Archive: https://archive.today/JhpgV
From the post:
>Smart home devices are usually sold on convenience. Control the lights from your phone. Turn down the thermostat from bed. Get a camera notification when someone walks up to the porch. Automate the boring stuff and feel like you are living slightly closer to the future.
That future gets a lot less fun when the device only works because a company’s cloud service is still around.
My rule for buying new smart home gear has become pretty simple: if the core functionality depends on a proprietary cloud service, I’m probably not interested. The manufacturer’s app can be useful. Cloud features can be useful. But the device should support an open, local-first protocol out of the box.
For most smart home devices, that means looking for Matter. For cameras, that usually means looking for RTSP and/or ONVIF support. There are also good exceptions outside of Matter, like Zigbee, Z-Wave, MQTT, ESPHome, and other local integrations. The important part is not that every device has to use the same protocol. The important part is that the device should not become useless just because the manufacturer gets bored, pivots, gets acquired, changes its subscription model, or shuts down a server.
Archive: https://archive.today/JhpgV
From the post:
>>Smart home devices are usually sold on convenience. Control the lights from your phone. Turn down the thermostat from bed. Get a camera notification when someone walks up to the porch. Automate the boring stuff and feel like you are living slightly closer to the future.
That future gets a lot less fun when the device only works because a company’s cloud service is still around.
My rule for buying new smart home gear has become pretty simple: if the core functionality depends on a proprietary cloud service, I’m probably not interested. The manufacturer’s app can be useful. Cloud features can be useful. But the device should support an open, local-first protocol out of the box.
For most smart home devices, that means looking for Matter. For cameras, that usually means looking for RTSP and/or ONVIF support. There are also good exceptions outside of Matter, like Zigbee, Z-Wave, MQTT, ESPHome, and other local integrations. The important part is not that every device has to use the same protocol. The important part is that the device should not become useless just because the manufacturer gets bored, pivots, gets acquired, changes its subscription model, or shuts down a server.
