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My issue with smart homes is that they seem to provide few tangible benefits compared to earlier inventions, such as those that are mentioned in the article. An

My issue with smart homes is that they seem to provide few tangible benefits compared to earlier inventions, such as those that are mentioned in the article. An electric whisk will save you several minutes if you're whipping up some cream (more if you're old or disabled), and there are practically no disadvantages. If it breaks, you can simply use a manual whisk. Smart locks, smart lighting, smart ovens etc may save you seconds at best, and redundancy (code/physical key access, backup light switches etc) are much less obvious, and may make the product less aesthetically appealing, not to mention the privacy/security issues that have been plaguing the IoT market. Perhaps we are, as the author suggests, yet to discover the areas where smart devices will eventually become successful and ubiquitous, but using his approach of finding such areas fails me.

semi-extrinsic 9y ago
> Perhaps we are, as the author suggests, yet to discover the areas where smart devices will eventually become successful and ubiquitous, but using his approach of finding such areas fails me. IoT today is like the tablet market pre-Ipad. Eventually, a big company (maybe like Ikea, their new smart bulbs are very good and cheap) will figure out a proper skookum IoT thing that actually solves a real problem.
bryanlarsen 9y ago
An electric whisk isn't any faster than a good egg beater for whipping cream, in my experience. Another good example is electric windows in a car. They're slower than manual cranks, break down far more often, yet electric windows have become ubiquitous in cars.
- xtreme 9y ago
  In my experience electric windows are rather useful to the driver because you can control the windows even if you don't have passengers.
  - bryanlarsen 9y ago
    And when you have kids the utility of electric windows becomes obvious. But the point is that this is the same as the IOT market: at first glance the drawbacks seem to be worse than the benefits so there are lots of naysayers. Yet there are benefits, and stuff sells.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      > And when you have kids the utility of electric windows becomes obvious. How? My kid is too young to open car windows as it is but I grew up with parents who owned a car without electric windows, and the next version of their car had electric windows (both Saab 900). I could open the back window in both cars, but only slightly (mechanically very limited; see pictures). Now, kids can't control the front seat windows either way. If you close the back seat windows while they hold their hand out, it gets crushed. If you tell your child they may open or must close the window then you give them responsibility. If they don't take that responsibility you can act upon it with consequences (I suggest minor consequences at first sight though). So I think it very much depends on the implementation of the back seat windows. As for IoT/smarthome market, when Nest (= Google) acquired Revolv they disabled the $300 hardware soon afterwards [1]. That serves as a warning what cloud computing does for you when the overlords decide they no longer want to support your product. At the very least you need an offline backup. Same with smarthome depending on an Internet connection or wireless connectivity (I wonder if vulnerable to KRACK, too). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_Labs#Intentional_disabling_of_hardware_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_Labs#Intentional_disablin...
  - jschwartzi 9y ago
    And you don't have to take your hand off the wheel for several seconds to adjust the window.
Vinnl 9y ago
> may save you seconds at best I used to be skeptical about that as well. However, in the Netherlands, where paying by card is ubiquitous, we recently got the ability to simply hold those cards near the machine (contactless) rather than inserting it and having to enter a code. Saves you mere seconds, yet it's a massively better experience that quickly saw mass adoption.
- lancebeet 9y ago
  Having used contactless cards, I'm not sure if I agree with the comparison. Contactless cards don't save you just seconds, since people in front of you in the line use them also. It quickly adds up to minutes every time you make a purchase. This type of benefit can't be directly inferred from smart locks or smart lighting.
tgb 9y ago
I can see a smart lock being quite useful, though I don't trust any current implementations. I use my front door multiple times a day, have to unlock it first to go out then lock it up again. I can't let my girlfriend in without me being there. When it's cold or I have things in my hands, fishing my keys out of my pocket becomes downright difficult. Taking out the trash involves navigating three doors and two locks, while carrying garbage - I'd love to eliminate even just one of those. And if I could not bring my keys with me while running, I'd be happy. I grew up in a place where we never locked the house or cars. But the lock doesn't have to be super smart to fix these things, or at least most of them.
tbyehl 9y ago
> My issue with smart homes is that they seem to provide few tangible benefits compared to earlier inventions > Smart locks, smart lighting, smart ovens etc may save you seconds at best It's not necessarily about saving seconds but making these things easier to use. I liked the article's example of using a smart oven because everyone I know has a digital programmable oven but none of them ever use the extra features. I love setting up my oven to cook something while I'm gone, timed to finish around the time I'll arrive home. Make that feature easier to discover / use and perhaps more people will experience the same joy. I've found smart lighting to be far more practical than it sounds at first glance. I can't get too excited about having lights do things when people come or go, tho I do use those features... but having bulbs individually controllable lets me create "scenes" to provide the ideal lighting for the activity taking place. My TV Viewing scene turns off all the bulbs that reflect on the screen and dim the rest -- a feat that I could not accomplish without re-wiring every fixture in the room, adding dimmers, etc. For the kids at night we turn off most of their bulbs but have a few color-changing bulbs that turn red and go dim as night lights. Etc. And speaking of kids, when Alexa says it's time to shut off the electronics and go do some chore they actually go do it without the whining and complaining!

semi-extrinsic 9y ago

> Perhaps we are, as the author suggests, yet to discover the areas where smart devices will eventually become successful and ubiquitous, but using his approach of finding such areas fails me. IoT today is like the tablet market pre-Ipad. Eventually, a big company (maybe like Ikea, their new smart bulbs are very good and cheap) will figure out a proper skookum IoT thing that actually solves a real problem.

bryanlarsen 9y ago

An electric whisk isn't any faster than a good egg beater for whipping cream, in my experience. Another good example is electric windows in a car. They're slower than manual cranks, break down far more often, yet electric windows have become ubiquitous in cars.

xtreme 9y ago
In my experience electric windows are rather useful to the driver because you can control the windows even if you don't have passengers.
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  And when you have kids the utility of electric windows becomes obvious. But the point is that this is the same as the IOT market: at first glance the drawbacks seem to be worse than the benefits so there are lots of naysayers. Yet there are benefits, and stuff sells.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    > And when you have kids the utility of electric windows becomes obvious. How? My kid is too young to open car windows as it is but I grew up with parents who owned a car without electric windows, and the next version of their car had electric windows (both Saab 900). I could open the back window in both cars, but only slightly (mechanically very limited; see pictures). Now, kids can't control the front seat windows either way. If you close the back seat windows while they hold their hand out, it gets crushed. If you tell your child they may open or must close the window then you give them responsibility. If they don't take that responsibility you can act upon it with consequences (I suggest minor consequences at first sight though). So I think it very much depends on the implementation of the back seat windows. As for IoT/smarthome market, when Nest (= Google) acquired Revolv they disabled the $300 hardware soon afterwards [1]. That serves as a warning what cloud computing does for you when the overlords decide they no longer want to support your product. At the very least you need an offline backup. Same with smarthome depending on an Internet connection or wireless connectivity (I wonder if vulnerable to KRACK, too). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_Labs#Intentional_disabling_of_hardware_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_Labs#Intentional_disablin...
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  And you don't have to take your hand off the wheel for several seconds to adjust the window.

Vinnl 9y ago

> may save you seconds at best I used to be skeptical about that as well. However, in the Netherlands, where paying by card is ubiquitous, we recently got the ability to simply hold those cards near the machine (contactless) rather than inserting it and having to enter a code. Saves you mere seconds, yet it's a massively better experience that quickly saw mass adoption.

lancebeet 9y ago
Having used contactless cards, I'm not sure if I agree with the comparison. Contactless cards don't save you just seconds, since people in front of you in the line use them also. It quickly adds up to minutes every time you make a purchase. This type of benefit can't be directly inferred from smart locks or smart lighting.

tgb 9y ago

I can see a smart lock being quite useful, though I don't trust any current implementations. I use my front door multiple times a day, have to unlock it first to go out then lock it up again. I can't let my girlfriend in without me being there. When it's cold or I have things in my hands, fishing my keys out of my pocket becomes downright difficult. Taking out the trash involves navigating three doors and two locks, while carrying garbage - I'd love to eliminate even just one of those. And if I could not bring my keys with me while running, I'd be happy. I grew up in a place where we never locked the house or cars. But the lock doesn't have to be super smart to fix these things, or at least most of them.

tbyehl 9y ago

> My issue with smart homes is that they seem to provide few tangible benefits compared to earlier inventions > Smart locks, smart lighting, smart ovens etc may save you seconds at best It's not necessarily about saving seconds but making these things easier to use. I liked the article's example of using a smart oven because everyone I know has a digital programmable oven but none of them ever use the extra features. I love setting up my oven to cook something while I'm gone, timed to finish around the time I'll arrive home. Make that feature easier to discover / use and perhaps more people will experience the same joy. I've found smart lighting to be far more practical than it sounds at first glance. I can't get too excited about having lights do things when people come or go, tho I do use those features... but having bulbs individually controllable lets me create "scenes" to provide the ideal lighting for the activity taking place. My TV Viewing scene turns off all the bulbs that reflect on the screen and dim the rest -- a feat that I could not accomplish without re-wiring every fixture in the room, adding dimmers, etc. For the kids at night we turn off most of their bulbs but have a few color-changing bulbs that turn red and go dim as night lights. Etc. And speaking of kids, when Alexa says it's time to shut off the electronics and go do some chore they actually go do it without the whining and complaining!