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I don't hate this, but I also don't like it.

Not because it's a bad idea, or it should have been better, but because, to me, it seems like any obvious idea about how to make smart things do stuff that's actually practical like this is usually behind some walled garden, and different walled gardens don't really work with other walled gardens.

Like with having smart things (the Samsung product line) and Google home, and Philips hue smart bulbs, you now have three things all working "together" ... "In the cloud". And you're entirely limited to whatever those cloud services and/or manufacturers want you to be able to do with them....

What if I want my smart speaker to play "Ice ice, baby" whenever I leave the freezer open, and have the lights go blue and blink or something? It's two back to back horribly complicated processes to get SmartThings to talk to the "works with Google" system, same with hue, then a cludge of weird commands that work today, but next week might entirely break, all dependent on whether anything is still talking to eachother, and even if I can do all that, there's no guarantee that I can use "freezer door left open for x minutes" as a trigger for the activity.... Additionally, I need to find a way to source the song on my Google assistant, so now I need to tie in Spotify or YouTube music, or something to my "works with Google" crap... It's just a lot of work to even get to the point where you can see what options you have.

This is a fairly simple example, but still... And then I have to ask, why the hell does it need to bounce around the "cloud" so much just to perform an action on the lights in my house, for the alert from the fridge that's also in my house?

Then I also have to wonder, how many fracking devices do they expect me to put on my wifi, and how much more do I need to spend so that I don't need to reboot my wifi doesn't every other day, otherwise it drops my "smart" home things?

I can't drink the Samsung Kool aid exclusively, they don't make lights or smart speakers, I can't do the same with Google, they don't make lights or fridges, and I certainly can't with Phillips. So I'm stuck with some internet reliant thing to do the same job as a $1 magnetic sensor, a cheap speaker, and a cannibalized novelty get well soon card that plays music when you open it.... I can add blue lights that react to sound for a few dollars more and get the same effect, and not have to shell out thousands of dollars on a fancy fridge, fancy lights, hours of my frustration, and a fancy wifi system to make it all go.

..... To be fair, I've done all those things, I don't have a smart fridge, but I use home assistant, and this gives me an idea. I just need to buy one of those door/window open sensors, and I can get it done.

To clarify, I started in "smart" home stuff with some hue bulbs, partly to see what all the fuss was about, then the Mrs, while away from the hue system, complained that she had to get up from bed to turn off the lights one night and I knew I was done for. Now I have nearly 100 smart home devices, and I still have those hue bulbs. I'm waiting for them to die so I can buy smart bulbs that don't require the cloud, which I've already replaced most of the other lights in my home with. I've added smart light switches, so I can trigger scenes and automations from the wall (and keep the power to the smart lights from being turned off), and many many sensors (mostly temp/humidity/air quality)... Everything I've installed recently (about 60 IoT things) have been locally controlled via zwave, directly to home assistant, so getting something like the above done, should only need a sensor to know if the freezer/fridge was not properly closed all the way.

Anyways. Prior to migrating to home assistant, I was doing the "works with Google" dance and it was not fun, and suddenly, anytime my internet went out, I lost control over half the stuff in my home. I hate how reliant we've become on the "cloud" to do simple stuff like turn on the lights. I'm not a fan. Thus, home assistant. I have, and will continue to seek out alternatives to stuff like SmartThings, that I can control and manage locally.

My final note is: being able to adjust the thermostat, and turn on the lights from the bed/couch/wherever, is the tits. Carry on.