When I was a kid, the idea that you could talk to a computer was limited to episodes of Star Trek. Smart homes were the province of The Jetsons. Here we are 50 years later and for under $100 you can retrofit any home to respond to your voice. It’s even gotten easier to choose devices since most work easily with both Alexa and Google Home. The only problem is… is anyone actually doing it?
Most people I know…
…have an Echo Dot or something similar. Some use it to play music, some use it as a kitchen timer. But when it comes to a comprehensive solution for the whole home, I only know one person who has really gone there. And I have to say, it’s not even me! To be really honest I don’t like the privacy issues inherent in having devices listen to me all the time and I can flick a switch much faster than I can say “Hey Google, turn on the bedroom lights.”
This makes me wonder about all of you, my Solid Signal faithful. Have you jumped into the smart home world? Have you changed out all your light switches and outlets? Do you have custom scenes for different moods? I’m genuinely curious.
I’m also curious as to whether anyone actually bought all those smart refrigerators and washing machines I’ve seen at trade shows all these years. I like the idea of looking in the fridge to see what I have while I’m at the market. I can’t imagine it really works, though. I mean, what if the cottage cheese is just sitting behind the butter and you can’t see it from the camera?
Are we too dumb for our smart homes?
In order for a home to be really smart, it would still need a lot of participation. Here’s an example. A couple of years ago, I saw a company advertising cheap “smart scales.” The idea was, you’d put one of these under your jug of milk (for example) and it would alert you when you were running out. Of course this meant you actually had to remember to put the milk in the right place. If you set these up all over your house for different things, you’d have to set them up, then put everything away all the time. Humans don’t work like that.
There are a lot of other cases where our smart devices could help us. Most of them don’t work if you’re not fairly organized yourself. That’s the problem of course. If you’re that organized, you don’t need a smart home.
Your turn to talk
Let me know in the comments how much you use smart home technology now that it’s been out a few years. I know there are some really good use cases. Still, I have a feeling that it’s just not as popular as we all thought it should be.
