and it's aluminum [diecasting.com], as it was originally named by Sir Humphry Davy who discovered and initially named it. But then, you Brits always have a go at complicating everything, so...
Interesting fact. If you teach English in China, and are from the UK or Australia, you'll earn about 4000-5000 RMB per month. If you're from the US, you'll earn 7000-8000 RMB per month. The reason? The Chinese want to learn the American version of English. It's worth more, and seen as a better move for f
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>But then, you Brits always have a go at complicating everything, so...
Give them a break--without this, we'd be stuck with all those u's . . .
It's a little known fact that sticking gratuitous U's into words is actually a test program for disposal of CO2. . . or should I say, dispoC02saul . . .???
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It's hard to do DIY wiring in Britain. Most of the world standardized on Green for ground. Britain "standardized" on Green for power, and then switched to Green for Ground and then Green/Yellow for ground. Britain also went with 240 VAC 30 Amp outlets that can power a small stove. Historically, they connected all the outlets in the house in a big loop, thus making every outlet double-fed. Double-fed outlets only work well when the connections are good, and this needs to be verified whenever the outlets are altered. Thus, the reason why Britain requires electricians to change house wiring is because it really is unsafe to do it yourself.
Subsequently, they have backtracked on many of these more troublesome inventions. However, it takes time to replace the installed existing wiring. Thus, the legacy remains. Britain is one of the few places in the world that requires licensed electricians for even the smallest change.
Oh! So maybe this was a more clever invention than it seems to Americans...
What a daft electrical "standards" body has Britain.
Re: Layman instead of electrician? (Score:2)
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What bollocks. How is this marked informative?!
There has never been any swapping of standard wiring colours, and green has always represented Earth. The only change was in 2004, when Neutral went from black to blue, and Live from red to brown. This was done to standardise with the rest of Europe.
The only confusion was the prior use of blue as a phase colour in three-phase. And whilst not ideal, three-phase isn't found in British residential wiring - far from the reach of your typical unqualified DIYer.
You'd
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Huh TIL.
I assumed the brown blue thing had been standard for much longer. I leaned to wire a plug in the 80s as a kid. I didn't know red black stick it out for so long.
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Ground should really be brown, because earth is brown. Earth, dirt, brown, get it? Oddly, Audi gets this right in cars.
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How the fuck old are you mate?
I've never seen green for live, and that includes when I watched the electrician replace the old asbestos lined wooden fuse box in my house with a modern consumer unit. The old wires are natural rubber with red for live, black for ground. Anything made in my lifetime had been brown for live, blue for neutral.
I've seen old green earth wires before but not for years. They've been gen/yellow for bloody ages.
Our outlets are massively over engineered 13 amp sockets. I'm sure they co
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Per their video, I don't see anything about this light switch that is any easier or different to install than any other light switch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Pretty much every wall socket or light switch qualifies
You haven't met my father-in-law!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Solution looking for a problem is more like it. Far too much of the "smart" stuff is a matter of shoving WIFI and/or Bluetooth into a product that does not need it, popping out an app that makes things worse rather than better, and finally failing to maintain it for a reasonable lifespan (unless you pay for a hefty subscription model). Light switches are dead simple, an app to control them is 99.9% of the time going to be more inconvenient even if the network is up and reliable.
I am waiting for the follow
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I once owned a smart switch that was Bluetooth based. The support forum noted to not try to pair to it from your phone. It turns out, that if any passer-by ever attempted a pair, it would put the switch into a state where it would need to be sent back to the factory to become operational again. This particular Bluetooth switch also wouldn't function without a phone, their app, Internet access, and their servers running.
Moral of the story - it's more of doing a thorough design than picking the right technolo
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Yes yes, you had a badly-made bluetooth switch. Bluetooth reaches like 10 meters. Why do you need to turn your lights on from Germany if you live in California? You don't. Why do you need Wifi and an Internet connection for a light switch that Bluetooth can turn off from your front yard?
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>Why do you need to turn your lights on from Germany if you live in California?
According to that commercial a couple of years ago, if you don't remember whether you closed a window when you go on vacation, the sequel to Hitchcock's "the birds" occurs, and you are presumably eaten when you return . .
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operation when the network is absent / unreliable.
Didn't they even cover that basic functionality? Almost all "smart" switches do this and have done so for ages; most will function on the physical switch if the local network (WiFi, Z-Wave, Zigbee) is down, and even if the switch is booted (unpaired) from the controller or server.
From the article, it sounds more like they underestimated the effort to bring a product like this to the market. Hardware is not that hard... but setting up a production line, getting it certified and so on, is. So you get a
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As they say in that article: Hardware is hard.
Unlike this internet world we seem to want to try to live in, simply asserting something is real is not much of a substitute for, well, something ACTUALLY BEING REAL.
(cf AI, internet of things, sustainable solar power, self-driving cars, etc)
And in the real world, real things run into all sorts of inconvenient actual challenges like "people don't want their houses to burn down".
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Since when was replacement hard? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure how they made replacing outlets and switches easier to replace or requiring less skill -- whatever comes out of your wall box will have wires with bare copper and need to be connected to the right terminals on the replacement.
Was this a mount-over solution, like some of those 6-plex outlets that cover a standard duplex outlet?
Also the "smart" in smart light switches/outlets sounds like hard part, especially the part about where people live in the house for decades. I remodeled extensively in 2003 and at times I wish I had done more than pull a bunch of ethernet cable, yet everything I would have done for more automation would have been totally obsolete and unsupported now. But the dumb switches and outlets keep on working.
It would be great if they would come up with an automation system with a 20 year lifespan where you didn't have to worry about some embedded system going obsolete, cloud services that go away, etc.
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The problem always seems to be standards. Too many companies trying to own the market with proprietary standards.
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There isn't 50% available to save. The best you could do is a sophisticated geo-fencing system that anticipates when you'll get home and adjusts accordingly. Most of the heating money is spent on the eight coldest hours that you are at home and in bed. Savings while away is minimized by the fact that you can't let the house get cold enough to freeze the pipes (or even get under 45 so a power failure doesn't freeze the pipes).
You might be able to approach 50% (above and beyond a $15 programmable unit) if you
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able to isolate a significant portion of the house and sleep with the bed/bath area at 62 and the rest of the house on life support
Many people here (myself included) prefer to sleep with the bedroom at 16C (
I already had a programmable thermostat and thermostatic radiator valves. What I didn't have is zoned heating, and by adding smart TRVs, I effectively created a zone for each room, and that makes a real difference. During the day, unused rooms are kept at 14C, and heated up either on a schedule or when we enter the room. They are small enough to heat up quickly. You're right about it not saving half of the gas bill, but it did
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The really interesting part of this is that you can do exactly this with a few $15 thermostats and no "smartness". The idea that a smart thermostat is responsible for the savings is pure marketing bull. Savings comes from creating zones and lowering the temperature of as much of the house as possible for as long as possible.
As a side note, the most popular type of heating in the US is forced air. Forced air turns out to be the most expensive type of heating to zone.
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The "smart" part isn't directly responsible for the savings, it offers convenience. That's handy, since in an unzoned radiator based system you not only have to change a thermostat to get the heati
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I agree with all of this. However, it only goes to strengthen my point: cost savings mostly comes from zoning and simple programming. You can beat the simple schedule with sophisticated automation, but you can't beat it by much.
"Smart" thermostats are useful devices. I have one and I like geofencing and I like being able to tweak the program remotely. However, I'm fully aware that the thermostat saves me very little money.
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I always buy the backwire capable ones because they're so much easier and less of a short risk.
If I'm stuck with a screw loop model, I usually wrap the body and terminals in a loop of electrical tape as a precaution against shorts or the wire totally falling out.
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As for shorting, even if you backstab those loop screws are still live.
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I always buy the backwire capable ones because they're so much easier and less of a short risk.
If I'm stuck with a screw loop model, I usually wrap the body and terminals in a loop of electrical tape as a precaution against shorts or the wire totally falling out.
Likely not allowed to do that in the U.S.
And fun fact: Vinyl electrical tape is only U.L. rated to 50 VAC. Only that nasty fabric "Friction Tape" is U.L. rated to over 120v.
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And fun fact: Vinyl electrical tape is only U.L. rated to 50 VAC.
This is nonsense, the standard tape is the 3M/Scotch 33 Vinyl tape. It is rated to 600V.
The thicker 88 tape is rated to 1000V.
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And fun fact: Vinyl electrical tape is only U.L. rated to 50 VAC.
This is nonsense, the standard tape is the 3M/Scotch 33 Vinyl tape. It is rated to 600V.
The thicker 88 tape is rated to 1000V.
Maybe I need to update my high-school electronics-based factoid on that!
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try the joy of a 1968 house built in the desert . . . . with *aluminum* wiring!!!
We had the house almost entirely converted with the purple Y connectors (to mate aluminum to copper), which were discontinued a couple of years later, when we discoed that lows actually *stocked* aluminum terminal sockets (although the last time I was in, the guy in electrics denied that such things existed, or that any house had ever been done in aluminum, stating that he'd been an electrician for 20 years [less time than I'd
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try the joy of a 1968 house built in the desert . . . . with *aluminum* wiring!!!
We had the house almost entirely converted with the purple Y connectors (to mate aluminum to copper), which were discontinued a couple of years later, when we discoed that lows actually *stocked* aluminum terminal sockets (although the last time I was in, the guy in electrics denied that such things existed, or that any house had ever been done in aluminum, stating that he'd been an electrician for 20 years [less time than I'd owned the house . . .])
So we're switching back over as we work on rooms for other things. Now if only I could get a ew feet of aluminum romex . . .
That's why he was working a Lowe's.
The "both types" Sockets and Switches are marked "CO/ALR". They have been commonly available at retail for at least 20 years, and IIRC, longer than that.
https://blog.leviton.com/coalr... [leviton.com]
He should have known that. Especially since Lowe's carries them!
https://www.lowes.com/pl/Co-al... [lowes.com]
I am merely a consumer, and even I know about CO/ALR (COpper/ALuminum Revised). And I've never had an Aluminum-wired house (except for the Aluminum "Triplex" "main drop", which pretty much every
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This is the UK... the country that is (was) home to Lucas Electric, prince of darkness.
Jokes aside, though, the regulations are probably different there in that your typical homeowner isn't allowed to swap out a wiring device (switch/outlet) and must be certified to do so.
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This is the UK... the country that is (was) home to Lucas Electric, prince of darkness.
Jokes aside, though, the regulations are probably different there in that your typical homeowner isn't allowed to swap out a wiring device (switch/outlet) and must be certified to do so.
I always heard the joke as:
Q: "Why do the British like warm beer?"
A: "Lucas refrigerators!"
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everything I would have done for more automation would have been totally obsolete and unsupported now
Depends on what you use. If you are remodeling, the one smart thing to do to support (future) automation is to run both neutral and live wires to your wall switches. Over here, modern installations already do that, but in older ones you'll find only the live and switched wires in the pattress boxes. Smart switches almost always need the neutral as well to function.
As for obsolescence, my oldest smart switches are about 10 years old now, and still function. The Z-Wave hub (and the protocol itself) has
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Yeah, pretty standard for bankruptcy/liquidations in the U.S. as well is the money goes to:
1. Employees owed a paycheck
2. Secured Creditors (i.e. there is a specific asset their debt is attached to which can be sold or handed over to pay them off)
3. Unsecured Creditors
4. Whatever is left (if anything) split amongst the equity owners/shareholders
Difficult business (Score:2)
A what? (Score:2)
This never really explains what the heck they were trying to do. But, from context, they were trying to make a light socket with an internet-connected switch attached to it. Why? Why would you need a switch at all on a socket, and why would you want it controlled remotely? You can buy a perfectly good conventional socket for under $2 at any hardware store, they don't have switches, internet or otherwise, and there is no need for switches. All this so you can turn on a lamp or something with an phone app?
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It's just a light switch with an app for phones I suppose. I broke my neck a few years back, am quadriplegic and I now love my WeMo light switches that I can control from a phone app, a GUI application I wrote for Linux/Windows in Rust and by voice with Siri.
However, WeMo also work on the local subnet and the physical switch still works if my WiFi dies. Their project apparently depended entirely on their servers which is unacceptable. Not to mention; better products doing this have been out for a long time.
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Why would you need a switch at all on a socket
That is obvious: To turn the power off without unplugging the appliance. One of the things I miss in Europe is the standard switched socket outlets used in many parts of the world.
Why turn something off? Maybe you're working on the circuit. Maybe the device has a fault. Maybe your device doesn't have independent power control (iron, hair curler). Maybe you just don't want your cable box to cost you an extra $100/yr in power bills when it should be off, but instead is "sleeping".
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Cloud based switch is a horrible idea (Score:2)
What they built was a cloud based switch - switches which required cloud service to operate. Given that light switches have an expected lifetime of 20+ years, that is a huge maintenance cost, which includes running the cloud servers with 20+ year backwards compatibility as well as continually patching the devices for security (it is after all a 24/7 connected device). Try securing 20 year old internet connected device today.
Just because something looks cool in a high school project (in this case literally),
New? X-10 (Score:2)
This wasn't a new idea.
I put a bunch of X-10 lights in my house 40 years ago. Ca 1980. It allowed you to put "wireless" switches on any wall to control any light - several switches could control one light or one panic switch could turn on all lights. There were a few tech problems like the electrical noise the fridge made turning off sometimes turned on a ceiling light right over the bed at 3:am.
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This wasn't a new idea.
I put a bunch of X-10 lights in my house 40 years ago. Ca 1980. It allowed you to put "wireless" switches on any wall to control any light - several switches could control one light or one panic switch could turn on all lights. There were a few tech problems like the electrical noise the fridge made turning off sometimes turned on a ceiling light right over the bed at 3:am.
And they even had a "Telephone Responder" that would allow you to hold a device up to your phone (this was similar to answering-machine "playback" devices of the day), and control (IIRC) up to 8 X10-controlled lights and other devices. And use that to trigger their standalone automation controller, and you could program scripts that could control pretty much any number of X10-controlled devices with the push of a button.
https://www.ebay.com/i/2836440... [ebay.com]
No internet required. Just a POTS telephone line.
And ye
Salary... (Score:2)
Competition (Score:2)
These "smart" light switches are everywhere.
https://www.homedepot.com/s/sm... [homedepot.com]
It's hard to start up a new "idea" that is already in all the stores!
Re: (Score:2)
I broke my neck a few years back, am paralysed and I now love my WeMo switches that I can control from a phone app, a GUI application I wrote for Linux/Windows in Rust and by voice with Siri.
However, they also work on the local subnet and the physical switch still works if my WiFi dies.