HomeAssistant and vlans are kind of the answer to most of the issues/concerns regarding smart devices this post has
I have to say though, I find anyone who leans too far either way to be extremely silly
Well chosen devices from reputable manufacturers can drastically improve quality of life
One big one for me was window blinds on a sun timer. Because after a decade, I was swapping from nights to days permanently having spent that past time swapping from nights to days every Wednesday and had signifcant issues both waking up and staying up on those days, and even now I still do
Having my bedroom windows open in the morning on their own to use natural lighting to wake me up has been extremely helpful for that, and then using HA that could be tied into external camera systems to close the windows automatically if a person or vehicle is detected within specific parameters, or having the ability to open my son’s window if I hear him crying to be picked up from a nap but I can’t immediately respond has been wonderful
Now there’s also your Rings, your creepvacuumbots, any smart TV at all and any other host of problems with iot devices, but there are some gems that make life much better without the dark patterns we increasingly associate with connectes devices these days
Perhaps that’s the case for now
I personally save all posts like this though because you never know when it will be needed
Same with TV cracking stuff I’ve seen even when I don’t own a TV, because there’s a high chance the things I hate about TVs will be coming to monitors next and those I do use, so I assume I’ll need as many starting reference points as possible
From some family member or otherwise who is already in the ecosystem, to the potential of GrapheneOS not surviving Google’s hostility and ending up in the same exact shoes as Apple users
In 2-3 years a post like this could be buried in age and forgotten with the people who used to talk about it jaded by indifference or opposition and significantly fewer
Plenty of things I used to be extremely enthusiastic about that I just don’t bother with any more because of those kinds of interactions