I totally agree! I'm trying to avoid logins and download this and that, as possible as I can.

Join us over at /c/singlepurpose ;)

I bought a fan the other day, cause it warm. Cheap as I could find. Plug the thing onto the wall, can't figure out how to get it working. Read the manual: I need an app. I download the app, logged in with Facebook (had to create a Facebook account, for I had none. It was the only option), filled a form with my information, agreed to the Terms of Services and Privacy Policy. Gave it location access, to connect to the fan. It needed a few other permissions, which I had to give it. Now I can turn the fan on and off, from my phone (the fan has none). I can set a direction, turn the spinning on or off. Set the RGB light colours. I can even give it an image, and it'll display on the fan as it spins (probably why they demand entire system file access). I can even turn it on and off from the Quick Settings Tile. And make some changes from there as well. All in all, I must say, this fan is defin

I'm half on one side, half on the other.

The line I draw is between safety and convenience. On the safety side, I want things to be very manual. I don't want some app or external system managing whether or not the lights stay on, or whatever, on the convenience side, I 1000% want a way to manage things like the lighting from an app.

So anywhere that safety is a concern, like the kitchen, bathroom, a handful of other places.... There's zero "smart" anything. Everywhere else, yeah, I can turn off my lights from an app.

When I'm in my office/living room, where safety isn't really a concern, I don't have to get up to turn on the lights, I can yell at my Google home to do it for me, or use an app. If I want the lights to be some shade of turquoise, I use the app....

In the kitchen, as an example, no such control exists. You have to push the light switch, and you get basic bitch white light. You don't get an option. You want the light off? Take your fingers and do the thing that makes the light switch go click and turn off the lights.

The decision to make anything smart relies on whether or not I'm going to be in danger if the lights go out and there's no way to turn them on again because the Internet is down.

This is why I like hardware synthesizers