[LINK] Is it smarter to have a dumb home? ‘We’ve seen clients unable to flush toilets’

[Paul Brooks]

On 20/02/2026 8:51 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> On 2/19/26 15:13, Kim Holburn wrote:
>
>
> More recently I have been coming to terms with my new smart car. This was one of the 
> cheapest available, but even so it came with adaptive cruse control, lane centering, 
> auto braking, and engine start/stop. I avoided the next model up, as that had even 
> more things which beep. At present I am trying to make the start/stop less 
> enthusiastic, as it turns off the air-conditioner at traffic lights, making the car 
> hot.

FWIW, electric drivetrain cars don't suffer from start/stop engines, and in mine at 
least the air-conditioning is a heat-pump design that runs independently of the 
drivetrain (theres no rotating thing attached to an engine driving a compressor) so it 
keeps running regardless, and can be turned on while the car is parked and otherwise 
off, cooling the car up to 30 minutes before I get in.

Some progress does make things simpler and easier.

Paul.