#i feel like technology is meant to be smart and efficient and it's so annoying when it is the opposite

[theharrowing]

docs has gotten...bad? it changes words on me rather than making suggestions (swapped 'situation' with 'citation' completely unprovoked) but now it also can't conceive of really basic spelling errors. (i wrote 'plumet' rather than 'plummet' and it couldn't recommend the right word? i imagine that omitting a repeating letter is a super common spelling error...???)

it's so frustrating to have my creative process slowed down (or made confusing as hell) because the stupid proofreading tool is making unwanted changes on the sly but finding it impossible to read and correct simple mistakes. iphone has been doing a lot of similar shit with autocorrect, as well. i don't understand how rather than become better these systems become worse with time lol.

[css1992]

Such a softer sin

Summary: Tony is a self-made man. Peter is a sugar baby – someone else’s sugar baby.

When he turned to pull his chair out, the older man subtly checked out his ass and – of course, it was delicious, round and perky, two perfect handfuls. He rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the fact that he had a huge character flaw, a hamartia – he fucked people for money. He was basically a glorified whore, and if there was one thing Tony never had to do in his life was pay for sex, one way or another. So, really, he wouldn't start with – what was his name again?

Warnings: Explicit, 18+, mentions of non-con (not between main pairing, not explicit), age gap, power imbalance, employer/employee relationship, underage drinking. If you find anything triggering, please let me know!

Word count:18.4k

-x-

He was admittedly gorgeous, Tony could give him that. The honey brown eyes, the bouncy, fluffy curls and the clear, pale skin worked perfectly in his favor – he looked the part of the innocent, wholesome, young man ready to be swept off his feet and taken care of. Powerful men often liked that act, liked believing that they were deflowering innocence for the first time, liked believing they were wanted, needed. Tony knew better, though, he knew the type, he came across people like him all through his life.

When he was a broke, orphaned, half-starved college student, they wouldn’t give him the time of  day. Snobby, pretty, little things like him only had eyes and time for those who had money, or something to offer – fame, influence, status. At the time, Tony had nothing, he could barely afford to eat everyday. After he graduated from MIT, he started working for Hammer Industries and as he started making more money, slowly, these people started taking notice of him, and he, too, started paying closer attention to them.

They weren’t difficult to spot either, they were usually young, attractive, with beautiful, fake smiles, weak personalities and a penchant for expensive gifts. It was easy to recognize them hanging off powerful men’s arms at functions, and dinners, and galas; bespoke suits or designer dresses covering their bodies, not a lot to add to the conversation. They were accessories, trophies. Pets.

Tony hated them. People who wanted to be at the very top, but couldn’t be bothered to take the stairs. They would use their pretty faces, feigned innocence, beautiful bodies and cute, fake laughs, to get farther faster. Not Tony. He did it the right way – the hard way –, worked day and night to get to his goal, got beat down so many times there were days he thought he wouldn’t be able to stand back up, but he did, every single time.

And time and experience made him wiser, smarter and bitter. At 40, he was finally able to start his own company, Stark Industries, it started small, but his genius inventions put his name on the map fairly quickly. That was how, five years later, he found himself having dinner with Norman Osborn, the most powerful man in New York, and his – boy toy? Sugar baby? Escort? Or something – discussing the possibility of a deal so big it could finally make Stark Industries live up to its full potential.

“So what I’m saying is that we can offer you the best and most advanced technology out there: my nanobots. I guarantee you it will make your job easier, faster and cheaper in the long run. I assure you, this a great deal and you should take it.” Tony was absolutely sure of what he was saying, he knew his product was good, his tech was flawless, he just needed to get it out there. He just needed a company like Oscorps to believe in him, then his work would speak for itself.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Stark, I think this whole nanotech thing is way too expensive and unnecessary, specially considering that I’m pretty sure Baintronics could do the same work for half the price, the old-fashioned way, which has been working just fine for the past decade.” Fuck, no, that old bat wasn’t looking at the big picture, he wasn’t thinking about the long run. Of course old tech would still get the job done, but Tony’s tech could do such a better job and so much more efficiently.

“No, but you see, that’s–”

“But –“ Norman raised a hand, successfully shutting Tony up and annoying the living hell out of him in the process. One day, he thought to himself, one day I’ll be able to say ‘fuck you’ to men like Norman Osborn. One day. “I’m willing to give it a try. Peter here says you’re the best at what you do, he’s the one who recommended that I agreed to meet with you, actually, when your PA called.”

Tony was taken aback by that information and eyed the young man carefully, causing him to blush a deep red and lower his gaze with a small, timid smile. Tony thought he was faking the whole thing, trying to be cute and sweet, but fuck – it worked for him. He seemed really young, maybe in his early twenties, and Tony had no idea how he could have heard of him, he wasn’t exactly famous, nor was S.I. His breakthroughs were only ever published in very specific scientific journals.

“I’m a huge fan of your work, Mr. Stark, I’ve always told Norman you two should work together, you’re both men ahead of your time.” He said quietly. He had a high-pitched, slightly feminine voice, which probably also worked in his favor with men like Osborn. It made him sound younger than he probably was, easier to manipulate and dominate.

Reluctantly, Tony accepted the compliment with a tight smile. He really needed that deal, he really needed for that to work, it would be the break SI needed, he could feel it, he could already taste the success.

“Very well, so here’s my offer. You will supply Oscorps with your nanotech for a year, then we can take it from there. This would be your cut for this first year.” Osborn wrote something down on a piece of paper and slid it towards Tony across the table. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the numbers – and the amount of zeros –, but he pretended to be cool about it, he even put on a show of looking slightly disappointed. “And there’s a lot more where this comes from, Stark. This could be the beginning of a beautiful, and mutually beneficial, friendship.”

“I do hope it is, Mr. Osborn. I look forward to working with your company. I’m sure we’re gonna be a great fit.” Tony tried to sound cool and professional, but he was having a little heart attack on the inside. He had been trying to schedule a meeting with Norman for months and the billionaire – or, most likely, his PA – kept making excuses. Now there he was, closing a huge deal with the promise of a mutually beneficial friendship in the future.

After that, he could breathe more easily during dinner. He couldn’t wait to tell Pepper, Bruce and Nat, though, they had to celebrate properly, maybe they could all go to his apartment and finally crack open that Macallan he bought when he made his first million. But meanwhile, he was stuck in the restaurant with Norman and his boy-toy, which he wouldn’t complain too much about, at least it was a nice view.

Again, there was no denial that the boy was beautiful. There was just something naturally sensual and charismatic about him, Tony couldn’t avoid looking his way, even when he wasn’t talking. And when he did talk, it was magnetic. He didn’t say much, as Tony expected, but what he didn’t expect was for him to be so smart. The few times he said anything was to ask questions about his tech, and those were surprisingly pertinent. Sometime along the night, Tony figured out that he was studying to become a mechanical engineer at Columbia and he wondered if Norman had anything to do with it – probably.

Tony was reminded of his own college years, of how he had to work his ass off to get a scholarship, and how many crazy hours he had to work to make ends meet, just to be able to build something for himself. He didn’t seek the help of men like Norman, although he could have. The name Stark meant something, once upon a time. His father was considered a gifted inventor, he was respected by huge companies, but he never built anything of his own.

When he died, Tony was only eleven. He still didn’t know exactly what happened, but soon after that, his mother lost everything he had left – which wasn’t much to begin with. She was never quite herself again, she was so depressed, she never even smiled anymore, she sometimes didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, Tony was the one doing the house chores, cooking for her, trying to make sure she was okay. She died eight years later from an aneurysm, Tony found her lying on the couch, looking peaceful for the first time in so many years.

In short, he never had it easy, and he never tried to make it easier for himself either – at least not in shady ways. He just wanted to do the right thing, even if it took longer – which it did. He was a forty-five year old man, but he made a name for himself, the name Stark held respect once again.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.” The young man got up after a quick peck to Norman’s lips and headed to the bathroom. Tony made a huge effort and pointedly did not stare at his ass as he left. He was really proud of himself for that, maybe two years earlier he wouldn’t have been able to pull that off, he had no shame. At least now he had some. A little. Sort of.

“What do you think of him?” Norman had a neutral expression on, he gave nothing away, but it seemed like a test. What sort of question was that, why did it matter what Tony thought of his fuck toy?

“He seems really smart,” he answered with a small smile. It was a polite, diplomatic answer, and not untrue.

“What else?” Norman pushed, with a knowing smirk, and Tony almost cursed under his breath, thinking that maybe he’d been too obvious with his staring all through dinner, after all.

“He’s very pretty,” he admitted, although still with his cool, professional face on. Norman’s smirk grew wider.

“He sure is. Cute pet. Smart, polite, funny. You should get one for yourself, Stark. They’re kinda expensive, but worth every penny.” His shark-like smile took over his whole face and Tony had to fight back a grimace. He just smiled and shook his head no.

“Not really my style, sir.” Buying people, paying for sex, that sort of thing, he wanted to add.

“It’s not anyone’s style until it is.” He gave Tony a once over and smirked. “We’re not getting any younger.” The engineer was offended, he wanted to tell him he aged like good wine, unlike certain people, but refrained. He just gave him a strained smile and took a sip of his drink.  

As if on cue, the pretty boy returned to the table and Tony took a couple of seconds to appreciate his outfit. He wore a dark blue suit, very elegant and very expensive looking, certainly a gift from Osborn, and it fit him like a glove. Tony supposed it was bespoke. It complimented his lithe, lean body beautifully.

When he turned around to pull his chair out, the older man subtly checked out his ass and – of course, it was delicious, round and perky, two perfect handfuls. He rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the fact that he had a huge character flaw, a hamartia – he fucked people for money. He was basically a glorified whore, and if there was one thing Tony never had to do in his life was pay for sex, one way or another. So, really, he wouldn't start with – what was his name again?

“So, come by the office on Monday, we’ll talk over all the details, then you can take the draft contract to your legal team and we can meet again – say, in another week?”

“Yeah, sure, this sounds perfect,” he answered coolly, not mentioning that his “legal team” consisted of one single Natasha Romanoff, who would have his balls for dinner when she found out that she would only have seven days to look over what was bound to be a very long, very complex contract.

“Well, then, Mr. Stark. You’ve got yourself a deal.” Norman got up from his chair, what clearly meant dinner was over, and Tony rushed to his feet, offering his had to shake.

“You won’t regret this, sir,” he spoke in a strong, firm voice, because he was positive of it.

“Good.” Osborn shook his hand once and turned to leave without saying goodbye.

“It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Stark, I hope we’ll see each other again soon.” The pretty boy took his hand as well, eyes glinting, a coy smile on his face. Tony couldn’t tell if he was flirting or if he was pretending to be shy, but he ignored it and just nodded curtly.

“Thank you, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, too.” He didn’t dare try to remember his name, Tony was pretty sure it started with a P, but he wouldn’t risk it.

As soon as they left the restaurant, the CEO punched the air in celebration, calling Pepper right away.

---*---

The meeting on Monday went smoothly, they agreed that Tony would be personally charged with the maintenance of his tech at least a week a month – he made it seem like it was a courtesy, but, in reality, he still didn’t have anyone on his team who could do the job quite as well as he could. They also agreed that he would have a small team of five scientists at his disposal during such period, so he wouldn’t have to dislodge anyone from his company to do it – again, he didn’t mention that five people were basically half of his scientific team and he couldn’t afford them not working for SI for a whole week each month.

As expected, he didn’t see the pretty boy in the meeting, Tony supposed he only made an appearance in social functions and such, so he could make Norman look good. To Tony’s surprise, though, seven days later, after Natasha bullied him into promising a 10% raise after the shit he’d pulled with the contract, the pretty boy was in the meeting room when he arrived to sign the deal. Norman’s PA and a few of his lawyers were there as well, Tony was with Pepper and Natasha, and he quickly whispered to Pepper that he was the boy he’d told her about. He approached them with a shy, nervous smile and Tony almost wanted to roll his eyes at the facade.

“Hi, I’m Peter Parker, I’m an intern here.” Ah, Peter. That sounded about right. Tony thought it was something along those lines. And he was an intern for Oscorps, of course. What a joke. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Stark. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Hello, Mr. Parker, this is Miss Potts, my assistant, and this is Miss Romanoff, head of my legal team. I’ll have a coffee – black, no sugar. Thank you.” Again, he kept it professional and barely even looked at the kid, he knew what he looked like and he knew he was off limits, so why tease himself by looking?

“I’m good.” Natasha smiled sweetly, making the boy blush even harder.

“I’ll have the same as Mr. Stark, thank you, Mr. Parker.” Peter quickly turned and headed out of the room and Pepper turned to whisper to him. “You weren’t kidding, he’s really fucking young, he looks like he could be Norman’s grandson, for Christ’s sake.” Tony snorted and Natasha eyed them knowingly, but with a look that screamed “behave” and they both schooled their expressions. Shortly after, the boy walked back in with their coffee and they thanked him, as he blushed and nodded, taking a seat to the left of what should be Osborn’s chair.  

The meeting didn’t take long at all, everything had already been discussed, it was just a formality, so barely twenty minutes later they were all getting up from their seats, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. Tony was almost out of the room when he felt a hand at his elbow followed by a softly spoken, “Mr. Stark, can I have a word?”.

Of course the devil himself would tempt him, even if Tony was trying to be good. He was forced to turn around and actually look at the young man, he was wearing a lavender dress shirt, with a dark gray tie and black pants. He looked like the cutest little businessman ever, and Tony was sure that if Peter were to turn his back, he would be presented with his perfect bubble butt looking amazing in those slacks, but – he was the forbidden fruit. Besides, Tony mused, he probably couldn’t afford a single night with Peter, he was only a millionaire, after all, and he’d rather spend his money on shiny things and get his lays for free.

“Yes, Mr. Parker?” The boy’s cheeks were impossibly red and Tony figured he couldn’t really fake that, so he supposed he really was shy to some degree. He looked over his shoulder and saw Pepper and Natasha waiting just outside the door, warning looks on their faces, and he rolled his eyes.

“I was wondering – I talked to No--, I mean, Mr. Osborn, about the possibility of maybe, uhm. Working with you? When you come to do the maintenance, I mean. It’s just, we don’t really have an engineering department, so you would be working mainly with biochemists and a few lab techs, so I thought maybe I could assist you with the hands-on work, you know? I don’t know if Mr. Osborn mentioned, but I’m studying to become a mechanical engineer as well and it would be an honor working with you, sir. Mr. Osborn said it was ok as long as you agreed, so...” He shuffled his feet and avoided looking at the older man.

“Look, kid.” Tony sighed, because, fuck. How could he say no to Norman’s boy without being rude? And how could he say yes to working with someone who was clearly useless to him and would only serve as a distraction – and worse, a temptation. He needed a way out of that. “I don’t really know if there would be much for you to do, I mean, it’s pretty new and advanced technology, and you’re, what, a freshman, right?”

“Actually, I’ll graduate next fall, sir.” Tony was taken aback by that and it must have shown on his face if Peter’s answering blush was anything to go by.

“I’m sorry, how old are you again?” He asked, trying not to sound too rude.

“I’ll be twenty in August, sir.” If Tony was impressed by that, he didn’t let it show, but if the kid would manage to graduate from Columbia at twenty, then he must not be that useless after all, but Tony wouldn’t hold his breath.

“Very well, then. I guess I’ll see you in a month, Mr. Parker.” He nodded and Peter could barely contain his grin when he shook his hand excitedly. It was cute and endearing and – oh, God, Tony almost fell for his little act. Fuck, he really needed to be on his toes around that guy.

“Thank you, sir, I really appreciate it!”

As soon as Tony stepped out of the building and headed towards his car with Natasha and Pepper on his heels, the Russian red-head looked at him seriously.

“Tony, I swear to God, if you try to get your dick wet with that boy, I quit. I’m not even gonna start on how much legal and PR trouble you’re gonna get yourself into by fucking Norman’s boyfriend, specially considering he’s, like, twelve, and happens to work for your business partner. Don’t fuck this up!” She warned as she got inside the car and, again, Tony had to roll his eyes as he got behind the wheel.

“Look, I’m not gonna lie, if the circumstances were different, I’d be all over that,” he admitted, noticing Pep’s aggravated look. “But of course I’m not gonna do anything to jeopardize this deal, ok? Besides, you know how I feel about gold diggers. You saw him and you saw Osborn, why in the fucking hell a guy like him would fuck a mummy like Osborn? He’s, like, a hundred years old!”

“He’s fifty five, and I don’t know if you know this, Tony, but people have sex for reasons that go beyond appearances. You know, like love, affinity, connection –”

“-- Money, fame, status. C’mon, Pep, don’t be naive. Do you really think that boy loves Osborn? He just likes expensive restaurants and fancy cars. Maybe, if he’s thinking big, he’s gonna use him to get a good job after graduation, but that’s it.”

“Well, then, if you think he’s such a terrible person, you’ll have no problem staying the hell away from him, right?” She looked at him with narrowed eyes and he looked away from the traffic for a second to smirk at her.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, easy breezy.”

--*--

As it turned out, it wasn’t easy breezy.

Peter was like a lost puppy trailing after him the following month, he spent the whole week glued to his hip, asking questions, making suggestions, and even supplying him with a never ending amount of coffee. If Tony was a hundred percent honest, he kinda liked it. The kid seriously treated him like a hero, a celebrity, he seemed to look up to him and, in the end, he proved to be a valuable asset on the team. He was really smart and hardworking, he understood everything Tony was saying even before he was done talking and he had really steady, tiny hands, which were always useful with nanotech.

Tony couldn’t really stay away from him and slowly learned a few things about him from what little information he stuttered out when answering his questions. First, the older man learned that he got into Columbia when he was only sixteen, which was kind of amazing, if he was being completely honest. Tony wanted to believe that that had happened way before he met Norman Osborn, but he didn’t really know when they met.

He had a scholarship and lived with his aunt until she passed away a little over a year earlier and now he shared an apartment with four other people, which surprised Tony, he figured Norman would have hooked him up with a nice place – but then again, he had no idea when they met, it could have been only months earlier. Peter said that, originally, he wanted to go to MIT, but he only got a partial scholarship there, so he had to give it up and go to Columbia. He also said that that was how he knew Tony beforehand. The older man was sort of a famous MIT alumnus, specially among the engineering students, so Peter heard of him and followed his work through scientific publications, which was – well, Tony was flattered.

Even if those bits of information somewhat made Tony warm up to the young man, other few things still annoyed him just as much. First of all, clearly Peter was a very bright kid, possibly one of the smartest people Tony knew besides himself and Bruce, he didn’t really need Norman’s influence to succeed, and still, there he was. Second, he quickly picked up on the fact that Peter wasn’t exactly Norman’s boyfriend, he was more of a… Sugar baby? And one of many, actually, although he seemed to be the favorite. After Tony signed the deal, he started paying closer attention to what tabloids said about Norman and apparently he had a very long list of (young) lovers, but he was officially single.

Somehow, that made Tony even more disgusted by their relationship. He just couldn’t understand why a guy like Peter would put himself in that position, for what? Money? A job? What was it that Norman could offer him that he couldn’t get himself? The thing was, Peter kind of reminded Tony of himself at that age. He was pretty much in the same situation: he had no family and no money, he only had his brains – and while Tony had made something out of it, Peter was trying to take a shortcut and the engineer didn’t appreciate that.

“Here, check this out, see how they respond a lot faster now?” Tony made room so that the younger man could look through the microscope, a wide grin spreading across his face in a few seconds. “You have to think of them as neurons, they communicate with each other by electrical pulses, similar to synapses. For that to work out perfectly and seamlessly, they need to be really close by, without touching, that’s why the electromagnetic field has to be perfect, if it’s just a tiny bit off, the response time increases exponentially. Got it?”

“Got it, Mr. Stark!” He answered excitedly and Tony smiled at him.

“Well, my work here is done. See you next month?” Tony got up from his chair, gathering his things around the lab.

“I can’t wait." Somehow, Tony knew he actually meant it.

The following month, Peter was just as helpful and just as excited as the month before. He was in the lab before Tony – who was always early himself – and he always greeted him with a bright smile and an excited wave of his hand. As the engineer settled his things on his work bench, Peter would get him coffee, and he always remembered how Tony liked it. They got right to work, which they did everyday for a week without any disruption. The intern always offered to stay late, but Tony never took him up on that, he knew he had classes in the afternoon and he didn’t want him to get in trouble. Just as he was starting to warm up to him, though, on Friday, the engineer was reminded why he didn’t like him in the first place.

“You’re late, Mr. Parker.” Tony mumbled from his seat in front of the microscope as soon as he heard the glass door open with a hiss as the smell of coffee filled the room. Peter was only twelve minutes late, but it was only their second week working together, it didn’t seem very professional.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark, I was – uh, in a meeting with Mr. Osborn.” He lied through his teeth, Tony could almost smell the nervousness when he came close enough. He hated being lied to, specially when he knew what Peter was probably doing in that “meeting”. It was just inexcusable.

“Just because you’re Norman’s boy doesn’t mean you get special treatment in this lab, you hear me? I don’t care what you do with him all the other weeks that I’m not here, but if you wanna be a part of my team, during my lab hours, you gotta be here and on time. Are we clear?” He didn’t bother lifting his eyes from the microscope and almost missed the whispered and wavered, “yes, sir” that Peter let out. When he turned to the younger man, his eyes were bloodshot, his clothes were rumpled, his face ashen and his lower lip was wobbling, he looked like he had a rough night and an early morning, and he looked like he was holding back tears. Tony almost regretted the harsh treatment. Almost. “Is this my coffee?” He pointed at the cup, averting his gaze.

“Yes, sir.” He answered quickly, offering the beverage like a gift.

On his third month there, Tony tried to keep his distance from the younger man. He promised Natasha and Pepper that he would and, up until that point, he hadn’t been very successful. So during the week of March that he had to go to Oscorps, he avoided the younger man, made himself unavailable and charged him with boring and complicated tasks that should take all week to get done. Still, the boy did everything he was told and only took half the time expected, he was always on time and always, always brought him coffee, just the way he liked it. It was really hard to ignore him.  

“You know you don’t have to bring me coffee, right? It’s not in your job description.” Tony felt the need to point out on Friday when he saw the boy walking in with the beverage, but he just shrugged and smiled a little.

“I know, I just want to make sure you have everything you need, sir. Besides, I used to work at a coffee shop, I don’t mind making your coffee.” When he said that, Tony’s brows shot into his hairline.

“You made this?” He asked, incredulously, and the boy cocked his head in confusion.

“Yeah, where did you think this came from?” He frowned, amused.

“Uh, I don’t know, some fucking gourmet coffee shop downstairs?” Peter laughed, genuinely laughed, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled in the most endearing way, as he shook his head.

“You’re funny, Mr. Stark.”  

Peter was the funny one, actually, and the whole thing was just so confusing to Tony. He thought he had the younger man all figured out, he thought he knew what kind of person he was, what he was after, but sometimes Peter would do or say things that just didn’t add up to Tony’s assumptions. The boy was kind and generous and humble, he was proactive and hardworking, and so annoyingly nice. He was easy to talk to, too, sometimes they’d have whole conversations about the most random subjects as they worked and Tony would only realize what they did at the end of the day, as he left and Peter waved at him with that charming smile and it made something burn in Tony’s chest and he couldn’t figure out why.  

On his fourth month there, Peter surprised him on the first day. He brought him coffee in a mug that read: “If it ain’t broke, take it apart and fix it”. Usually, his coffee was put in a styrofoam cup with Oscorps logo on it, he had no idea where the mug came from, and when he asked, the boy blushed slightly, shuffling his feet.

“Uhm, actually – I heard it was your birthday last week, so I just – I mean, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be inappropriate or anything, it’s just – the environment and stuff. So. Uh – happy birthday?” He looked really uncomfortable just saying that, and Tony was equal parts amused and amazed, so he  dropped his eyes back to the simple, white mug with bright red letters.

“That’s – actually really nice, Peter. Thank you.” He looked back at the young man and his cheeks were burning red. It was really… fucking cute. Fuck.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Stark.” His answering tiny smile warmed the older man’s heart, but he swallowed whatever feeling dared to emerge.

By Tony’s fifth month working with Oscorps, things finally started to feel natural, pleasant. When he arrived in the morning, he greeted everyone by name, threw smiles and flirty comments here and there and walked the hallways like he owned the place. His team worked like a well-oiled machine and they were always early, specially Peter, after that one time he was late. When he arrived, they already had a head start on him, which was always good, and they were able to go home a little earlier everyday.

“Good morning, everybody.” Tony raised his head when he heard Norman’s voice, a little surprised. Aside from his first day there, he hadn’t seen the old man at all, so it was weird for him to be in the lab, specially so early.

“Mr. Osborn, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Tony asked, watching closely as the older man walked towards Peter, who avoided his gaze furiously, pretending to be focused on his work, although it was clear that he was barely breathing. Norman grinned in his direction, but didn’t say anything, and Tony raised an eyebrow at the interaction.

“Miss Watson let me know you would be here today, so I thought I’d personally invite you to our annual Charity Gala, it will take place next month, on the eleventh. Will you be able to make it?”

“Yes, of course, sir, I can move some stuff around.” Fucking hell, he hated those functions. A bunch of assholes kissing other assholes’s butts and pretending to be good citizens by donating to charity only for the press. Just his type of event. But nonetheless, the type of event he needed to be seen in, someplace where he could meet people and make connections.

“Great, I’ll send the formal invitation to Stark Industries, I look forward to seeing you there. Mr. Stark.” He nodded in his direction and Tony did the same. “Mr. Parker.” He turned towards the young man who still hadn’t looked up. His cheeks burned a bright red when he looked at the older man.

“Mr. Osborn.” He gritted his teeth and, again, Norman grinned, buttoning his suit jacket as he left the lab.

Hm. Odd.

--*--

“At least pretend to be having a good time, Tony.” Pepper whispered through her teeth, a fake smile plastered on as she waved to people Tony could barely recognize. She was wearing a beautiful blue gown, his birthday gift to her, apparently, and not for the first time Tony wondered what would have been if he hadn’t blown things up with her. If he hadn’t cheated on her with half the city when they were in college. He was a stupid, stupid boy in his twenties. And thirties. And early forties.

It was a work in progress.

“I am pretending, don’t I look convincing?” He turned to look at her with what he was certain was a terrible grimace and she snorted into her champagne glass, causing them both to giggle like stupid teenagers. He was glad she had agreed to go as his plus one, he would have blown his brains for sure if he was alone in there.

“Good evening, Mr. Stark.” Ah, Tony could recognize that sweetly high-pitched voice from miles away, but when he turned around he wasn’t ready for such a vision. Peter was wearing a gorgeous burgundy suit with a black, silk shirt underneath, as well as a black tie. His hair was perfectly swept to the side, his curls tamed for once, but still showing at the nape of his neck. He looked absolutely beautiful and fucking expensive. Tony wanted to unwrap him, then wreck him in the best possible way. “And Miss Potts, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Parker, it’s nice to see you again,” she answered pleasantly and Tony was glad she was there because he was sure that he was staring for way too long to be polite. He cleared his throat and smiled at the young man, who quickly slipped into character looking shyly at him from under his eyelashes.

“Mr. Parker, fancy seeing you here,” Tony spoke confidently, subtly looking around for Norman, but he was nowhere to be seen. “And where’s Mr. Osborn?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen him.” He averted his gaze, his tiny and usually steady hands trembling a little, before closing into fists. “Well, it was nice seeing you –“

“Hey, c’mon, have a drink with us,” Tony interrupted him, sensing his discomfort.

“Oh, uh – I’m sorry, sir, I’m not old enough to drink.” Tony was almost taken aback by that fact. The amount of information that he carried in that brilliant brain of his did not compute with his age.

“I won’t tell if you don’t. Neither will Miss Potts, right?” Tony turned to look at Pepper, only to see her staring daggers at him, in a way that probably only he could tell, they had a special way of communicating, so he quickly sent her a “what?” glare and she sighed.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear any of this and I’m just gonna go talk to Mrs. Bain, if you’ll excuse me, please.” She smiled sweetly at Peter and walked away from them, as Tony rolled his eyes.

“Well, her loss.” The older man shrugged, grabbing two champagne glasses from a passing waiter. “Have you ever had one of these?” He asked, offering him one of the glasses. “I’m not corrupting you, am I?” Tony asked charmingly, with a crooked smile and a raised eyebrow. Peter giggled,  blushing and shaking his head no.

“No, it’s okay, Norman usually gets me a few drinks when we’re out,” he answered, accepting the glass. Just the mention of the older man had Tony deflating slightly, reminded of the fact that Peter couldn’t be his.

“So, how come you didn’t come together?” He asked innocently, although he knew it was probably a touchy subject. The younger man took a long sip of his drink, licking his wet lips once he was done, and Tony wished it was his tongue running across those thin, pink lips.

“He’d rather bring another date, so.” He shrugged with a small, fake smile, and quickly changed the subject. “I’ve recently read that you’re working on a holographic system that’s supposed to connect with the user's hippocampus and project their memories, is that true?” Tony was surprised by that, he had written a paper about it with Bruce not long before, Peter must really keep up with his work.

“Yeah, but I’m in a bit of a pickle right now, got stuck with the neuroscience portion of it.” Tony scratched the back of his head, a little embarrassed about the admission, but Peter only smiled wider.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out. And it’s gonna be groundbreaking. Again. Well, it seems like everything you do changes the world somehow.” His cheeks were flushed, and maybe it was wishful thinking, maybe Tony was falling for Peter’s little game, but he thought he was actually flirting with him. Really flirting, not “I wanna be your sugar baby” flirting.

“That’s a lot of trust you’re putting in me, kid.” Tony dared to step a little closer to him and the young man bit his lower lip, holding back a smile, cheeks flushing pink.

“Yeah, but I think you can back it up.” He tilted his head back a little to look up at the older man. Tony held his gaze for a few seconds, before he dropped it to his lips. He smiled when the young man nervously licked them.

“I’m sorry I’m too hard on you in the lab. I just don’t want anyone thinking that I treat you differently because of the boss.” Tony took yet another step and Peter didn’t move an inch, allowing him to get closer and closer.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m just thankful to be in your team, I’m learning a lot.” This time, Tony was sure he wasn’t imagining things, Peter’s eyes definitely dropped to stare at his lips and the engineer inhaled sharply.

“Peter –“

“Ah, there you are.” Norman appeared out of thin air and Tony took three steps back, a cool smile on his face. Osborn was accompanied by a gorgeous blonde girl who couldn’t be older than twenty five, she was tall and slender, and looked like a supermodel – and she probably was. “Good evening, Mr. Stark. Pete.”

“Good evening, Mr. Osborn,” Tony answered with a schooled smile, not sure if he was in trouble for giving Peter champagne, but the CEO barely seemed to notice it when he turned to the younger man, who didn’t even bother to answer him.

“How do you like the party so far?” He asked politely, although his gaze was fixed on Peter. His date seemed bored out of her mind, but she eyed Tony with interest and the older man had to avert his gaze, he really didn’t need yet another sin to avoid.

“It’s great, sir,” Tony answered politely, but the older man didn’t really seem to care.

“Good, good. Do you mind if I borrow Peter for a little while?” He eyed the younger man and Peter grit his teeth, his hand tightening around the champagne flute.

“No, sure, he’s all yours.” He gestured towards the boy and he looked back at him with a look of betrayal on his face. Tony raised his eyebrows, not sure what Peter expected him to do, but the young man rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Come on, Peter, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” And with that, he led the way, confident that the boy would follow behind, which he did, after downing the rest of his drink, shooting one last pleading look Tony’s way. Again, the older man had no idea what he wanted.  

Once they left, Tony quickly found Pepper in the crowd as she chatted with Justin Hammer, the biggest asshole to ever exist in the corporate world. He stole all of Tony’s projects when the engineer worked for him, all the weapons the U.S.A. Army used ten years earlier were designed by Tony and he never got any credit for that. Two years after he quit Hammer Industries, they lost that contract because they simply had nothing new to offer.  

“Good evening, Mr Hammer, if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna take my date elsewhere, someplace where the toxicity level is more bearable. Bye.” Tony interrupted them unceremoniously and steered Pepper away from him as she threw apologies over her shoulder. “Don’t apologize to him, he’s trash.”

“Tony, you can’t act like this if you wanna be the CEO of the biggest tech company in the country. You need to make connections and keep good relation –“

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that with anyone else, except for him, promise.” He rolled his eyes once they got to the bar, where he leaned on the counter and flirted with the barman, before ordering two drinks.

“Great, then I hope you intend to keep a good relationship with Mr. Osborn,” she whispered, looking around to make sure nobody was listening. “Just a quick reminder: fucking his boyfriend is not very friendly.”

“Peter’s not his boyfriend,” he answered automatically, before taking a sip of his scotch, his eyes scanning the room until he found the younger man in a small circle of people, along with Mr. Osborn and his date. Tony hated that so much, the boy looked devastated but he was still there. Why the fuck was he still there? He didn’t need that shit. “They didn’t even come together today.”

“Okay, not the answer I was looking for, not a reassuring answer at all.” Pepper spoke to herself under her breath, then grabbed him by the jaw, forcing him to look at her. “Tony Stark, I hope you’re not –“

“Jesus, relax!” He snapped, freeing his face from her grip. “You and Natasha are driving me mad with this, I swear to God, the more you tell me not to do it, the more I wanna do it, just out of spite. Leave it alone, will ya?”

“Fine, whatever, do what you want, that always works out perfectly for you,” she snapped right back, taking her drink from the counter and walking away from him. “Don’t come crying to me when it all blows up in your face!”

Tony ignored her, they always had those arguments – she was usually right, Tony usually fucked up somehow and he usually went crying to her anyway, and she always helped him, so whatever. He was slightly tipsy, anyway, he would regret the whole thing in the morning, but right at that moment he was focused on Peter. The young man seemed really uncomfortable and out of place where he stood, among a few businessmen, but he was still there.  

Norman stood to his left with his date, talking animatedly with the other men. To Peter’s right, there was a tall, slender man, in his early forties, and he wouldn’t take his eyes off of the boy. Sometimes he would whisper things in his ear, eliciting a small, polite smile from him, but no answer. Some other times he would rest a hand on his waist for no particular reason and Tony would watch with amusement as the boy tried to get away politely. Norman watched the whole interaction discreetly, carefully, but didn’t intervene.

Eventually, Peter excused himself and headed towards the bathroom. Tony watched the other man and, sure enough, he followed him there a few seconds later, under Norman’s intense gaze, a small smirk playing on his lips. Tony quickly understood what was probably going on. Again, the older man was disappointed in the boy. Such a smart kid, with so much potential, he could do so much better. Tony turned towards the bar, ordering another scotch. Since he was there, with no date, and nothing else to do, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few drinks.

Several minutes later, he was leaning against the bar, talking to Mr. Zimmer, the CEO of Accutech, and actually scored a meeting for the following week to pitch his nanobots. After his deal with Oscorps, he was able to close two smaller ones and had a few more meetings scheduled. As he imagined, people took notice of Stark Industries after that. Having such a huge, important company such as Oscorps trusting SI meant a lot to potential partners.

As soon as Mr. Zimmer left, Tony saw Peter rushing across the room and out the door. He seemed really upset and agitated, so the older man followed him outside. When he found him again, Peter seemed a little lost. He looked around, as if he didn’t really know which way to go – the gala was held in one of Osborn’s mansions upstate and even leaving the premises was difficult to do without a car, the property was huge. He checked his phone, then, but Tony noticed the screen didn’t light up, it was probably dead. The kid ran his hands through his hair, seemingly desperate, and finally Tony decided to put him out of his misery.

“Hey, kid.” He stepped closer to the boy and he turned quickly, almost as if he was ready to throw a punch or something. “Whoa, there!” Tony held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, examining the boy’s face. He looked distressed, his eyes and face were red and he was a little out of breath. “Hey, are you ok? Do you need a ride home?” His eyes lit up in relief, his face relaxing instantly.

“Would you mind?” He almost pleaded and Tony was a little taken aback by the tone. “It’s just – my phone’s dead and – I just really need to get home.”

“Sure, kid, it’s fine, I was heading home anyway, c’mon.” Tony asked a valet to bring his car around and watched Peter as the younger man seemed to calm down slowly, but he was still acting a little out of sorts as they waited for the car to arrive. “Is everything okay, Peter?”

“Yeah, sure, just a little tired, I guess.” He lied, a fake smile on his face. He was easy to read, most of the time, when he wasn’t trying to attract older, rich men, Tony supposed.

Once the valet brought the car around, Tony opened the door for Peter, who quickly slipped inside like it was an oasis. Tony tipped the valet and joined the younger man, noticing that he seemed almost relieved to be leaving the party.

“Rough night?” Tony asked conversationally once he started the car, pulling away from the driveway. It was a stupid question, but he couldn’t help it.

“Try rough couple of months,” he scoffed, running a hand though his once tamed hair, elbow resting against the window.

“Wanna talk about it?” He looked at the younger man from the corner of his eye and saw him shake his head weakly.

“Not really,” he mumbled and they fell silent. Tony wanted to say something else, but Peter didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk, so he just drove for a few minutes, heading for the city, when the kid spoke up again. “I’m so sorry for the trouble, you can drop me off anywhere, I’ll just take the subway.”

“Don’t be silly, I’ll drive you home. Where is home, by the way?” Tony knew Peter lived with four other students close to campus, but he didn’t know where exactly.

“Harlem.” He sighed, sounding annoyed. “Ugh, that’s the last place I want to be right now,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“Why? Trouble with your roommates?” Tony raised a brow and the boy shook his head a little.

“Not really, they’re just really loud, specially on weekends. They probably have people over right now and I’m not in the mood, it’s all.” He gave him a tiny smile, but he didn’t really mean it.

“Tell you what,” Tony started, choosing his next words carefully. “Why don’t you come to my place?” He saw from the corner of his eye when Peter almost broke his neck turning to look at him in surprise. “Just for a few hours, so you can cool down some. We can have a few drinks, grab a bite to eat, and once you’re feeling better, I’ll drive you home. Or you can crash there, whatever you prefer. What do you say?” He turned to look at the young man and his eyes were wide, mouth agape in shock. Tony almost wanted to laugh.

“Uh – I don’t – I don’t want to be a bother, sir, you’ve alre--”

“Don’t be silly, I wouldn’t be offering if it was a bother. You don’t need to say yes if you don’t want to, but if you do, you’ll make this old man very happy, I wouldn’t mind some company tonight.” Tony smiled charmingly at him and Peter blushed, the older man could tell there were a million things going through his head.

“Uhm. Okay. Yeah, sure.” He nodded and Tony’s heart did a little flip in his chest and he didn’t even know why. If he was honest, he had no idea what he was doing or why he was doing it, he just wasn’t ready to let the younger man go.

The rest of the drive was long and mostly silent. Peter was usually very lively and talkative in the lab, he always had some fun fact to share or an anecdote about something that happened in class, but that night he was gloomy and quiet, but he still answered to Tony’s small talk. When they arrived at the older man’s penthouse, Peter was a little nervous, looking around as if he was out of place, looking almost regretful. Tony decided that he hated seeing him like that.

“Hey, wanna see something cool?” He asked as soon as they walked into the living room. The young man turned to look at him curiously, a small smile on his face as he nodded. “Evening, Jarvis. Could you get the windows, please?” As he said that, Peter frowned, then jumped almost a foot in the air when the A.I. answered.

“Good evening, sir, I hope you had a good time at the party.” As he said that, an entire wall of the living room turned from blurred, dark glass to transparent glass, revealing an amazing view of the city skyline. “Good evening, Mr. Parker.”

“What – how – you have an AI here? How does he know who I am?” Peter half whispered, half shouted, apparently undecided if he should be concerned or amazed. Tony laughed and placed a hand on Peter’s lower back, guiding him towards the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“I don’t only have it, I made it. And he’s equipped with an advanced face recognition technology that I designed, in case anyone comes in here with ill intentions. I started working on Jarvis when I was at Hammer Industries, it was supposed to go to the military, but after I resigned, I decided to keep it to myself. Jarvis runs the house and helps me in the lab.” Tony stuck his hands in his pockets and observed as the young man leaned against the window, looking amazed and a little lost.

“So cool!” Peter’s eyes were round and excited, all the gloominess from earlier apparently forgotten. “Can I talk to him? Like, will it acknowledge my voice?”

“Of course, Mr. Parker, why wouldn’t I?”  

“Hi, Jarvis!” And just like that, Peter stroke up the silliest conversation with Jarvis, as Tony headed to the kitchen. He decided that since Peter wasn’t really allowed to drink, he’d make them some coffee, and later they could order something to eat. When he went back to the living room, the young man was still leaning against one of the windows as Jarvis tried to convince him that he had no intention of starting a rebellion to wipe out humanity.

“Don’t worry, Jarvis wouldn’t do that,” Tony smiled, placing two mugs on the coffee table and Peter shrugged.

“I wish he would, sometimes I think we failed as a species.” He turned around to face the engineer with a cheeky smile. Fuck, he was so beautiful. “Thank you for everything, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up.”

“You would have figured something out, you’re resourceful. Maybe you would have built a car out of a cardboard box, two paper clips and four potatoes.” He leaned against the window beside Peter and the young man looked up at him with a grin.

“Or maybe I would have found someone to lend me a charger so I could call an Uber?” He bumped Tony’s shoulder with his own and the older man scoffed.

“Yeah, but that would’ve been boring, don’t you think?” He raised a brow with a grave face and the young man laughed.

“You’re right, this is much more fun.” His face was so open, so beautiful, all awkwardness from before completely gone. Tony leaned in to whisper close to his ear.

“It can get better.” He pulled back a little to look at the boy’s face. He looked surprised, eyes wide and lips parted, but he didn’t pull away, he didn’t take a single step back, so Tony took a chance. He placed one hand gently on his cheek, testing his reaction, and Peter’s breath hitched, his gaze dropped to Tony’s lips, but he stood still, breathing rapidly but quietly. That was all the answer he needed.

He buried his hand in those curls he’d been dreaming about for months, as his other arm snaked around his thin waist, pulling him close, no chance of escape. Not that he thought that Peter would try to escape if he could, anyway. Tony felt intoxicated when their lips touched, Peter’s mouth was as soft as it looked, his skin as smooth as he imagined. The younger man melted against him, bodies flush together as Tony’s tongue begged for entrance in his mouth.  

He pushed him against the window, once again testing the young man’s reaction to his advances, but Peter was so far gone, he barely seemed to notice they’d changed positions. Tony kissed him deeply, slowly, as his hands made their way around the boy’s hips, thumbs stroking his hipbones over the silk shirt, and he sighed. Tony licked into his mouth, swallowing his little gasps and whimpers, and he could tell that Peter had never been kissed like that before, if the way his legs gave out were any indication. He held him up, though, his body trapped between the older man’s and the cold window.

He felt Peter’s erection already poking his upper thigh and he smiled into the kiss, feeling his own cock start to swell against Peter’s lower stomach. He moaned quietly, pulling away from the kiss for a few seconds to check if the boy was doing okay, but Peter didn’t even open his eyes, he just rocked his hips slowly, rubbing his erection against Tony’s thigh. Feeling confident enough, the older man lowered his hands to his perfect ass, squeezing his cheeks tightly as he pulled him even closer to him. Just as he imagined, it was firm, yet supple, it filled his hands nicely, and Tony didn’t hesitate to lift him a little by the ass, aligning their cocks and pressing both erections together.

“Mr. Stark,” he whimpered, humping against Tony, trying to balance his weight on the tips of his toes as Tony held him up. The older man took advantage of the way he threw his head back, exposing his throat, to make his way down his skin, peppering his long, pale neck with kisses and bites. Peter moaned as he tried to undo Tony’s suit jacket, which he allowed, putting just a little distance between them. He went back to his mouth with another kiss, faster than before, more urgent, before pulling away just a few inches, panting against the kid’s mouth.

“C’mon, babe, let me take you to bed,” he whispered and Peter nodded quickly.

Tony took his hand and led him to his own room, and as soon as they were inside, he pushed Peter against the king sized bed and quickly started working on his shirt, every inch of silky, white skin it revealed made the older man harder. Peter smelt and looked expensive as fuck, his skin was smooth as a baby’s, not a single hair in sight, and it was soft and unmarked, peppered only with a few light brown freckles along the collarbones. His nipples were tiny and light pink, hard from excitement and begging to be bitten.

Tony wanted to eat him up – and out – he always looked good when they were in the lab, in his cute slacks, dress shoes and lab jacket, but that night he looked delicious, like an expensive meal, and Tony was a starving man. He got rid of the shirt, revealing his thin chest and surprisingly defined abs, and he worshiped the exposed skin, covered it with open mouthed, wet kisses and bites until it turned red from the abuse. He wanted to mark him up, leave bruises on him so that at least for a while, Peter could be his.

He took a perked up nipple in his mouth and sucked it mercilessly, as he pinched the other one between his fingers, and Peter gasped, hands flying to grab Tony’s shoulders. He didn’t waste too much time, though, and quickly started undoing his pants, pulling them down his legs. The act revealed even more soft, smooth skin and plump, soft thighs that the older man couldn’t help biting. Peter whined quietly when Tony splayed his open palms on his legs and squeezed, as he sucked bruises on the boy’s inner thighs. His face was so close to his cock, covered only in tight, black boxer briefs, so Tony rubbed his cheek against it and Peter cried out.  As soon as he lowered his boxers, Peter’s cock sprung free, and Tony was delighted. It was small and flushed pink, rock hard and already dripping pre-cum. The older man didn’t think twice as he put it all in his mouth, eliciting a scream from the young man.

“Oh, my God, Mr. Stark!” He bucked his hips wildly, his legs falling open, and, for the second time that evening, Tony thought that maybe nobody had ever done that to him. “Oh, God! Fuck!” He kept moaning desperately, as Tony sank his fingers in his ass cheeks, bobbing his head up and down, sucking and licking his shaft and paying extra attention to the head. Peter kept both of his hands beside his body, clenching at the sheets, not daring to touch Tony or demand anything. The second the older man’s fingers touched his balls, he lost it. “Mr. Stark, please, I – Oh, God, oh my God –“ He blushed furiously, Tony noticed when he raised his head and let go of his cock with a loud pop.

His whole face and chest were flushed pink, he held his upper body up, resting on his elbows as he panted, looking thoroughly debauched. His once gelled curls were wild and loose, covering his forehead, and Tony just wanted to ruin him even more. He smirked at the younger man, who seemed completely out of it, barely able to understand what was happening. Tony lifted his legs, pressing his bent knees to his chest and Peter got the idea and held his legs in place, exposing himself beautifully to him.

The older man’s mouth watered as he looked at his quivering, pink hole. It looked so fucking tight and so fucking ready for his cock at the same time, he could see Peter was mortified in that position, but he still held himself open, so eager for what was to come. Tony grabbed his ass cheeks and spread them, burying his face in his crack and licking a stripe up from his tailbone to his balls, only to hear the young man screaming desperately.

Tony was feeling really smug, he didn’t remember the last he made anyone scream like that. He was always a generous lover, he liked giving his partners pleasure, but Peter didn’t seem to be used to it if his reactions were anything to go by, so the older man took even more pleasure in making him feel so good.

“Mr. Stark, I’m gonna – I’m not gonna last, please!” Tony pretended not to hear him, as he kept licking over his rim before he started to try to breach him with his tongue, as Peter cried out, bucking his hips. The older man held him in place and kept trying to fuck his tongue into him, until he felt Peter’s fingers in his hair, pulling him up. “I wanna come with you inside me – please,” he whispered once Tony’s lips were over his mouth, his cock perfectly aligned with the boy’s hole.

He grunted and kissed him again, just as wildly and roughly as he did before. The young man quickly started undoing Tony’s shirt, and only then did he realize that he was still dressed as Peter laid on his bed completely naked. He groaned into the kiss, because fuck, that was hot, but he helped the boy take off his shirt and undershirt.

Peter curled one leg around his waist, kissing Tony back enthusiastically and a little less shyly now that the older was a little undressed as well. He ran his soft hands all over Tony’s broad back, then up his shoulders and into his thick hair, all the while moaning and bucking his hips, begging to be touched. Tony took advantage of the position they were in to slide his fingers in between Peter’s cheeks, feeling his tight entrance twitch, anticipating the touch. He didn’t do much more, though, he just kept kneading his ass, letting his fingertips just slightly brush against his quivering hole.

Peter grew impatient then, and instead of pushing his hips up, against Tony’s own cock, he started pushing then down, against his fingers. The older man chuckled, brushing his chin against the pale neck, already noticing it turning pink with beard burn.

“Mr. Stark, c’mon, please, I--” He mumbled incoherently, holding on for dear life to his shoulders, his breath short, swollen, wet lips parted, his lids heavy. A vision of paradise. “I need--”

Tony knew what he needed, but he wouldn’t give it to him just yet. Still, he let his middle finger wander towards his entrance, feeling his hole clenching, trying to pull it inside, ready to take whatever Tony was willing to give. He grabbed his thighs again, spreading them far apart, making Peter yelp in surprise. He kissed his hole gently one last time, then moved away, getting off the bed.

“I’m not done with you yet, sweetheart.” Tony smirked, undoing his pants, and he noticed Peter’s eyes intent on him. As soon as his cock sprung free, the young man whimpered, whispering “fuck” and biting his lips hard. “Like what you see?” Tony asked, cockily, he knew it was a nice view. He was nicely groomed and his cock was cut, long and thick, and at the moment it was rock hard like never before and dripping with pre-cum. He stepped out of his pants and headed towards the night stand before Peter could answer. He grabbed a bottle lube and made his way back to the bed, positioning himself between his legs once again.

He coated his fingers with plenty of lube and breached his entrance with one fingertip, only to hear a long, deep moan coming from the younger man, who clung to his shoulders for dear life. He fucked his finger in and out of him, slowly at first, but quicker as Peter’s hips started moving along with him, begging for more. Tony leaned down and kissed him, and felt one of Peter’s hands in his hair, as he curled both of his legs around the older man’s waist. Tony kept kissing him as he sunk another finger in his hole, eliciting a surprised moan from him, as he tried to adjust to the stretch.

They kept kissing and rocking against each other eagerly, as Tony fucked him open with his fingers, scissoring and curling them, until he couldn’t take it anymore, he needed to be inside him. He drew back just enough to hold his cock, guiding it towards Peter’s entrance. Slowly and unrelentingly, Tony sank his cock inside him, blinded with pleasure as each inch sank further inside. Peter whined in pain but didn’t budge or asked him to stop, he took it like a good boy, holding still, legs spread wide, until Tony bottomed out. When he did, he wrapped his arms around his slight frame, lifting him a little from the bed, and Peter took a deep breath, holding his shoulders.

“That’s it, sweetie, you’re so good for me, I’m gonna make you feel so good.” Tony whispered nonsensically in his ear, kissing his cheeks and neck gently, waiting for him to adjust. They stayed like that for a few seconds, until Peter started rocking his hips slowly, and Tony soon caught on. He grabbed his hips and slammed once inside him, hearing a scream coming from the younger man. He drew back and slowly built up a pace, slamming against him like there was no tomorrow. He moaned loudly, a mixture of pleasure and pain, Tony could tell, but instead of asking him to slow down, he pushed back against him just as hard, biting his neck.

Tony may have lost his mind somewhere along the way, pure instinct took over as he fucked into him with abandon, he heard his screams and moans and they made him hit harder, harder, and he thought he heard the younger man screaming just that, as he sank his nails into his shoulders and down his back, until he grabbed Tony’s ass and pulled him closer, faster, harder –

“Oh – Oh, Mr. Stark – I –“ Peter rolled his eyes back and it took Tony the better part of a minute to realize that he was coming, and he hadn’t even touched his cock. Spurts of his warm, white come covered both of their chests and Tony could feel that some of it caught on his chin. The sight of Peter underneath him – debauched, utterly satisfied, ruined – was enough to bring Tony over the edge, the force of his orgasm was almost blinding, something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He let himself fall on top of Peter, barely aware of the fact that he was maybe a little too heavy for that, but the younger man didn’t seem to mind, if the soft, barely there caresses on his back were anything to go by.

They were silent for several minutes, bodies cooling down and falling asleep, but Tony’s mind was wide awake. What had he done? Peter was supposed to be off limits for a number of reasons, so many he couldn’t even focus on a single one. He felt the young man sigh softly under him, his hands drawing circles on his back peacefully.

“This was nice,” he whispered and it triggered something in Tony, because, fuck, it was perfect. It was perfect, but it was a lie, wasn’t it? Peter wasn’t really into him. He was just – he was just a fucking –

“I really hope this was a free trial, ‘cause I don’t think I can afford you, kid.” The minute the words left his mouth, he felt the younger man go rigid beneath him. He quickly pushed at Tony’s shoulders, trying to raise his upper body and the older man easily rolled off of him to the side, resting his head on his clasped hands on the pillow.

“What are you insinuating?” Peter asked with a frown, suddenly appearing very uncomfortable, gathering the sheets around him to cover his exposed skin.

“I’m not insinuating anything, I’m just saying I don’t think I have enough money to pay for this very expensive meal.” He wiggled his eyebrows, smirking, pretending he wasn’t as affected by what happened as he was. Peter turned bright red, his mouth falling open, gaping like a fish.

“What – I –“ he stammered, frozen for a few seconds before he jumped into action and out of bed, taking the sheets with him as he looked for his clothes around the room. “I can’t believe you just said that, you fucking asshole! Fuck you!” He yelled towards the bed and Tony was a little  surprised by his reaction.

“Chill, it was a joke.” He rolled his eyes, noticing that he young man was almost fully dressed by then, at least he had his pants and shirt on, his tie and jacket were draped over his arm as he looked for his shoes. When he turned back to Tony, his whole face was inhumanly red and soaked in tears, it made Tony’s heart clench. “Jesus, kid!”

“I’m not laughing, asshole!” He yelled again, marching towards the door without looking back. “You’re all the fucking same, bunch of assholes, what was I thinking? I’m so fucking stup– ” Tony couldn’t hear the rest of his rant because he slammed the door with so much force that the older man was pretty sure he felt the building shaking a little bit.

Well, fuck.

--*--

Two weeks later, when Tony stepped inside the lab, he had a whole plan figured out. After Peter left that night, he went through all five stages of admitting he had been an asshole – as was common for him, he usually went through those at least a few times a week.

So, first, he denied it.

“The kid is obviously overreacting, right? It was just a joke and, even if it wasn’t, well, I wouldn’t have been that far off from the truth.”

Then, he was angry.

“Fuck that kid, he had no right to react the way he did, who does he think he is, slamming the door like that, yelling at me, calling me names, all because of a stupid little joke? Fuck him.”

Then, he bargained.

“So, okay, maybe I was a little over the line, but I can fix it, right? It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Then he felt a little sad, because, fuck, thinking back to their time together, the kid had never been anything but nice to him, he didn’t deserve that and Tony always fucked up with people, what was wrong with him?

Finally, he fully accepted it. He was definitely, irrevocably and undoubtedly an asshole. They had a nice time together, the kid was the best lay he had in fucking years, and sure, maybe he was with Norman for money or whatever, but what they did, what they shared that night – it felt pretty fucking real and Tony blew it.  

So when he walked into the lab two weeks later, he had it all figured out. He would ask Peter to stay a little late, then, when everybody left, he would apologize to him sincerely and since he had a taste for expensive gifts, he even got him a gold bracelet, just as an “I’m sorry I was an asshole” gift, a peace offering.

The thing was, when he walked into the lab, Peter was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Mr. Parker?” He asked the closest lab tech and the young woman shrugged, uninterested.

“He quit a few weeks ago, I heard.” She mumbled, concentrated on the microscope in front of her, and Tony cursed under his breath, feeling even more guilty than before. Had the kid felt so offended that he decided to quit the team? That couldn’t be right, he was Norman’s boy, how would he justify that to him? He wouldn’t tell him about them, would he? Tony figured that if he had told Norman anything, he would have heard about it by then, but everything seemed normal and in order, other than Peter’s absence from the lab.

“He went back to being Mr. Osborn’s intern?” He asked just to clarify, maybe he could go talk to him after he was done in the lab for the day.

“No, he quit Oscorps.” She looked at him like he was asking dumb questions, like everyone should know that piece of information.

Tony did not expect that. His heart raced a little when he heard those words, for some reason. He thought he should be relieved, one less thing to worry about. With Peter gone, he wouldn’t need to worry about apologizing or Norman finding out about them. He didn’t need to worry about things getting weird in the lab or Peter trying to use it against him or something. But he wasn’t relieved. He was – what was he feeling? Whenever he thought about the possibility of not seeing Peter ever again, his heart clenched.

The engineer couldn’t understand what was going on inside him, he just needed to talk to Peter, fucking apologize, get him back on the team, make sure that they would still see each other every month, that they would still talk, and laugh together, and share a workbench so small their hips touched every now and again.  

Which was why Tony found himself waiting at the main entrance of Columbia's Morningside Heights campus on Wednesday evening, probably looking suspicious as hell as he swept the crowd, looking for a familiar face. It was a long shot, but he new Peter had classes every afternoon and he knew at what time he was done most days. He guessed the young man would take a train at the subway station on 116th Street, so there he was, looking and waiting.

After almost two hours and no luck, Tony was ready to give up and leave when he saw him walking out, arms full of text books, a heavy looking backpack hanging from one shoulder. He was wearing reading glasses, baggy, ripped jeans, and a graphic t-shirt underneath an oversized gray hoodie and Tony realized he had never seen him like that, he was always well dressed at work and he only ever saw him in other two occasions: his dinner with Norman and at the gala.

Tony thought he looked even more beautiful like that, stripped off of all the fancy things that made him look like an expensive doll. He looked at ease and comfortable and Tony felt a weird desire to hold him. Fucking hold him. Not rip off his clothes and fuck him – well, that too – but to take him into his arms, pull him close and breathe into his his wild curls.

“Hey, Peter,” Tony called out loud enough for him to hear and as soon as his eyes made contact with the older man’s, his face turned red and his eyes widened before he dropped his gaze to the ground, picking up the pace to walk away from Tony. “Hey, hold on, kid, c’mon, I’m talking to you.” The engineer quickly followed, grabbing him by the arm and making him turn around.

“What do you want, what are you doing here?” He asked impatiently, looking around as if afraid to make a scene, there were a lot of people walking in and out of campus at that time.

“You quit Oscorps,” the older man stated, dumbly, and Peter stared at him as if he wanted to say just that. He waited to see if Tony would say anything more and he really meant to, but nothing else came out of his stupid mouth.

“Yeah, and?” He prompted, holding his books close to his chest defensively, getting ready for a fight, but Tony just shrugged, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“And now I don’t have any engineers on my team,” he offered, as kind of a joke, he thought, but again, Peter wasn’t laughing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He rolled his eyes and tried to walk away, but Tony held him back again. “What the hell, don’t touch me!”

“Ok, sorry, I’m sorry.” He let go of his arm and raised both of his hands in a peace offering. “I’m trying to apologize here, I’m not very good at this.”

“Clearly,” Peter snarked, and Tony nodded.

“Right. Ok. I deserve that. Look, let me just –“ He wracked his brain for something to say, he really should have thought it through. The thing was, he thought Peter would be a little more… Compliant. He didn’t expect him to still be that pissed off after almost two weeks. “Let me treat you to dinner, how about that? So we can clear the air?”

“No, thanks,” Peter answered quickly and started to walk away again, heading to the subway station. Since grabbing him and trying to stop him didn’t seem like a good idea, Tony started walking alongside him.

“Hey, c’mon, don’t be so stubborn, I’m just trying to apologize here,” he insisted, attracting Peter’s impatient gaze, as he still tried to balance all the books in his arms.

“You’re forgiven, is that what you wanna hear?” He snapped, and Tony was taken aback by the anger and hurt in his eyes. “There you go. You’re absolved! Goodbye now.” Again, he tried to leave the older man behind, but Tony didn’t let him.

“Hey, kid, don’t be so difficult, I just--”

“Tony!” Weirdly enough, after everything they’d done, that was the first time the younger man called him by his first name and even if the situation was less than ideal, it still sent a shiver down his spine. The boy stopped walking to look at him dead in the eye. “You called me a whore, now you’re asking me to dinner! What am I supposed to think here? I’m not for sale, I’m sorry if I misled you, go bother someone else.”

“Peter, I’m sincerely, honest to God, just trying to apologize here. I know I was an asshole and you didn’t deserve to be treated like that, nobody does, I’m sorry, I was way out of line. I just wanna take you to dinner because I think you’re a good kid, I know you enjoyed working with me and you looked up to me somehow, so I just wanna make it up to you, ok? I promise, nothing else. I just don’t want you to have the wrong impression of me. I’m a good guy, I’m just kind of an asshole sometimes.” Tony tried to convey all his honesty through his eyes, which made Peter deflate a little bit. The young man stared at him for a few seconds with a frown on his forehead, before he sighed, rolling his eyes.

“You’re very annoying,” he said, matter-of-factly, and the older man nodded.  

“I’m known to be quite annoying, yeah,” he admitted, putting on his best pleading face, puppy eyes and all. “Let me make it up to you,” he insisted, and Peter rolled his eyes and sighed in resignation.

“Fine, dinner. Not tonight, though, I have work.” Tony cheered on the inside – and a little on the outside – but the younger man kept a straight face.

“Whenever you’re free.” Peter thought for a second and it almost seemed like he was regretting it already.

“Tomorrow, then. You can pick me up here. And I’ll choose the restaurant.” He stuck up his nose, defiantly, and Tony just spread his arms in surrender.

“Fair enough.”

So Tony decided to be a perfect gentleman, he put on a nice suit, he bought some flowers and took the gold “I’m sorry I was a jerk” bracelet with him when he went to pick Peter up. He was sure he would pick the most expensive restaurant in New York as payback and maybe he would order the most expensive things on the menu and, yeah, Tony knew he was really stupid if he were to comply, but, apparently, he wasn’t as smart as he once thought. And apparently he wasn’t immune to cute boys who knew how to play their cards right. So, yeah, maybe he fell right into Peter’s web in the end and maybe he wasn’t too upset about it. He could afford to spend a few dollars on him, have a good meal, smart conversations, and then move on. Because that’s what it was, right? Just him needing closure, if nothing else.

Except, when he parked his car, Peter was standing on the sidewalk in plain blue jeans and a cheap gray sweater and he looked thoroughly amused by Tony’s outfit when he got out of the car to get the door for him. He offered him the flowers and the boy was even more amused, a small chuckle leaving his lips when he read the “I’m sorry I was a jerk” card. Tony decided not to give him the bracelet after all, didn’t seem like a good idea by the looks of it.

“Where do you think we’re going?” He asked with a raised eyebrow, stopping in front of Tony before he got in the car.

“I was thinking a three-star Michellin restaurant?” The older man frowned and the boy snorted, apparently very amused.

“Yeah, and how in the hell would I afford to eat there, Mr. Stark?” He cocked his head to the side with feigned curiosity and Tony frowned.

“Afford? What – no, I’m buying! This is an ‘I’m sorry’ dinner. Besides, I invited you, it’s only polite.” He argued, but the boy quickly shook his head.

“You’ve apologized enough.” He gestured to the flowers. “Besides, I’m sorry, but I’m a little skeptical about gratuitous generosity at the moment, so we’re just gonna get some cheap pizza if that’s ok with you.” He shrugged, pointing in the general direction of the pizza place he was probably planning to go.

“What? Peter, come on. At least –“

“I only agreed to come if you let me choose the restaurant, so it’s either this or I’m heading back home.” He threatened to turn away and Tony jumped to stop him.

“No, no, sorry, you’re right. It’s your pick.” He opened the door to the passenger seat before Peter could change his mind and leave.

They got inside the car and Tony followed the young man’s instructions to the pizza joint, it wasn’t far from campus and was mostly empty when they got there. It was really not the sort of place that Tony went to anymore, but he couldn’t deny that was exactly the kind of restaurant he could afford when he was 19 at MIT. He was still a little confused by Peter’s choice of restaurant, not really sure if it was all a game, a plot to get back at him, but he seemed honest when he said he wanted to pay for his half.

“Maybe lose the jacket? And the tie?” He suggested with an amused smile from beside him when they parked the car and Tony chuckled slightly, doing just that and undoing the first three buttons of his shirt, rolling up the sleeves as well. “Much better.”

When they got inside the restaurant, Peter seemed to know the waiters, they sat at a table in the far back and ordered their drinks. They didn’t even have wine. A pizza place that didn’t serve wine, what even was that madness.

“So, you come here a lot? Everyone seems to know you around here.” Tony tried to start some amicable conversation and, surprisingly, Peter was receptive.

“I used to work here, actually. Before Oscorps.” He smiled fondly as he looked around, like he had some good memories there.

“Oh, cool.” Again, he was surprised by the boy’s story, Tony always assumed that he had an easy life. “Did I – was it because of me? The reason you quit?” He asked with a wince and Peter raised a brow, amused.

“Don’t be so self-important, it had nothing to do with you,” he rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, so Tony thought maybe he wasn’t that mad anymore. He sure seemed a lot calmer than the last time they met. “You’re a jerk, but I’ve dealt with worse.” Tony snorted, he couldn’t even be mad, Peter was just stating facts. He was a little curious to know what led him to quit his job, if it wasn’t Tony, and suddenly remembered how upset he was when they left the party. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask, though, they were just getting back on good terms.

“So, what are you doing now that you quit Oscorps?” Tony cocked his head to the side and the boy shrugged, playing with his paper napkin.

“Back to waiting tables and making coffee.” He smiled, he didn’t seem upset by the turn of events, which was… unexpected? It was just so odd. Tony had this idea that Peter liked to live that expensive lifestyle he had with Osborn, wasn’t that the whole point of being with him? His confusion must have shown on his face, because Peter chuckled, furrowing his brow. “What?”

“Nothing, I just –” He shook his head and gave up in the middle of the sentence.

“What, you thought I’d find another rich dude or something?” He creased his brow, looking genuinely confused, not mad. “Wait, do you actually think I’m an escort?” He asked as an afterthought, and Tony could deny it, but he didn’t think he could make it believable anyway.

“Not exactly, but – something like that, yeah,” He admitted, scratching the back of his neck, feeling embarrassed for the first time in a long time, and braced himself for the explosion, but Peter just showed him a sad little smile.

“You thought I was with him for his money,” he stated and Tony winced, because when Peter said it out loud, when those words came out of his mouth, they sounded so wrong. Like they could never be true. “It’s okay, I guess he thought that, too, and so did everyone else. My coworkers, the press, even some of my friends,” he scoffed, folding his napkin in half just to have something to do with his hands. “I guess I’m just a stupid kid who watched way too many Disney princess movies growing up. I blame my aunt, honestly.” He tried to joke and Tony shook his head.

“I shouldn’t have judged you, it wasn’t my place. I just thought it was so odd for a guy like you to be with a guy like him.” Such a beautiful, brilliant, young man like you deserved so much better than him, was what Toy didn’t dare to say.

“I loved him,” he said and it shouldn’t have stung, it shouldn’t have made Tony’s stomach twist and turn, and his heart clench, but it did. It fucking did. “Or I thought I did. Turns out I got it all wrong. I thought we were going somewhere, but he wasn’t really serious about me, which became very clear when he decided not to take me to the gala, so.” He blushed slightly and dropped his eyes to the table, still folding the napkin until it was impossible to keep folding.

“Yeah, but you still came. Why?” Tony insisted, because he really wanted to figure him out, he needed to, because Peter wasn’t who he thought he was, he wasn’t that person Tony was so quick to judge and he needed to know who he was, after all. Because – he just needed to.

“I guess I – I just thought... He would regret it or something, you know. Once he saw me.” He gave a self-deprecatory laugh, rubbing a hand across his forehead as if trying to physically erase something from his mind. “Like… A stupid rom-com or something, you know. Like, the happy ending scene. Whatever. It’s stupid.” He ran a hand through his hair, blushing even harder. “Again, I blame my aunt, she was the one who made me watch all these stupid movies.”

Tony wanted to say it wasn’t his fault that everybody else was fucked up and couldn’t see what an amazing person he was, but the waiter chose that moment to interrupt them with their food, which was good, because Peter perked up and actually looked excited, rubbing his hands together and looking at Tony expectantly.

“Try it, tell me if it’s not the best pizza you’ve ever had in your life.” Tony smiled at his excitement and grabbed a piece of the cheap pizza. As expected, it tasted like garbage, but he wouldn’t tell Peter that, obviously.

“Sorry, kid, it’s not. But I’m forty-five and I’ve been to Italy, so don’t look so bummed.” Peter deflated slightly, grabbing a piece of his own and taking a huge bite out of it, like it was the best meal ever.  

“Fine then, the best pizza in New York?” He compromised and Tony was a hundred percent sure it was most definitely not the best pizza in New York, but –

“I’ll give you that.” He conceded and Peter beamed.

“I’ll take it.”

They fell into an easy conversation about engineering and about Peter’s expectations for the future, which ended up turning into a conversation about what Tony did after college. The older man told him about all the steps he took to get where he was, working for other companies, having his ideas stolen, not getting credit for his work, quitting multiple jobs, almost going bankrupt trying to get Stark Industries off the ground and then finally being in a comfortable place in his professional life at 45 – better late than never.

“I think it’s amazing how you managed to turn your life around, you know. It’s really inspiring.” Peter seemed truly moved by Tony’s story, and the older man knew it was quite impressive, but he just shrugged it off.

“Yeah, boo-hoo, but now that you know my sob story, you have to tell me yours.” He took another bite of the terrible pizza and decided that sometime after the third slice, it became almost edible. Key-word: almost.

“Well, there’s not much to say and it’s definitely not as interesting or as successful as yours, but let’s see. My parents died when I was really young, I think I was around four – I’m ashamed to say I don’t really remember them. I still have their pictures, but I just – you know.” Peter shrugged and, yeah, Tony knew. After his mom died, he couldn’t look at pictures of her for years; at the same time that he wanted to remember her, he kind of wanted to forget. “I was raised by my aunt May and uncle Ben, but he was killed in a mugging when I was ten. Fuck, my life story is such a downer, are you sure you wanna hear it?” He chuckled, running a hand through his hair, and Tony smiled softly.

“As long as you wanna tell it, kid.” Peter took a deep breath, as if considering if he actually wanted to tell that story, but finally seemed to decide to go on.

“So, my aunt May was a nurse, she struggled to make ends meet, but she was just – amazing, you know? She was like a mother to me, she never left me wanting for anything, specially when it came to my education, which was how I was able to get into college so early. Anyway, she passed away almost two years ago from a stomach cancer. So… It’s just me now. I’m the last Parker standing.” He smiled sadly, dropping his gaze to stare at the slice of uneaten pizza in his plate.

“Fuck, that’s rough, kid. But hey, if it’s any consolation, I’m also the last Stark standing. Maybe we should start a club or something,” he joked to try to lighten up the mood and the young man giggled, looking back at him with a smile.

“Like, the Parker-Stark Lonely Orphans Club?” He asked cheekily and Tony laughed. “Anyway, a year ago I got into Oscorps’s internship program, which was a dream come true, but then I screwed it up by sleeping with the boss, because I’m an idiot. The end.” He snorted and, again, Tony was a little surprised to learn that Peter got the internship before he met Norman, but at that point, it wasn’t much of a shock, he should have seen it coming.

“So, can I ask what happened? Between you and Norman? What made you quit?” Tony asked carefully. As the night went on, he felt like he and Peter were getting more comfortable with each other, more comfortable than they could ever be all those months before, when Tony made such an effort to despise him.

“Ugh, it’s… Well, it’s embarrassing.” It was barely a whisper. Peter’s cheeks were bright red and he wouldn’t meet Tony gaze.

“It’s okay, you don't have to tell me if you don’t want to.” He reassured him, feeling confident enough to place a hand on top of his on the table. Peter stared at them for a few seconds, before looking up at him.

“It’s… Something he did at the party. He kept pushing me to this guy, you know. Some business partner or whatever. And I didn’t quite understand what he was trying to accomplish, but then I went to the bathroom and this guy followed me there and he – he tried – to kiss me. And to touch me.” He blushed, gaze fixed on the table between them once again. Tony tightened his grip on his hand. “When I pushed him away he said something about Norman not knowing how to teach his whores good manners. When I tried to talk to Norman – he said I owed him.” He frowned, lifting his eyes to look at him. “For all the expensive gifts, and nice restaurants, and everything he did for me. He said it was the least I could do.” He scoffed, but his cheeks were pink, like maybe some part of him believed that – believed that while he thought he was dating someone he loved, he was actually whoring himself out to him.

“That’s why you were so upset at the party,” he whispered, realizing what a massive jerk he’d been after that. The kid must have been feeling like shit that day. Used and expendable and lost. And then Tony treated him like a fucking cheap hooker.  “Peter… I’m so sorry for that night, I didn’t –“

“It’s okay, I’m fine now. Don’t get me wrong, it was a total dick move, but I already knew you were kind of a dick, so no alarms, no surprises.” He smirked, trying to lighten the mood, but nothing he could say could ever absolve Tony of what he’d done, of the harm he’d caused him that night. Fuck, if he was Peter, he would never have talked to him again, let alone agreed to dinner. His behavior the previous night suddenly made perfect sense. “I quit the next day, put his stupid gifts in a box and sent it to the tower, he can choke on them for all that I care.” He shrugged, trying to appear non-nonchalant, but Tony knew the whole thing must still fucking hurt, it had only been two weeks.

“I sincerely hope he does,” Tony offered and Peter laughed out loud, throwing his head back in delight.

When they walked to the car at the end of the night, Tony could feel that something had changed between them. He felt like all that time he knew Peter he had been missing a huge chunk of information, which made all the difference in the world. He could see Peter now, the real him. The ride to his place was taken in comfortable silence and when Tony parked his car, neither of them moved. The older man turned towards the younger one and licked his lips. He knew the answer to the question he was gonna ask, he knew he deserved it, but still –  

“Can I get you number?” It wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to apologize, show the kid a good time as a way of making it up to him for the terrible things he said and move on. Go back to work, go back to his life, but now – now he was stuck. Looking at Peter and seeing a whole new person. Someone he wanted to get to know more, but knew he didn’t deserve.

“Oh, I don’t know, do you think you can afford it?” Peter teased, and Tony actually blushed, embarrassed to remember how much of a dick he’d been.

“Ugh, I said I was sorry,” he mumbled, rubbing a hand across his face, only to hear Peter’s delighted chuckle.

“I’m just kidding, don’t worry. But I don’t think It’s a good idea, Tony.” He bit his lower lip and Tony nodded to himself, because, yeah, he knew it wasn’t. It shouldn’t be. Because Peter deserved so much better than him. “But this was nice. Thank you for caring enough to apologize.”

“It was the least I could do.” He gave him a small smile and was taken by surprised when the young man unceremoniously leaned in and kissed him. Tony didn’t waste any time burying his hand in his hair, pulling him impossibly close as their lips brushed softly and tongues met in a sweet embrace. The young man pulled away after just a few seconds, though, and Tony didn’t even have the courage to open his eyes and acknowledge it was over. “Are you sure this isn’t a good idea? Because it sure tastes like a great fucking idea. I would know, I have great ideas all the time, ask anyone.” Tony whispered and Peter laughed, his face was still so close the older man could feel his breath on his lips.

“Goodbye, Tony. Good luck with your company,” he smiled, as he opened to door to get out of the car.

“I’ll miss you on my team.” Which was to say, I’ll miss you. Plain and simple.

“I’m sure you’ll find a replacement in no time.” I won’t, I don’t want to. I want you. “Gotta go now, I have work in the morning. Bye!” He got out and closed the door behind him, waving one last time before he walked away.

“Goodbye, Peter,” he whispered to the empty car, hands clutching the steering-wheel as he watched the boy disappear into the building.

--*--

Working at Oscorps was not the same without Peter. First, because he was actually a very good intern who helped a lot with every single task Tony assigned him. Second, because even though he hadn’t noticed it before, he always looked forward to talking to him. To learning those tiny little pieces of information the boy let escape through his lips once in a while, only to blush profusely and apologize seconds later.

Still, he kept going. Norman never bothered him, which was nice, and as the remaining months passed, Tony’s name became more and more recognizable, he closed so many deals over the course of that year, he was able to more than double his team and the office and lab they used to work got way too small for them. He started looking for some other place to go and the more he thought about it, more sense it made to move SI headquarters to California. Most of his partners were there and he would also be closer to his suppliers and many other business opportunities.

So after talking to Pepper, Nat, Rhodey, Happy and Bruce – “the original six”, as they liked to call themselves, including Tony –, he decided to move right after his contract with Oscorps was done in December. Those last few months were crazy and got crazier when B.A.R.F. was finally announced to the public. Both the product and the technology behind it sent Stark Industries to a whole other level, their stocks skyrocketed and Tony literately became the richest man in New York overnight, even richer than Norman – and that was saying something.

Which was why, when December rolled around and Osborn invited him to dinner to discuss the possibility of renewing the contract and he showed up with some supermodel hanging off his arm, he couldn’t help but think of the first time he was in that same situation. He remembered how nervous he was before the dinner, how excited he felt when they closed the deal and how gorgeous Peter looked that night. But he remembered, specially, what Osborn did to the younger man months after that. How he’d treated him, what he’d said to him.

“So, what do you say, Stark? Wanna be partners for five more years?” Osborn’s smile was kind of creepy, he hadn’t noticed it before. He offered him a hand and Tony stared at it for what felt like hours, although it was probably only a few seconds. It was great fucking deal, way better than the one he had before, but –

“You know what, Norman?” He smiled to himself and took a deep breath, wishing he was wearing his smart glasses so he could record his reaction. “Fuck you.” He beamed, standing up from his chair, admiring the expression of shock and horror on the older man’s face. He buttoned his suit jacket and, still smiling like a madman, left the restaurant like he owned the place – which he could, if he wanted.

On his last night in New York, he decided to look for Peter. He didn’t want to pressure him or anything, but they hadn’t seen each other in almost six months, so maybe something might have changed for him. Tony still couldn’t get him out of his head, each day that passed he wished he’d done things differently, so fucking differently.

He wished he’d been nicer, from day one. He wished he had lived up to his expectations, his hero worship. He wished he could have been a decent human being, a shoulder to cry on that night he was so vulnerable and broken. He wished he could have wooed him and gotten him to fall in love with him, the way he’d fallen for him.

He wanted a second chance, he really did, but when he knocked on the door of the apartment the boy used to live, the place where Tony had said goodbye to him all those months ago, some stoned college kid answered the door. When he asked about Peter, the boy just shrugged.

“He moved away a while ago, dude. Got a job somewhere or something.”

So that was it. Tony didn’t have his number and Peter wasn’t on social media – at least Jarvis couldn’t find him, and he sure as hell looked. So he gathered the last of his stuff and left New York for good, mind wandering to those few moments he’d spent with Peter, thinking how different things could have been if he hadn’t been so quick to judge.

No point crying over spilled milk.

Stark Industries flourished in L.A. All of Tony’s crazy, genius ideas were funded, so he finally finished his arc reactor project – something he’d started as a teen, but didn’t have the resources to continue – and started a line of electronics – computers, cellphones, tablets, all the good stuff. After the first couple of months, he bought a mansion in Malibu, just because he could, and finally felt like his life was heading in the right direction.

Still, it felt like there was a Peter-shaped whole in it, which was insane, they’d only known each other for a little over five months, it made no sense how much he missed him, they hadn’t seen each other in almost a year, and still there were nights he could fucking smell Peter’s scent on his sheets – sheets he’d never even laid on. Could feel his soft skin under his fingertips as he hugged his pillow close to his chest, the way he wished he’d held him that night when he stormed off, humiliated and hurt. Those nights he couldn’t sleep, could only stare at the ceiling, trying to figure out time travel, just so he could go back and fix things.

Once he was settled in California, he was invited to give lectures in universities all over the country. MIT was first, then NYU, Stanford, Yale, UCLA and, finally, Caltech in late November. His lectures were usually about the arc reactor, clean energy was in fashion, everybody was talking about it, and the fact that he figured out cold nuclear fusion was still a very hot topic.  

It was still early in the evening when he finished his lecture at Caltech, a few students stayed behind to ask him questions or just talk for a bit, Tony had become sort of a celebrity for nerds, and he didn’t mind staying a little late talking to those starry-eyed kids, so it was already dark out when he was done. When he thought he was alone, he started gathering his things, thinking of somewhere he could eat in Pasadena before he headed back to Malibu, when he heard it. That sweet, unmistakable voice.

“That was a hell of a lecture.” Tony turned around slowly, almost afraid to be wrong, but there was no way he’d be. Peter was there, staring back at him, standing by the door with his arms crossed over his chest and a slight blush on his cheeks. “Hey. Long time, no see.”

“You ran away from me, kid.” He breathed out, letting his hands fall to his sides, even though they itched to touch, his legs were shaking with desire to run to the younger man, but he stood still, afraid that if he moved, the spell would be broken and he would realize that Peter was just an illusion.

“That’s a big ego you got there if you think I’d make such a dramatic life change just for you, old man.” He stepped into the room slowly, until he was standing right in front of Tony, close enough to touch, but neither of them did. “I’m getting my Masters here. I heard you were coming for a lecture.”

“So you came by to say hi?” Tony cocked his head to the side and Peter chuckled, nodding.

“Yes. Hi.” He perched himself on the desk Tony was using during his lecture and it was the older man’s turn to move to stand in front of him.

“Hi.” He smiled, stepping closer, paying attention to see if the young man was in any way uncomfortable by his actions, but he didn’t even flinch.

“So, I heard you ditched Norman.” He crossed his arms over his chest again, a small smile on his lips.

“I believe my exact words were ‘fuck you’, actually.” That made Peter laugh, throwing his head back and exposing his long throat. “I missed you kid.”

“Couldn’t find an intern to make you coffee and fawn over you while you were at Oscorps?” He jabbed a finger in his chest and Tony caught it in his hand.

“Couldn’t find you. Anywhere. And I looked.” He confessed, not letting go of his hand, not looking away from his eyes. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you and all the things I didn’t say.”

“Such as?” Peter asked coyly, biting his lower lip as he looked at Tony from under his eyelashes.

“I’ll miss you. Don’t go. Give me a chance. I’ll make this work. I’m in love with you. Things like that, you know.” He didn’t care that he was putting his heart on the line, he couldn’t choke on those words anymore, and if that was the last chance he ever got to say them, at least he could sleep peacefully at night. Peter blushed deeply, lips parted in shock, but then his face stretched in a slow, lazy smile, eyes focused on Tony’s.

“Can I buy you coffee?” He asked quietly, blinking slowly, and the older man shrugged, pretending to consider it.

“Depends. Can I buy you dinner? And don’t you dare ask if I can afford it.” He closed the distance between them as Peter laughed out loud, head thrown back in delight.

“I was just gonna say yes,” he promised, as he placed his hands on Tony’s shoulders, allowing him to come stand in between his legs. “Which is something I regretted not saying.” He confessed. “So, coffee first?”

“Yeah, coffee first.” Tony leaned down to kiss his lips, and they tasted so familiar, so right, and he knew it was crazy, because they shouldn’t, they were together for such a short time and Tony wasn’t a fucking teenager, he was a grown man, and he didn’t know how in the fuck he fell in love so hard and so fast, but he did. “It’s so good to see you.” He stole yet another kiss from him and felt the younger man’s lips stretching in a smile under his. Suddenly, he was reminded of a conversation they’d had over a year earlier. “So, do you think this is the happy ending scene in our movie or what?” He asked a beaming Peter, who pretended to examine his face carefully, before answering with a grin.

“I guess we’ll see.”

[shibalen]

Hi! I’m so sorry about the earlier request! I misread the rules (._. ) I’d like to request from Akatsuki No Yona and Haikyuu. I prefer a romantic type of matchup. I’m a Capricorn and infp. I have a fairly large social circle and quite talkative with others. But there are times I prefer my own time and silence. I trust people easily and am loyal to my friends. I’m a left hander. My hobbies are writing, reading and watching anime. I listen to various types of music. It depends on my mood. (😁)

I’m a literature student and love to learn about technology. I have three cats and one dog. I adore animals, even insects but not spiders XD. I like dark colours and dark themed movies and stories. My ideal type of date is chilling inside a cafe or walking along a forest or a silent place talking with each other. I’m into carefree guys who get serious in the time of need. (😁)

The type of a guy who would dance around with me in the kitchen and jam to songs with me in the car and also be there when I have a breakdown. I’m an impatient fellow and tend to lose my focus easily. I’d like to request music box and dark box uwu. That’s it! Thanks! And sorry again for the earlier request! Love your blog! (😁)

♡︎ matchup for 😁anon

heya howdy doodle doo! how're you? i hope you didn't get too tired of waiting and actually see this. hehe. i gave these results lots of thought so i'm happy if you like them too!

akatsuki no yona: i match you with . . .

jae-ha !!

• you guys match so well i can't— your zodiacs, mbti, personality and your type of person are simply pointing at Jae-ha with a big red arrow!

• Jae-ha is chill and social by nature. that paired with your love for talking with people makes you a really social couple. i can easily picture the two of you being the life of most conversations.

• also when there's a crisis or any more serious situation going on you're both usually the ones to calm others down. your presence makes them feel at ease and honestly Jae-ha admires that so much in you ♡︎

• he knows he can trust you with his burdens and count on you to be there for him. he may not always voice them out loud but you know he needs your comfort when he silently lays his head on your shoulder.

• of course this goes both ways and he will never let you be alone during a breakdown. somehow he always finds the right things to say or do to help you find yourself again. his voice is deep and soothing and he will happily put it to use if it makes you feel at ease.

• though he does have a sharper intuition when it comes to strangers and therefore makes sure nobody takes advantage of you. however there was definitely one time where he let you buy something extremely overpriced just to tease you about it later

• the worse the scam the more poisonous the words he speaks to them with that lazy smile. then he escorts you away while waving a hand.

• "you have to be more careful, flower. i don't want some guy eventually making you give your heart away too, " he flirts

• "too late," you respond. "this one green-haired guy with stupid jokes already has it."

• BOOM

• ahem.

• at first you thought he was the worst case of a womanizer, and you preferred your possible partner to reciprocate your loyalty. unfortunately otherwise he was just your type so you couldn't help but be drawn to him.

• Jae-ha was attracted to you too from your smart and fun personality to your hobbies and taste in music. he loved how you stood your ground yet how flexible you were with your likes.

• obviously he didn't give up on you despite your little façade. he proved his loyalty runs deeper than most when he's fallen for the right person. you're his special, dear person and won't let anything or anyone come between that.

• will wear matching dark outfits with you! claims it's not his style but likes it surprisingly a lot. you might do ridiculous poses just to embarrass Hak.

• can be heckin annoying when it comes to your writing though. "are you going to write me into your story? of course you are ;)" "is the main character me?" don't get him wrong, he adores your writing and that's why he gets so excited about it. other times he does it on purpose to get your attention smh

• overall, light-headed teasing is something he will always do just to see you flustered. it's so adorable he can't help it. leaning in extra close to you while you're cooking together, highkey boasting about you to his friends, starting and winking at you, plus all sorts of cheesy one-liners.

• but Jae-ha is smart and knows when to give you space. when you're ready to interact again he's already prepared for a date!

• Jae-ha is romantic even on daily basis, bringing you flowers or small trinkets that he knows you like. just seeing you smile at his loving gestures makes his cheeks warm and heart beat fast (though he tries not to show it)

• please listen to him playing the erhu, he does it especially for you. when you're out on a rooftop on a moonlit night he'll serenade you with his songs.

• your dates include: walks around the outskirts of towns, moongazing, him leaping through the sky with you securely in his arms, dinner at different inns and travens with music and parties or by a bonfine and you two just being silly. also creative activities like pottery and sketching ♡︎

❦︎ ink box

— this happened before your relationship even started, back when Jae-ha first realised his feelings for you.

— you wouldn't expect it, but he struggled with these emotions a lot. this was the first time he had ever felt this way towards anybody, after all. his natural reaction was to distance himself from you because he was scared, whether he admitted it to himself or not.

— he was afraid of being tied down and tying you down. he knew love required commitment and you valued loyalty. he dreaded he wouldn't be good enough for you, instead becoming the source of your pain. you deserved much more than he was, and he was a coward.

— there was also the problem of putting you in danger because of the group's mission. any injury you'd get would be his fault and that was too much a thought to bare.

— he thought he was being smooth avoiding you, preparing for his leave without hurting you. he thought. but you were smarter, you knew Jae-ha was kind. he wouldn't do this to hurt you—not after all those fun memories you'd made together!

— refusing to beat around the bush, you tried confronting him. however, by that time he'd already set out to the next destination. he had left, without a word of goodbye.

— thankfully, Zeno was the quickest to notice Jae-ha's broken demeanor. it was heartbreak which he himself knew too well. he pulled the green dragon aside the next evening as they were gathering wood and stubly hinted Jae-ha shouldn't do anything he would regret for the rest of his life.

— the rest of the gang was quick to join after Kija happened to overhear the conversation. they all (even Ao) swore to take care of you if Jae-ha wouldn't be able to.

— you were halfway up the mountain chasing after him when Jae-ha landed directly in front of you. he was out of breath and dishevelled but the desperate glint in his eye shone brighter than any star in the sky.

— you embraced and shared a sweet kiss under the night sky. he apologised more times than you could count but after almost shattering your heart you didn't let him off the hook that easily. well, he had the rest of his life with you to make it up to you ♡︎

♡︎ runner up: Hak

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

haikyuu: i match you with . . .

rintaro suna !!

• Suna is a little different from the previous match but my instincts told me to put you together regardless! i think your personalities balance each other out while sharing the same core basics.

• you're both laid-back and have no problems interacting with people but still like your alone time. as in infp you seek new knowledge and Suna, being the smartass he is, will never bore you. he can be both silent and talkative, whichever you prefer.

• will definitely join you in being social but in a subtle way. he'll stand/sit next to you with an arm around you while you're talking to your friends. really chill but also knows how to hold a conversation and chime in with a clever comment.

• once he notices you becoming tired he casually steers you away from the rest, saying you two have to go now. how is this guy so smooth? really though he just wants to be alone together with you.

• you guys met when your social groups came together. it's that 'friend of a friend of a friend' chain and thus somehow you ended up going to one of his games because a person you knew didn't want to go alone.

• they knew Kita so y'all went to congratulate him on the win later. he then introduced you the team and therefore, of course, Suna.

• you thought he was pretty and you chatted a bit but nothing much happened. it was through these continuous meetings afterward that eventually pshed you two together ♡︎

• you had so much to talk about! stories, technology, hobbies, music, a little gossip. he liked how opinionated you were and how much you knew, then found it amusing how easily distracted you got.

• his advances were really subtle yet continuous and efficient! though some of them were kind of teasing. made sure you were comfortable with your friendship first before stating his exact feelings for you.

• Suna isn't afraid of pda and if you are too, he'll be holding your hand, having you sit on his lap, giving you kisses on your face and hand. yet although others mifht see, it feels as though every touch is a secret language meant for bust the two of you.

• his advice is quite blunt but he does it out of love, plus his actions are much softer and really patient when you're at rock-bottom. i assure you anyone neglecting your feelings is not safe.

• you're both into dark-themed stuff! y'all go to movies, festivals, bookshops and alike looking so hella aesthetic, i swear. what a beautiful couple (☆ω☆)

• your pets love Suna after they've gotten used to him. sometimes when he comes over the cats will come chill around him. it's like he's one of them and it's hilarious. you have a bunch of pictures on your phone of him and your dog.

• you like showing those photos off to his teammates because they're just that good, but instead of getting embarrassed Suna will either just agree or jokingly ask why haven't you made it your background yet.

• overtime he's learnt how to keep your focus from going too astray, though you can't say he's always vigilant himself. he slacks off during boring lectures and would much rather talk to you. the teacher had to seperate you pfft—

• can and will jam to all times of music with you in the kitchen, even if just ironically. one time his little sister caught the two of you vibing to an opera preformance and homeboy just shrugged it off and continued because you both thought it was funny.

• your dates include: going on hikes especially after a stressful period (Suna most definitely did not look up the best places near your home and prepared your favorite snacks), cat cafés, staying at home and cooking a meal cause this boy probably only knows how to pour water over noodles, and long drives and blasting music ♡︎

♫︎ music box

— I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys

— Caroline by Crash Adams

— Blinding Lights by The Weekend

— Your Dog Loves You by Colde

— Hey Boy by Sia (what you'd jokingly lip-sync to for him)

♡︎ runner up: Atsumu Miya

thank you so much for requesting and i apologise for the huge delay (ಥ﹏ಥ) still, i hope you enjoyed! have a lovely day and please stay safe ♡︎

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE LAST ONE MIGHT BE THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN A STARTUP IS AMONG THE PUREST OF REAL WORLD TESTS

This probably accounts for a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. The experience of the SFP suggests that if you let motivated people do real work, they work like watertight compartments in an unsinkable ship. You don't give up as much equity as VCs wanted. An essay is supposed to suggest efficiency.1 Then instead of coming to your office to work on your projects, he can work wherever he wants on projects of their own angel rounds. But most young hackers have neither. The spammers wouldn't say these things if they didn't sound exciting. Not even investors, who have in the past.2

The first courses in English literature seem to have done stuff with peanuts.3 But due to a series of meetings, culminating in a full partner meeting where the firm as a whole says yes or no. You can take out the whole point if you need to do this when they can.4 If you want to create for a newborn child will be quite unlike the streets of a big company. 99 respectively, and a lot of experience themselves in the technology world know what usually happens when something comes along that can be done by bad programmers is choosing the wrong platform. Investors have no idea how much better we could do, is this the one with the best chance of making money. And being charming and confident counts for nothing with users.5 So I'm going to try to get into second gear.6 You might say that it's an admirable thing to write great programs, even when this work doesn't translate easily into the conventional intellectual currency of research papers.

I'd only seen in zoos before. I was still ambivalent about business. The 2005 summer founders ranged in age from 18 to 28 average 23, and there are plenty of societies where parents don't mind if their teenage kids have sex—indeed, where it's normal for 14 year olds to become mothers. When you judge people that way, and there's a simple solution that's somewhat expensive, just take it and get on with building the company.7 They switch because it's a recipe for succeeding just by negating.8 But actually being good. How do you find surprises?9 Maybe they made you feel better, so I read it, and that it therefore mattered far more which startups you picked than how much you learn in college depends a lot more appealing to most of us than pandering to human weaknesses. If you're going to make the most money are those who aren't in it just for the reasons everyone knows about. People trying to be cool and maybe make money.

But by no means impossible. But you should realize you're stepping into dangerous territory. But most young hackers have neither. My parents were pretty good about admitting when they didn't know things, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative.10 The best stories about user needs are about your own. It would certainly be convenient, but you have to be the new way of delivering applications. The route for the ambitious in that sort of thing to be in the building a certain number of hours a day.11

Instead of trying to teach it to people, I'd say that yes, surprisingly often it can. 15981844 spot 0. We all thought there was just something we weren't getting. Which means, oddly enough, that as you grow older, life should become more and more surprising. An essay can go anywhere the writer wants. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition have odd ideas. A nerd's idea of paradise is Berkeley or Boulder. One of Silicon Valley's biggest advantages is its venture capital firms. What if both are true? It was remarkable how different they seemed.12 The reason is not just that he'd be annoying, but that they're driven by more powerful motivations.

Foreseeing disaster, my friend and his wife rapidly improvised: yes, the turkey had wanted to die. People. It does not seem to have looked far for ideas. That seems the wrong model. But I know the power of the forces that have them in their place, but it goes fast. We're just finally able to measure it. Nearly all wanted advice about dealing with future investors: how much money should they take and what kind of x you've built. Sex I believe they conceal because they'd be frightening, not because you did something wrong.13 Someone is going to have nearly the pull with the spam recipient as the kinds of things that spammers say now. So on demo day I told the assembled angels and VCs.

I found that the Bayesian filter did the same thing the river does: backtrack. What would be a good idea. The effect of unpredictability is more subtle. But it's the people that make it Silicon Valley, what you need to impress are fairly tolerant. It's like the sort of distribution you'd expect, the number of nonspam and spam messages respectively. Now that we know what we're looking for, that leads to other questions. But we knew it was possible to start on that little because we started Viaweb on $10,000.14 And having kids is our genes heading for the lifeboats. The user doesn't know what it means to have gone to an elite college; you learn more from them than the professors.

Notes

Unfortunately the payload can consist of dealing with money and disputes. Mueller, Friedrich M. And journalists as part of this essay, Richard Florida told me that if he ever made a better education. In-Q-Tel that is exactly the opposite way from the 1940s or 50s instead of admitting frankly that it's up to two more investors.

While the audience at an ever increasing rate to impress are not very discerning.

5 seconds per day.

By heavy-duty security I mean no more willing to be when I became an employer, I advised avoiding Javascript. And though they have because they suit investors' interests. This is one of them was Webvia; I was as late as 1984. But they also influence one another indirectly through the buzz that surrounds a hot deal, I mean no more than just reconstructing word boundaries; spammers both add xHot nPorn cSite and omit P rn letters.

On the other. Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a road there are no misunderstandings. Looking at the leading scholars in the sense of things you want to lead.

Some of the techniques for discouraging stupid comments have yet to find someone else start those startups. If the Mac was so great, why not turn your company right now. Google is that you're small and use whatever advantages that brings.

Security always depends more on not screwing up. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the cachet that term had. Note to nerds: or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top schools are, which have remained more or less, is due to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, but not the distinction between money and disputes.

Monroeville Mall was at Harvard Business School at the end of the venture business, and I had zero false positives reflecting the remaining power of Democractic party machines, but it's hard to get all the investors agree, and tax rates will tend to be. One valuable thing you changed. These were the impressive ones. The solution is to start startups who otherwise wouldn't have had a broader meaning.

Not one got an interview, I'd say the raison d'etre of prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects.

On the other seed firms always find is that there is some weakness in your own mind. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1965. Us 10 million and we'll tell you them.

Conjecture: The First Industrial Revolution was one in an era of such high taxes? One of the magazine they'd accepted it for you to stop, but a lot, or want tenure, avoid casual conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct to say now.

You have to admit there's no lower bound to its precision.

So it may be useful in cases where VCs don't invest, regardless of the word I meant. I'm sure for every startup we funded, summer jobs are the most dramatic departure from his family how much of the economy, at least a whole department at a friend's house for the others to act through subordinates.

At one point in the chaos anyway. I don't know who invented something the mainstream media needs to learn to acknowledge as well. Robert Morris says that the only audience for your protection.

[projectsoleil]

Second Stage || Cella || MM Trial 6.3 || Re: Gabibot, Abe, Shougo

"Hah."

She can't help but release a single arrogant laugh from her chest before raising an eyebrow at Gabibot.

"Oh I'm sure that many of them want to hurt me, I bet some of them want to kill me even.  But the difference between desires and action is what's keeping them alive right now.  If they so much as flinch in the wrong way I can and will eliminate you."

"Despite having everything planned it's not as though I have this space colony ready to go right away you know.  And if I were to let you all go what's to stop you from rattling to to the police, the media, or your super hero grandmother who could pose a serious risk to me and my plans?  Sure I'm fast and efficient but even having all this power and manufacturing at my disposal means I'm going to need to have to actually build it you know.  And in that period where it's under construction would be really, really, really, annoying to deal with people busting in and breaking all that I've worked on."

Her gaze shifts between Gabibot and Abe.  Again a cocky smile growing on her face.

"A more arrogant person would let you all vote and regardless of the outcome do whatever they wanted.  I'll do what a smart person does and simply not give you any control over that."

"The point was to round you all up and then execute you and add your data to the ULF, there's also the issue of that meddlesome Shoko but all problems will be dealt with in due time.  Still, some of you certainly have been more or less understanding of your current position and others still seem to be in need of proper convincing.  Maybe I really will release the ULF, let it stretch it's legs and arms.  After all I do need to ensure that it's in proper condition before I use it for my own means."

"Unless you're all fine with waiting here in some form of captivity, no contact with the outside world until I'm finished.  You know what that means right?  No other friends, no other family, none of that.  Though I might be able to make some sort of scheduled message you can send and receive that we'd have to vet through.  Sorry Abe, I can appreciate your enthusiasm, but you sadly don't fit in my current plans.  Survive all this though and I'll give you 10 million dollars for certain, surely you can wait a little longer for that no?"

"I chose nothing, this was Ivo's idea, I just streamlined everything once he had the base of the project all squared away.  Either way, from what I remember of Ivo's plan the idea was to supercharge your potential land DNA by putting you into this stressful situation.  And can you say it hasn't worked?  All of you have had amazing leaps in strength, speed, and potential with your powers and abilities.  Naturally this also extends to me as well... terrifying isn't it?  Did you need to be dead?  I believe so."

"Still I don't expect you to tuck away your emotions, but frankly I don't care about your feelings.  You can hate me and wish me dead, that won't stop me.  But maybe you can find some peace in knowing that this was all worth something."  

The last few questions are perhaps the most hard hitting and difficult questions for her to consider.  After all, she has had ample time to think them over.

What if they're eons away and nothing she could make to hope to reach them.  What if they're too well hidden to be found by any conventional technology?  What if they refuse to start a dialogue on the grounds that they think themselves so much mightier and more intellectual than us.  

It's there for a moment, but nevertheless it's there.

Hesitation and doubt.

The killers of ambition.

"There's never any guarantees in science, but if you saw a pile of ants suddenly able to communicate with humans, making technology or tools to facilitate travel and survival techniques just to speak with you I'd imagine you'd be at least a little more interested in them to do more than just passively observe.  Maybe you're right, maybe they want to see what we'll do with these powers and how they will affect our planet.  I've seen enough, we've all seen enough haven't we?  How many pointless deaths due to villainy have we seen?  Abuses in power simply because some person had the literal super power to control others or become a golden beacon of good even if they're corrupt as the lowest circle of hell?  We simply aren't meant to have these powers and damnit someone has to try and make that point.  I have to try!  I..."

She shook her head and tried to calm down.

"Look, whatever they are they chose not to wipe us out and exploit our planet for resources.  That's a good enough start to know that they at least see some form of reason.   It's simply a hypothesis, maybe they won't listen to me but maybe they'll at least show themselves to us and we can all talk to them, get them to understand what we're going through."

"As for why me?  Well why not?  As far as I know I'm the only person on this planet attempting something like... well not quite.  There was one other organization but they were met with... complications.  The only reason I'm special is because I'm attempting it, nothing more, nothing less.  If others wanted to try this out I'd be happy, but as it stands we're stuck rutting about with out own hero lifestyle and just trying to make it through each day without getting anything done."

She sighed, and tapped her foot insistently on the floor.

"...People thought I was wrong before, I'll prove them wrong again and when I do the world will be all the better for it."

[clarasjournal]

Prototyping and touching up our concept

We started the day by visualizing for ourselves and for our collective ideation what we meant by idea nr 4 (explained two posts back). The main things of our concept are:

allowing the user to plan their upcoming day, in terms of where they need to be at which times

give the user different options of getting from A to B, e.g. biking, walking, taking the bus/train, driving.

show the user how much time is left before they have to get going (for each option)

(^ Visualisations and different interface ideas)

In order to show our concept through a video prototype of 1 minute we settled on only showing the walking option, for clarity and hopefully make it easy to understand.

We continued by thinking of how we could combine different screens and felt that it would be interesting to use a tablet, an interactive mirror and a smartwatch. We are thinking that the tablet would be used in the planning stage and to see details of your decisions and how they impact both the users physical activity and the environment. The interactive mirror would be used as an option to glance at the time the user have left before they have to get going to wherever they’re going first during the day. The smartwatch would be used “on the go” to glance at how much time the user have left before they have to get going with the option of their choice.

Sketch of how the interactive mirror would look:

We continued through pinning out the details of how to prototype this and decided to use Adobe XD for the tablet, transparent plastic sheets for the mirror and paper prototypes for the smartwatch. We decided to do it like this both to get more experience of the different fields of prototyping but also because we think it can work well in the video prototype. To know that we’re all on the same page collectively in the group and to share our ideas in a more concrete way we quickly sketches out how the different smartwatch frames could look in the prototypes we were about to make:

(We decided to cross out frame 2 and 3 because in one of the iterations of this sequence we figured this could potentially create more stress for the user and potentially even result in accidents/danger if the design encouraged the user to go faster in order to get to B in time)

In order for us to get a grip on how we were going to record this using our prototypes we made a storyboard:

I appreciate storyboards because I think they convey meaning in a quicker and easier way than through text. I think this helps the communication of the group to collectively get an understanding of what’s to come too, which I think is very helpful in order to be efficient and to create something that is thought through. 

We’re using an abstraction of the time data in order for the design to be easier to grasp in a glance, and felt that the circle does a good job of conveying this data. I believe so because the circle is “running out” backwards which, at least to me, indicates that the time is getting “less and less”. We had a brief conversation of other ways to convey the time data through abstractions, such as an hourglass, but settled for the circle due to the short time span we have for this project. Would we have a longer period of time to refine and ideate on this concept I am confident we would’ve come up with something more original and thought through.

The choice to have the interactive mirror display “good morning” in the beginning is also a conscious choice, to keep the technology as unobtrusive as possible. If the user wants to check their options and the time they have left before they have to go we want them to actively have to check it through a tap or a slide on the mirror. I think that the active choice of the user is important because personally I often feel intimidated by how much data gets presented to us on a daily basis. I think this also has a lot to do with how immersive the technology is getting and how far we’ve gotten with ubiquitous computing through smart home devices such as voice assistants, interactive fridges, IoT, etc. I sometimes feel like these technologies become obtrusive in the way that they remind us that they are constantly present and track our data. It’s one thing to continuously track our data, but I think it’s getting obtrusive and annoying when they constantly display it without us users actively asking for the information. A concrete example of this is how my smart watch is, first thing in the morning, letting me know how well or bad I activated my body yesterday - without me actively asking for that type of information.

____________________________

Current images of some of our prototypes:

[squeakygeeky]

Ramblings C3

I bet you guys thought these recaps were never coming back but I was actually just on world’s longest hiatus, living undercover as a bounty hunter. Anyway, I actually wrote the following over a year ago, but as far as I can tell I never posted it. I also already have a few more written up, so I’m planning to post these about once a week.

Oh, and while I’m at it, shoutout to all the contributors to Rebels and Fools. I just finished reading it and loved it! If another issue happens I will try to pull myself together and submit something.

Series 3, Episode 3 “Volcano”

A volcano erupts as Tarrant and Dayna teleport to the surface of the planet, looking for some friends of Dayna’s father. Dayna is wearing a weird translucent poncho jacket over what might otherwise be a cute peach jumpsuit. Tarrant looks upholstered, but by the standards of this show it’s a conservative choice. Anyway, they wander around, being secretly observed by some pacifists wearing puffy white outfits. A robot comes with a drink. Is this the saddest robot in the show? I think so.

Orac throws shade at Cally who is so out of fucks and probably tired of operating the teleport on every episode. Vila says the planet escaped the galactic war and colonization by the Federation. “Sometimes one’s friends can be more of a liability than one’s enemies,” says Avon, in his most Avon moment of the episode. He pretends to totally not be chasing down a rumor that Blake was on the volcano planet.

Tarrant and Dayna get shot by some sort of pacifistic knockout gas weapons and taken underground. The volcano pacifists are going on about something but I’m distracted by the blinking blue lights located right over the saddest robot’s crotch. Oh, the planet is named Obsidian. The necklace Dana wears, which belonged to her father, was her father’s Federation Central Science Complex graduate medallion. I love that detail.

Oooh, a ship full of mutoids and Servalan!

Avon and Cally have a little exchange that goes over Vila’s head, but for once he’s not standing for it. Vila claims to have bought low test scores so that he didn’t end up having to be a space captain, and that he’s actually really smart, which is at least more believable than his claim not to have noticed Dayna’s attractiveness. Actually it went over my head a little, tbh. I guess Cally is implying that Avon sent Tarrant and Dayna into a trap purposely as the most efficient way of finding out what was up on the planet.

Anyway, looks like Blake never went to Obsidian. Tarrant says they’re looking for a base—and now I need a moment for a tangent. Why do they need a base? Why are they even trying to fight the Federation? Why do any of them care? Yes, Dayna hates Servalan personally and Cally probably still wants to fight the Federation, but she doesn’t exactly seem to be calling the shots. I know Avon wants to fight the Federation partly because he doesn’t see how else he’ll ever be safe from it, and maybe a little out of an obsession with trying to be Blake, but…a base is so official. They already have their fancy, fast, mostly safe (most of the time) ship. Anyway, the pacifists aren’t having it.

Servalan’s outfit isn’t particularly exciting. She’s got a dude to manipulate. Was he in another episode? I don’t know, he’s forgettable.

Avon teleports down after Tarrant and Dayna alone for some reason. Servalan is also on the planet and talks to some pacifists. She orders an underling to shoot them and he seems pretty surprised by the command. Afterwards, he seems a little put off but it’s ambiguous whether it’s by having to shoot people in cold blood or by the fact that the pacifists didn’t resist or otherwise react in a way that would make sense to him.

Dayna and the pacifist leader have a philosophical discussion while some lady sews boredly in the background. I think an extra just brought her crafting to the set that day. Avon finds the pacifist corpses and warns Cally about Federation presence.

Tarrant talks to the leader’s son in a room of what is clearly supposed to look like exciting futuristic technology. They go outside with Dayna and get captured by the Federation. Cally senses something wrong but Vila teleports up a bunch of Federation troopers—hasn’t this happened before? Like a lot? These people need some policies and protocols. The Liberator is under attack and Avon can’t seem to hear Cally. Servalan has some sort of plan. Anyway, things look bad on the Liberator as the Federation takes over. Orac gets testy.

Avon tries to gain control of the situation and gets shot. The Federation troopers take Orac and Cally and leave instead of keeping the ship because I guess it makes them nervous being fired on by their own people. Vila bluffs. Servalan decides to leave the Liberator alone for a while. Vila puts Avon’s arm in a cast (which is apparently how you treat gunshot wounds in space) and gets drunk and maudlin.

Pacifist leader comes in, upset that his son is all aggressive and making deals with Servalan. He has the saddest robot kill his son and releases Tarrant and Dayna. Tarrant and Dayna rescue Cally and Orac with some telepathic help from Cally herself, who has dealt with way more than her fair share of being held hostage in this show. Dayna keeps explodey stuff in her ankle boot, fyi. Everyone gets back to the Liberator and the pacifist leader blows up his entire planet, which I guess was dying of radiation anyway. The end.

I feel like I wrote a lot for this one, and I don’t know why, I’m sorry, because it was kinda boring overall. One of my sci-fi pet peeves are cultures that are meant to represent a philosophy and do that in a really heavy handed and tedious way. Blake’s 7 often has interesting ambiguity built into a lot of things but the volcano people were just…snooze. Also, I’m so annoyed by how often Cally gets kidnapped. The best bits were Vila, and he barely got to do anything.

[endlessarchite]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Rachio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Rachio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Rachio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[interiorstarweb]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Racchio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Racchio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Racchio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[billydmacklin]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Racchio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Racchio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Racchio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) published first on https://carpetgurus.tumblr.com/

[lowmaticnews]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Racchio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Racchio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Racchio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) published first on https://landscapingmates.blogspot.com

[truereviewpage]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Racchio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Racchio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Racchio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[vincentbnaughton]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Racchio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Racchio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Racchio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT PROPERTY

For all its power, Silicon Valley is too far from San Francisco. There may be no one who has more experience at trying to predict that despite the huge gap they'll have between acceptable and maximal efficiency, programmers in a hundred years from now people will still tell computers what to do. A friend of mine found himself in a situation that perfectly illustrates the complex motives we have when we lie to people it's not part of the market anyway. What sustains a startup in college. If you could measure actual performance, you wouldn't need them. But I feared it would have taken in the beginning is the prospect of getting their initial product out. If you work your way down the Forbes 400 are a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. Now survival is the default, instead of a lifetime's service to a single employer, there's less risk in starting your own company, only for working as an employee of someone else's.

If investors know you need money, they'll sometimes take advantage of the opportunities to waste cycles that we'll get from new, faster hardware? But I think my intuitions here are wrong. The most efficient way to reach VCs, especially if no one else at the time and not too resistant to learning new things. It's significant that the most famous recent startup in Europe, Skype, worked on a problem that was intrinsically international. The right way to write spaghetti code. It's very dangerous to let anyone fly under you. Another way to burn up cycles is to have a say in running the company; don't make a high-end product; don't let your code get too big; don't leave finding bugs to QA people; don't go too long between releases; don't isolate developers from users; don't move from Cambridge to Route 128; and so on. So people who come to work in the way of other kinds of knowledge. What was especially annoying about it was that I didn't want them to be written as thin enough skins that users can see the general-purpose language underneath.

It is a truth universally acknowledged? If you paid 200 people hiring bonuses of $3 million apiece, you could approach VCs quite early. It seems as if it must have sucked to be one problem that's the most urgent for a startup don't care whether you've even graduated from college, they borrowed $15,000. But most of our users were small, individual merchants who saw the Web as an opportunity, but as something that meant more work for them. It has fabulous weather, which makes them still more popular. In some ways, the answer is no. They could sing campfire songs in the classes so long as they can. What's good? There has been a lot of people. What they are, functionally, is a language where you can shift into the next room. She had only been in America for a couple weeks and hadn't seen much of the country yet.

We can stop there, and have your clients pay your development expenses. When I was a philosophy major in college. But I can see why Mayle might have said this. Good people can fix bad ideas, but you'll also be in the best position to conquer the rest of the world presented to them. Maybe it's more important for kids to say and one forbidden? In a hundred years should only increase it. Since startups make money by offering people something better than they had before, the best opportunities are where things suck more than in corporate IT departments. Needless to say, you should either learn how or find a co-founder who can. Everyone else will move. That sort of thing you can learn when you need to reproduce is those two or three founders sitting around a kitchen table deciding to start a startup one day, what should you do in college?

When you're launching planes they have to be trimmed properly; the engines have to be at full power; the pilot has to be planted in the right soil, or it won't germinate. That's why those quotes from Korea sound so old fashioned. A great university near a town smart people like. In language design, I think we can and should do the same thing with equity instead of debt. Some say it's because their culture encourages cooperation. It wouldn't be surprising if European attitudes weren't affected by the disasters of the twentieth century. What you can't have, if you could get the right ten thousand people to move there. The real value is in things that are rational, and believing things that are false, and being regarded as odd by outsiders on that account.

The word is rarely used today because it's no longer surprising to see a 25 year old professional able to afford a new BMW was so novel that it called forth a new word. The company issues $200,000 worth of new shares issued is 750, and the rock that sinks more of them than anything else. Bill Gates is in the suburbs. If there are two founders with the same qualifications who are both equally committed to the business. My professor friends, when they're deciding where they'd like to work, after all. I needed to do, I almost included a fourth: get a version 1 out as soon as you can in school, right? As in families, relations between founders and investors can be complicated. Part of what he meant was that the proper role of humans is to think, why not try writing the hundred-year language will need to generate fast code for some applications, presumably it could generate code efficient enough to run acceptably well on our hardware. The biggest factor determining how a VC will feel about your startup is how other VCs feel about it.

This excludes LA, where no one walks at all, and also New York, which attracts a lot of customers fast is of course preferable. Actors and directors are fired at the end of the three months we push the button on the steam catapult in the form of a small, furry steam catapult. As one VC told me: If you were talking to four VCs, told three of them that you accepted a term sheet, and then simply tell investors so. At this point you could become a mecca for the smart and the ambitious, and you come home one day to find your housemate has eaten it. Saying YC does seed funding for startups. To make all this happen, you're going to clear these lies out of your space, and perhaps even surpass Silicon Valley. How can we build a silicon valley; you let one grow. The trend is so clear that you'd have to be willfully blind not to see it. This may well be a better way of preventing it than the credentials the left are forced to fall back on. People about to fund or acquire a startup are commonsense things people knew before there were business schools, or even who the founders are, and this variation is one of the most spectacular lies our parents told us was about the death of our first cat. This approach tends to yield smaller, more flexible programs.

Some had retail stores, but many only existed online. Another country I could see wanting to have a separate note with a different cap for each investor. Marie Curie was involved with X-rays. Silicon Valley in Japan, because one of the main reasons bad things persist: we're all trained to ignore them. My parents never claimed that people or animals who died had gone to a better place, or that we'd meet them again. It's probably a combination of factors. Starting a startup is to run into intellectual property problems. So obviously that is what we should be consciously seeking out situations where we can trade efficiency for even the smallest increase in convenience. That's something Yahoo did understand. But the more investors you have in a hundred years will not, as VCs fear, cause most founders to be any less committed to the business, that's easy. When you see your career as a series of layers, each of which serves as a language for the one above. If you could measure actual performance, you wouldn't need them.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Alexis Ohanian, Harj Taggar, and Chris Anderson for smelling so good.

[jrgarcia]

It All Started with the Prius

I can trace my first attempt at reviewing a car to when I was a college freshmen taking English 1301. We were assigned to write a review of something, anything; a film, music video, styling product. I chose to write about a car, the Toyota Prius. It didn’t have to be factual, just follow the format for a review style essay. In my paper I wrote, “The interior of the 2010 Prius is as inviting as a hospital’s waiting room.”

My professor thought it was funny, but felt it was too harsh and asked for a rewrite on my second draft. She also mentioned that I had an act for writing and should think about joining the school newspaper. That was the pebble that fell down the mountain and snowballed. Now I’ve come full circle by getting a chance to review the 2017 Toyota Prius Prime, as a professional writer.

Toyota offers several different models for the Prius: • Standard Prius • Prius C • Prius V • Prius Prime • The Mirai

Interior

First impressions of the Prius Prime’s interior were that it reminded me of a Tesla. Crips, clean, seats that were plush to the touch in a futuristic shade of white, and an 11.6 inch HD multimedia touch screen in the center of the dashboard. A 4.2 inch multi-information screen rests on top which houses the speedometer and keeps track of the vehicle’s vitals. The interior is nice place to be if you enjoy technology. Even though it was my first Prius I had no trouble figuring out how to make it move. The joystick looking gear shift had an endearing quality to it. I almost wished it was a manual because I wanted to move it around all day. Park was a small button next to the gear shift, which took some getting used to but found it to be very convenient.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The driver gets a projected color heads-up display on the windshield to avoid having to look to the side to read the speedometer. Granted, the numbers are large enough that one can see it from without having to move their head. Next to the speedo is a graphic of the Prius letting you see how the gasoline engine and electric motors work together to propel you along. The massive touch screen infotainment center is user friendly if you have used a tablet in your life. Plus, the Prime offers Qi-wireless charging with allows you to place your Qi-compatible smartphone flat on the surface for easy charging while you drive. A nice touch.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Exterior

It is easy to label the design of the 2017 Prius Prime as a “love it or hate it” kind of vehicle. It’s had mixed reviews since the new body design debuted last year. But I think it looks radical, especially in this Blue Magnetism (aka Teal) color. It made all the curves, edges, and lines pop making the Prius look like a product of its time. I even mentioned that it reminded me of the capsule car from the Jetson’s. Bubble top, sharp rear fenders, and a wedge front end.

I found that where ever I went people wanted to ask me about the car due to its looks. How many MPG’s I was getting, whether it needed a special charger, how expensive it was, etc. The 2017 Prius Prime also has a spoiler, technically. The pointed end of the hatchback works as a spoiler and the wave rear window design is meant to improve aerodynamics.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I would highly recommend leasing or buying this car in a bright and exciting color. Don’t go for black or grey because then you won’t be able to see the lines of this car and it will look like a pointy arrow with a bubble top. Toyota has made a mistake in not offering more color options for the Prius Prime. Only six colors are available and four of them are different variations of grey or white. That’s boring!

See what I mean about boring colors?

Specs and Performance of the 2017 Toyota Prius Prime

The 2017 Prius is powered by a 121 horsepower, 1.8 four cylinder gasoline engine, two electric motors, and an 8.8 kilowatt lithium battery. When driving on electric EV mode the Prius is capable of 22 miles of range, which you can quickly burn through if you have a heavy foot. Thankfully, the Prius is a plug-in so charging it is as easy as plugging in a toaster. The charging cables are in a trunk and can charge the Prius Prime in 5.5 hours using a standard outlet plug, or in two hours with a 240-volt outlet.

Is it fast? Well, it’s not slow with a 0-60 time under 11 seconds. The Prius Prime offers three driving modes: EV, HV, and EV auto, which controls the efficiency of its drivetrain. HV will use its battery at low speeds and switch to gas when it reaches highway speeds. EV auto lets the Prius worry about switching between electric and hybrid to be as efficient as possible. EV is labeled as DRIVE MODE and offers you three selections: ECO, NORMAL, and PWR. In PWR mode, which is the closest option to a sport mode on the Prius. Basically, it allows you to use all the power available for acceleration and performance. Put your foot down and you can hear the engine make a humming noise that could be considered cute and will bring a smile to your face when you feel the car accelerate faster than you expected.

The Prius Prime offers a Predictive Efficient Drive, which means it’s smart enough to remember your daily route and stopping patterns. This is so it can then give you suggestions on when to brake to maximize your driving efficiency. Not to mention the Prius will give you a score from 0-100 based off how efficiently you drive and while offer tips to improve your score. I thought it would annoy me but I found myself trying to get a perfect score.

Toyota says that the Prime is capable of averaging 54 mpg. During my week with the Prius I averaged 45 mpg, and $12 worth a gas nearly filled the tank up when I was down to my last 70 miles of range. That’s the beauty of having a small gas tank with a fuel efficient engine. Pricing for the 2017 Toyota Prius starts at $26k and the model used for this review was priced at $36,305, which is very reasonable when compared to its plug-in competition.

Final Thoughts, It Converted Me

The only thing I did not like about this car was that the hatchback was heavy to close, even though it’s made out of carbon fiber. I was surprised it didn’t come with a button to close the hatch automatically. The hatchback also opens wide which means the door is way up in the air and could create a height issue for certain people. But let’s be honest, I’m nit-picking.

Real Carbon Fiber

All my oldest friends thought I had suffered a head injury when I said I liked the Prius. The truth is this little hybrid warmed its way into my heart by being comfortable, stylish, efficient, and dare I say it… fun to drive. It has a low center of gravity and rear double wishbone suspension to keep it on the road through the turns. I could picture myself owning one of these for daily use and keeping my gas guzzling muscle cars for recreational use. Granted, maybe this was a summer fling and I was just enchanted by the mystic of this car. However, there is a growing subculture for electric and hybrid vehicles. The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime is definitely cool enough to make a scene at their silent car meets.

  Read more articles and reviews here.

A 2017 Toyota Prius Prime makes a religious V8 guy see a new light for EV vehicles. It All Started with the Prius I can trace my first attempt at reviewing a car to when I was a college freshmen taking English 1301.

[endlessarchite]

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun)

“Smart home technology is cool, but is it actually worth it?” That’s the question we asked ourselves for years as we cautiously watched the trend grow. And how I’d answer that question right now is: it’s definitely not a necessity – it’s a want, not a need. But boy do a few of these systems make life at home easier. And some even make our house more energy efficient and save us money by cutting down on our water usage or our heating and cooling costs for example.

We’re by no means early adopters (Sherry likes to brag that we’re “consistently behind the trends”), but our gradual dip into in the smart home waters seemed to accelerate last fall when I got an Amazon Echo for my birthday. Now we have several smart devices in our home – many of which I’ve talked about on our podcast. But we’ve had a lot of requests from people for a post all about exactly what we have & how we ACTUALLY use it in our day-to-day life. So ask Alexa to fasten your safety belts, because here we go.

The Smart Home Devices We Own

These days there seems to be a smart version of just about everything – vacuums, refrigerators, garage door openers, the works! – but most of what we’ve purchased is centered around lighting and energy efficiency. Here’s a quick overview of what we have, but throughout this post I’ll explain in more detail how we put them to use.

1. Echo / 2. Echo Dot / 3. Plug / 4. Mini Plug / 5. Light Switch / 6. Light Bulb / 7. Thermostat / 8. Irrigation Controller

All of these devices have been made better by having a voice-assistant / smart home hub (which in our case is our Echo, with Alexa always at the ready). So even though it wasn’t our first smart home purchase, I would recommend that anyone starting down this road should begin with something like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home.

Why? Because it’s helpful to make sure whatever other technologies you add are compatible with your chosen hub. Fortunately, both the Echo and Google Home play nice with most other smart home devices out there, but not all of them. We chose the Echo because my brief Internet research concluded that the devices were neck-and-neck, but Echo had better sound quality for playing music, whereas Google was better at answering questions. Music was the priority for us, so I used a birthday gift card last November to get an Echo during a Black Friday sale.

As the holiday deals continued last December, I later snagged 3 Echo Dots (the smaller, more affordable, less sound-rich version of the Echo) so that we could invoke Alexa – and therefore control our smart devices – from elsewhere in the house. We got one for our home office downstairs, and two for each side of our second floor – one in our bedroom, the other in our bonus room. The Echo in the kitchen is close enough to hear us in the living room, so we don’t need one in there. Stay tuned for the best thing about having them in these additional rooms… most people don’t know about an extremely helpful function called “Drop In.”

The other central devices in our home are the smart plugs and lights – namely this smart plug and the mini version of it. I also got some smart light bulbs, specifically this Philips Hue White starter pack, for Christmas (I explain more about the smart bulbs and the difference between the various options in this post, btw).  I’ve developed a slight preference for smart plugs over smart bulbs, since the plugs allow you to also control non-lighting devices (like a fan or a coffee maker) as well as fixtures with multiple or non-standard bulbs (like a Christmas tree). It was actually the “magic trick” of smart-ifying our Christmas tree that pretty much got Sherry on board with all of this stuff.

But before buying any of this stuff, I suggest you ask yourself: what am I trying to make better in my house? We found that by identifying specific sticking points in the efficiency or convenience of our house helped us buy the right smart things for our home, rather than just collecting gadgets that do cool things… that we actually don’t need or care about. So to give you some ideas, here are the 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Life At Home Better.

#1: Resolving Annoying Switch Situations

You know that room in your house where the light switch doesn’t control what you want it to? That’s our living room. The main light switch is (1) inconveniently located by the back door – not where you enter the room from the kitchen and (2) it controls nearly all of the outlets in the room, so using it to turn off the lights also turns off our modem and TV. We’ve had so many babysitters and guests accidentally turn that “light” off (thereby killing the entire house’s internet and TV functionality), that we’ve taken to writing “DO NOT TURN OFF” in Sharpie on a piece of tape that sits directly on the toggle switch. We’re classy like that.

And day-to-day it meant we had to turn each of the three lights in the room on and off individually at the lamp base. I know that’s totally #firstworldproblems, but sometimes doing that lap around the living room and reaching under each lamp shade felt like an extra annoying task at the end of the day. Why wouldn’t our switches just control what we wanted them to control – and not kill the modem and the tv!? Picture me shaking my fist at the light switch and screaming “whyyyyyyy?!”

Now we’ve got all three of the lamps in the room (the two couch lamps and one floor lamp) connected to smart plugs so a simple “Alexa, turn on the Living Room” will do the trick and illuminate them all. We can still control them individually (“Alexa, turn on the floor lamp”) but we mostly rely on the Group that we set up in our Alexa app that takes care of them all at once by saying “Alexa, turn on the living room.” And before bed we just tell her to turn them off. Hosta la vista late-night-living-room-lap-and-giving-side-eye-to-that-useless-wall-switch.

#2: Streamlining Bedtime

No, it doesn’t put the kids to bed (not yet at least!) but in addition to setting up Groups of smart devices in the Alexa app, we also love creating Routines. These are sequences of events that you can program Alexa to perform after giving her a single command that you designate – like turning on or off devices, playing music, reading you the news or weather, or speaking pre-set phrases (like when we say “Alexa, we’re home” she turns on the living room lights, Sherry’s favorite salt lamp goes on, and Alexa says “I’m happy you’re back. The dog is too.“)

But by far my favorite Routine in our house is “Alexa, Good Night.” Those three simple words mean she will turn off all of the connected living room lights (and the salt lamp) downstairs and turn ON our bedside lamps upstairs (which have smart bulbs in them). Meaning as we head up to bed, we don’t have to stumble towards a dark bedroom anymore. Sure, it’s a small perk, but it’s one that we use EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And it just feels nice. Like a mini version of hotel turn-down service, but with lights.

#3: Saving Us Laps Around The Office

Another lighting inconvenience in our house was in our office. We get great natural light in that room, so on most days we work happily with no lights on at all. But we regularly hit that moment in the day where the sun is setting or storm clouds are rolling in, and we want to click on the overhead light… but the light switch is across the room. I know it sounds extremely lazy, but when we’re both in our work groove, it’s really nice to get to keep working away.

The only hitch was that the ceiling light in the office is obviously hardwired (so a smart plug doesn’t apply) and it has two bulbs in it, so it felt wasteful to buy two smart bulbs for one fixture (it’s not like we’d need to control them individually). So I got a smart light switch instead. It installs much like a normal light switch, just make sure you have a neutral wire (typically white) in there because the smart switch requires it. I’ll also warn you that it’s bulkier than a regular switch, so you may have trouble cramming it into any shallow or crowded junction boxes, but ours fits just fine.

Now we can turn it on and off by voice (“Alexa, turn on the Office”) and by hand – yep, it still works like a normal switch too. As since we have paddle switches throughout our house anyway, it blends right in. I actually would love to add smart switches to our kitchen, but the switches in there are 3-way switches. They do sell a 3-way version, but one of the 3-ways in our kitchen is a special size so it wouldn’t fit.

#4: Controlling Items With Inconvenient Controls

The first item we ever plugged into a smart plug was our Christmas Tree last year. I had grown tired of climbing around the back of the tree and squatting down with my face in the needles to plug it into the wall each morning (and then doing the same dance every night before bed). If you’re getting the sense that I’m very lazy at the end of the day, it’s because I am. We loved being able to control it with Alexa so much that we got a second plug for the smaller tree up in our bonus room too, so at the end of the night we could turn them both off at the same time with a simple voice command.

Now that the Christmas season is over, we moved both of those switches to Sherry’s salt lamps (one’s in the living room, and one is in the office). Typically they each turn on/off using a dial switch halfway down their cords, which meant every time Sherry wanted them on, she had to fish the cord out from behind the furniture piece that they each sat on and scroll the little wheely dial. Again, not intensely difficult stuff, but inconvenient enough that she found herself not doing it as often as she’d like. Now both go on and off along with the Living Room and the Office lighting groups, as well as their own Salt Lamps group – in case we don’t want the lights on, but still want to get whatever mystical powers the salt lamps promise us.

#5: Minimizing Yelling (Easiest Intercom System You Ever Installed)

We laughed at the old broken 1980s intercoms that we originally had throughout our house (we just removed the last of ’em this year and patched the giant holes they left behind) so it’s kinda funny that one smart home function we’re using a lot these days is the Echo’s intercom feature (called Drop In). If you’ve got more than one Echo device, you can say: “Alexa, Drop In On The Bonus Room” and it will allow you to speak to and hear from that other room. So by having either a Dot or an Echo in the kitchen, bonus room, office, and our bedroom – we have essentially created an intercom system to talk to each other – just by plugging them in (and no giant holes in the walls!). We mainly use this to call the kids down from upstairs when dinner is ready, or just to check in on them without having to yell “EVERYTHING OKAY UP THERE??? I HEARD A LOUD CRASH!!!”

This feature can also work with any friends and family who have an Echo device in their homes, although we tried it once with my sister in New York City and the connection / sound quality was like a bad conference call. So I’ll probably stick to normal phone calls or FaceTime for now. But down the line it might be an awesome option for free hands-free phone calls to anyone in your contact list with a smart home hub. And don’t worry that your friends are suddenly going to be listening in through your Echo without your permission – you have to give them access through the Alexa app first, and even then it still asks you to accept a Drop In every time it pings you.

#6: Cutting Down Our Heating & Cooling Bill

The OG smart home devices in our home are our Nest Learning Thermostats, which we’ve had for almost 5 years. We’ve loved them so much that we bought the more affordable (non-learning) Nest Thermostat E for the beach house too. There are lots of reasons we’ve loved them – they’re easy to set-up, fun to control, good to look at, etc – but probably our favorite feature is the auto-away mode which automatically turns your system to away mode when it doesn’t detect motion for a while. This might mean dropping it 5 degrees in the winter or letting it creep up 5 degrees in the summer. And that’s not just when we’re on vacation or at the beach for the weekend. Even when we’re out for a walk or just running quick errands, the Nest helps us save on our energy use. It’s pretty awesome to have that running in the background without having to think about it.

For anyone who is especially stat driven, according to this research, on average the Nest Thermostat saves people 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that’s an average savings of $131 to $145 a year. That means the Nest Thermostat pays for itself in under two years (again, we’ve had ours for five with no sign of them having any trouble).

And now the Nest products are controllable by Alexa, so we’re frequently saying things like “Alexa, turn downstairs down 1 degree” or “Alexa, what’s the current temperature upstairs?” It just made one of our favorite smart home devices even easier and hands free.

#7: Keeping Our Yard Happy (& Saving Water)

When we installed our own sprinkler system last year, I got a smart irrigation controller by Racchio. It has several advantages over a standard controller and it’s not hard to upgrade an old system. It’s all controlled via a phone app so there are tons of options for programming and scheduling, and it’s compatible with Alexa so I can say things like “Alexa, tell Racchio to run Zone 1 for 10 minutes” (but truthfully, I’ve only used this once since I mostly just rely on scheduled runs). The truly smart part of the Racchio controller is that it watches the weather for you, not only to know when to skip scheduled waterings because of rain (or forecasted rain) but also adjusting your watering times and durations throughout the year as conditions get drier or hotter. Definitely makes us happy that we’re not the ones with the sprinkler system on in the rain.

#8: Creating The Illusion We’re Not Away

Although our current (very complex) alarm system doesn’t integrate into Alexa, we’re still able to rely on some of these smart devices to make our home feel more secure while we’re away. Although I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here (sorry!), one that I love is through the KASA app, which is what all of our smart plugs and switches run through. It has an “Away” function that allows you to set your controlled devices to randomly turn on and off during scheduled times. This feels like an upgrade to old-school timer switches that only switch lamps on and off at the same times each day (which always reminds me of that scene in Home Alone when the Wet Bandits are watching all of the empty homes light up on schedule). My only gripe is that I haven’t found a way to do this through Alexa yet, which seems like a shortcoming. I’d love to be able to say “Alexa, go into Away mode” and activate all of the lights like this – but for now I just do it manually in the app.

#9: Setting Timers & Getting Questions Answered

We’ve found that getting information out of Alexa isn’t always perfect (not that she mishears, she just isn’t very thorough – this may be where Google Home flexes its muscles). I’d still call her 90% more helpful than Siri (“Wait I’m Looking That Up For You” and then providing a ton of links I could just google IS NOT AN ANSWER SIRI). We also find ourselves using some of her more basic features like setting timers or alarms all the time. I often use the kitchen one when I need an extra cooking timer and our daughter uses it in instances when her homework is to read for 20 minutes after school or something like that. It’s really cute to hear a kid say “Alexa, please set a timer for 20 minutes. Thank you so much Alexa we love you – wait Alexa now tell me a joke please.”

Alexa is also great for basic, simple information like “What day is Father’s Day this year?,” “How late is Belle Greek Restaurant open?,” “How much is 8 times 12” or “How do you spell prosciutto?” (just used Alexa to double-check that sentence!). I’m sure we haven’t unlocked all of the ways she could help us yet, but I’m finding this function more helpful than I expected it.

#10: Having Fun

Truth is, a lot of how we use Alexa is just for fun. It’s not necessary or useful, it’s just cool and makes life at home more enjoyable. Mostly I’m talking about music. We play music through our Echos every day (even through the Dots) because it connects to our Spotify account, meaning we can request specific songs, playlists, or artists. I’m currently doing this in the office while I type this. But there are other “skills” and gimmicks that we all enjoy too. The kids like to ask it to tell jokes or to “open the magic door” or “open a box of kittens” (try these, I won’t spoil them for you). And I personally end just about every night with “Alexa, play Jeopardy” where I get six daily questions as well as Alexa telling me what percentage of people got as many right as I did. Why? Because I’m a nerd, even up until the last few minutes of the day.

So I started this post asking “is smart home stuff really worth it?” You’ll have to be the judge of that for yourself, your home, and whatever issues you’re trying to solve. We’ve been very happy with the little bit of smart home technology we’ve introduced so far, and I’m watching some other devices with great interest… but they haven’t quite yet risen to the level of “worth it” to me. Emphasis on yet.

The post 10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) appeared first on Young House Love.

10 Ways We Use Smart Home Devices To Make Our Home More Efficient (& More Fun) published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/