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Proposal: Internet of things

A large portion of the "internet of things" is made up of connected home automation devices. While it's been closed, the Home Automation proposal got relatively far in the pre-release process and had a lot of enthusiastic members. Would the kinds of questions from that proposal fall neatly under this one?

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    I honestly can't tell the difference between the meaning of "internet of things""home automation" or "domotics". To me, they all sound like buzzwords that represent the very same concept : technology that allows different kinda of devices and/or switches in your home and/or office to communicate with each other and/or the rest of the world in a flexible manner.
    – John Slegers
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 9:15
  • Disagree. IoT has a much wider scope than domestic applications. Farming, on-street-parking, refuse collection are the obvious areas that I can think of straight off. Home automation is a subset of IoT.
    – Sean Houlihane
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 9:23
  • Agreed, @SeanHoulihane, it should probably read "A portion" rather than "A large portion," though I still think home automation ought to be included within IoT. There are arguments about have a separate SE for home automation, but the network didn't seem large enough to stand on its own when it was last attempted.
    – TheMadDeveloper
    Commented Aug 27, 2016 at 0:54

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Yes, I think it makes sense to combine these since the IoT proposal seems to be struggling to identify any 'real' questions which are not variations on the valid but unimaginative 'closed protocols make me sad'. The two titles seem to attract very different mindsets, IoT seem to be more blue-sky and less practical, but to achieve the required number of visitors some major update is needed.

Internet of Things and Home Automation should be a better title, and I would propose that both rants about obsolescence and debug of individual consumer issues should be out of scope.

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  • Isn't "Internet of Things" just a fancy buzzword for "home automation"? See also my comment to the question here-above...
    – John Slegers
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 9:18
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IoT encompasses home automation, so it'd make sense to fold that one into this.

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It depends, is the intent to troubleshoot why someone's light wont turn red when a post for player pianos is posted on CraigsList when they are using IFTTT to connect them together? Or why a refrigerator does not understand to add milk to your shopping list?

Or is the intent for people to learn about how to connect things together themselves?

Personally I don't see value in troubleshooting closed/proprietary system issues, this should go to the owner of that product.

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  • It should be for all of those, IMO.
    – velocirabbit
    Commented May 24, 2016 at 16:45
  • Having entered the field of home automatisation a while ago, I feel there is a deep need for a place to ask vendor specific questions. But in what way do general questions regarding social/ethical implications of IoT as they are being displayed in the Example Questions section fit the purpose of a Q&A-site? On those, there will be no right or wrong answer, they are suitable for debates, but not for precise answering.. And how do general technology questions look like? "How do I connect things?" Answer: "Using communication protocols and the respective interfaces.." This doesn't help anybody.
    – Fantilein1990
    Commented Oct 13, 2016 at 8:38

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