And then I come home from work, and my girlfriend is sitting there again, watching her series in the living room on the iPad… She doesn’t seem to care, but it triggers me. We just bought a brand new huge 65-inch TV. And now we’re watching series on the iPad - damn, why?

Well, it quickly turns out that the TV simply wouldn’t turn on. Great. I had a feeling it would be something like that. Some Smarthome issues. Because it’s always something like this.

Let’s break down this case briefly, which is typical for the problems that can frequently occur in a smart home.

In this case, I recently bought a new infrared transmitter, a BroadLink RM Mini, which is supposed to replace the remote controls of our TV and receiver. This purchase was only necessary because my Logitech Harmony universal remote control stopped working, but that’s another story. This great new infrared transmitter now automatically turns on the receiver and TV when it detects that the Apple TV has been activated. Exactly what I wanted, just one Apple TV remote and nothing else. The perfect solution, so to speak. I manage and automate everything in my smart home through Home Assistant, which runs on my Raspberry Pi. And now, this is part of it.

Well, everything would be perfect if, from time to time, like on this day, the great infrared transmitter didn’t lose its Wi-Fi connection. Because then I can write all the great automations and integrate devices in Home Assistant, but if the device simply loses the connection, you can’t control it anymore. And even after extensive searches on the internet, the result for such issues is unfortunately never clear. There is no fixed solution to solve these network problems. In the end, the router is restarted, the device of course, a new IP is assigned, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz are switched, and what else you can try with some knowledge of network technology. Then maybe it works again at some point. Until it crashes the next time.

But that can’t be the solution, can it?

In such moments, I always ask myself - is it me and my solution? Or is this a general problem in the smart home tech?

I mean, I chose everything myself, expanded it piece by piece, set up my own PI with Home Assistant - of course, you can set up a smart home more professionally. But it should still work, right? I mean, I spent a lot of money on all these devices. But if at home suddenly the heating doesn’t turn off, the light doesn’t turn on, or music can’t be played, and the expensive TV isn’t used because it won’t turn on… Then that’s just crap.

I think in the future I’ll pay more attention and document where exactly the problems lie and what the reason was, or if it was just “random” when something in my great smart home doesn’t work again. Because somehow you have to get to the bottom of it and not just be satisfied with it. This is something I’ve only noticed through living with my girlfriend, how tolerant you become as a software developer (or in other technical jobs) towards such actually super painful errors that occur without reason.

And in the end, you might have to tear down all the smart home installations and use switches you can trust.

Ha, joke! This stuff is too cool! Automations! Let’s go!