This is the forum archive of Homey. For more information about Homey, visit the Official Homey website.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
How to get The Wife and/or Girlfriend to accept (or even like) Homey
In multiple discussions the subject of The Wife / Girlfriend (F/M) is mentioned as a critical factor of Homey's success. We as early adopters have to explain why we invested in this little beautiful white thingy.
In order to manage this CSF, I propose to use the power of the community to share best practices to get the Wife / Girlfriend to accept or even love Homey.
Think of special Flows, Apps, Devices for her, anything this makes her understand the power of Homey!
In order to manage this CSF, I propose to use the power of the community to share best practices to get the Wife / Girlfriend to accept or even love Homey.
Think of special Flows, Apps, Devices for her, anything this makes her understand the power of Homey!
Comments
Just make a play of it. Say it all the time at dinner and stuff.
But mine is not connected yet due to moving, but she liked in the test-phase in my bedroom.
It makes her life easier by doing stuff automatically, that's all that matters to her
I also made Homey say "Welcome home. Music?" once every day if there is movement detected in the living room after 16:00. If you confirm, the Onkyo is put into radio mode. That's also a flow she really appreciates.
It was a cold winter night. Winds were howling and rain battered the windows. My girlfriend came home cold to the bone. She immediately jumped into the warm banquets which had been prepared. But, the rule was that the last person to enter the bed needs to turn off the light. With a look of absolute horror, she realized she had left the lights on. With pleading eyes, she begged me to get out of bed so she could stay safe under the warm blanket. Rather then stepping up and taking the punishment, I lured her to the power of technology to defeat this evil. I handed her a small remote from my nightstand and, like magic, the lights slowly dimmed only to fade into a complete darkness. A faint voice from the living room wished us a good night. I never saw the remote again...
The moral of the story is that there are these few very simple things which make a huge difference. It is not what is most impactful, but often the these little added conveniences or most annoying things taken away which makes one really appreciate it.
A fundamental flaw of home automation is that the whole goal is to integrate in our lives without us knowing. It is only when it is not there that we will miss it.
Here are some of my guidelines of step-by-step home automation:
1) Start small and expend slowly.
- Take one small area to improve.
- Envision how it can be improved without taking away any of it's current functionality.
- Try it out and if it doesn't prove it's worth (however small) within a short time, consider changing it back.
2) Fundamental behavior should stay in place.
- The main light switch of a room should always and reliably work as a light switch.
- A door should always and reliably be (un)locked using a non-battery-powered key.
- It can be tricky to find the right device which fits your situation, but it is worth spending the effort to get it right.
3) Separate wow-factor from primary functionality.
- Color changing lights are fun, but when someone turns on the light, they expect normal colors and not some dimly lit disco effect.
- wow-factors should be build on-top and expend existing functionality. It should not replace it.
4) Always have a backup plan.
- Every technology will fail at some point. A voice command is not recognized, your phone batter is dead, internet connections is down for hours, etc. Ensure you have a backup which is almost as convenient to use, or ensure you can do without.
Living room lights on
Living room lights off
Movie setting. Dimming the lights and changing the colour of hue a bit.
This is very basic, but she knows that if homey does not respond to voice, just press the button.
And as said before always have the option to turn at least 1 light on with a actual button. So she wont sit in the dark until you are home.
Also the small stuff like a your welcome when you say thank you. Completely useless but it made her giggle when she unknowingly tried it.
and let her decide some of the functions. Like the colour and brightness. At what time something happens. This way she will know when to expect something. If it is wrong she know it was her choice
And make something happen before she needs it. For example If the light turn on at 8, but it gets dark at 7:30....... you all know what this does to the WAF.
If you want to keep your homey, you'll have to work for it.
We lived 2 years in a house with no light switches, just holes in the wall and 2 LivingWhites remotes on the table. Just because i was looking for the right solution to implement.
She never complained about it
So keep expectations low, start with the functionality that is simple (but still useful) and that works well, and once she has accepted that, and once Homey gets more reliable and more versatile, slowly expand this to more functionality.
The difference is that we (i.e. the "technically more inclined") understand what's behind the technology, have the know-how (or contacts) to fix it and take the time to do just that.
For most users, male or female, the number one thing about technology is: it has to work reliably and flawlessly.
to make it short, it make her laugh, at now homey is part of the family
The best flow I've made that my wife is happy with, is the light in our TV room. Switches on with movement or a wall switch. This also switches on the wall socket to put the TV in stand-by mode. Switches off with a switch, or when no movement is detected. When the lights are about to go off, and there's power draw from the TV wall socket, the lights are not switched off, but are dimmed to a minimum. Very comfortable when watching tv.
When no or little power draw is detected, the lights go off and the power to the TV is cut.
Too bad we can't automate the wood stove :-)
she comes home, "Welkom thuis, kan ik iets voor je doen"
and, when homey sings for our baby, and it's done singing homey asks "zal ik nog een keer voor lucas zingen?"
but the things that works the best are the little things, 21:00 all lights out
i m curious now. My homey cannot react on a response after "wat kan ik voor je doen?". Does yours?
even a simpel yes or ja is most of the time not working. Can you make him listen after she responses with "yes"?
or does she have to respond with "ok homey"?
the one thing she is realtime happy with is that at 20:00 the tv turns on ( if not allready on) and it goes to Chanel 1 and pauses(time shift) the "journaal".
i had to make an app in order for homey to know if tv is allready on, So it does not do anything when you are watching something else.
other questions i programmed into homey have a better succes rate for me when i reply with "ja graag"