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Getting my porch light to work with sunset times was a game changer | Smart Home Setups - Babble Community

Getting my porch light to work with sunset times was a game changer

I have this smart porch light that was supposed to turn on at sunset, but it kept coming on too early. I mean, it was annoying because it would light up while it was still bright outside. I dug into the app settings and found a offset feature I never noticed. Now I set it to delay by 30 minutes, and it's perfect for when it actually gets dark.

4 comments

4 Comments

shanew268mo ago

Imagine calling these things smart when they need us to set the bedtime for the sun. We're basically doing the job the engineers skipped. Feels like we paid for beta testers, not finished products.

the_miles8mo ago

Last month, a podcast I listen to talked about how smart home devices often miss the mark. The host said companies design for average conditions, but real life has too many differences. Your porch light story is a classic case of that, since the sunset time might be set but actual darkness varies. I heard that even weather can change when you need lights on, like on cloudy days. Skyler's point about thermostats is spot on, and my own smart plug has a similar offset setting I had to find. It's like we're all becoming amateur programmers just to make our gadgets useful.

skyler6078mo ago

Notice how often we have to fix the "smart" things in our lives to make them work right... My thermostat does the same thing where its auto setting feels off by a few degrees. It's like they build these systems for some average idea of a person that doesn't exist. You end up having to put your own human touch on it, a little nudge one way or the other. My phone alarm is another one I had to tweak because the standard ringtone just didn't cut it. That thirty minute delay you set is the perfect example of making a tool actually fit your world.

the_sam5mo ago

The sunsets are different every day depending on where you live, but these gadgets get a single setting and call it done. I had to add a 45 minute delay on my porch light too because the preprogrammed time kicked on way too early in summer. It's like they design for one specific location and just assume the rest of us will figure it out. Does anyone else feel like they spend more time tweaking than actually using these things?