To expound a little on this combination: > There will... be a day when devices [are] necessary for everyday life... are effectively impossible to buy "dumb".

To expound a little on this combination: > There will... be a day when devices [are] necessary for everyday life... are effectively impossible to buy "dumb". > As an experiment, try to find a new car that you can personally can actually buy, that doesn't have a computer in it. The reason I'm convinced this is the case is simply economics. Solid-state electronic controls are very often simpler, cheaper, and more reliable than mechanical ones. When it comes to, for example, thermostat in your refrigerator, on your hot water heater, etc, the reason the economics have, thus far, worked out in favor of the mechanical controls it that the external costs associated with solid state electronics -- the software development, the upkeep, the initial electrical design, etc -- have been too high to justify them (in many cases). But as those external costs decrease, which they (through maturation of the IoT field) inevitably will, the solid-state electronics will be increasingly economically competitive, until eventually to have competitive margins as a device manufacturer, you have to go the connected route. When I say "impossible to buy dumb", I'm not suggesting that every refrigerator is going to have a Google calendar on it or something, I'm talking about all of the little things you take for granted. Don't underestimate the banality of automation. Cars are a particularly apt example because the exact same thing happened to the automotive industry with the advent of the ECU. The added technical complexity of their computer control was initially only economically justifiable in performance vehicles. As time went on, and ECUs progressed and matured, they became cheaper and cheaper, until even the cheapest new cars were forced to incorporate them to be competitive in the market.