> In that same time period, my "plant light" timer, a $15 mechanical item of a design unmodified since the 1970s, has worked flawlessly, requiring attention only when the clocks change or my schedule does.
This could just be survivorship bias. If 99% of these plant timers broke and were sent to the scrap heap, you would still feel like they were 'built better back then' because you're only seeing the ones that made it 50 years. Not the ones that didn't.
Totally different comparison. The design of a mechanical timer is such that if placed in the appropriate environment will last a long time.
Quality may vary between manufacturers, but they are fundamentally more reliable. They are simple devices.
Contrast that to my HomeKit switch. It’s operation requires that a pki based system incorporating WiFi, Bluetooth and some cheap SoC work correctly. It’s controlled by an Apple framework tied to a cloud identity. When it works, it is marvelous. I get power metering, switching, timers, etc.
My lights didn’t turn on this morning. The only telemetry is a red blinking light. I checked my WiFi management app and the switch dropped off WiFi around 3 am. Solution: unplug/replug. Not good for something that is supposed to control security cameras and door locks.
Sure, there's a lot more pieces now - I won't argue that there's not more complexity. However simplicity doesn't imply reliability and without knowing how many of these timers didn't work or failed we can't really hypothesize on their relative reliability.
Sure, the standard cheap mechanical timer has DOA's and failures because its a cheaply made machanism; but the basic electro-mechanical switch on a clock design has been around since the 70s.
I find the timers are best replaced after say 5-8yr because they're cheap and i dont trust the plastic once it brittles up.If you've been running one over say 50% of its rated load it might be entertaining to crack it open and see how much the conductors have softened.
The key point here is complexity. It's hard to argue mechanical timers are more complex than digital ones: in the sense of number of key components vs their reliability vs their average lifespan.
Good software is simple.
Nothing in the smart home category, as implemented today in retail products, is simple.
It could also just be the lack of longevity engineering that lets people design products that will last a very specific time period to save costs. Back then you just had to eyeball it and usually it meant leaning on the durable side to be safe.
This could just be survivorship bias. If 99% of these plant timers broke and were sent to the scrap heap, you would still feel like they were 'built better back then' because you're only seeing the ones that made it 50 years. Not the ones that didn't.