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Stumpokapow · Sep 7, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/o...ieff-the-internet-of-way-too-many-things.html

At a design conference recently, I was introduced to Leeo, a new product that I initially understood to be a reboot of something really in need of a redesign: the smoke detector. As the designer explained his process, I quickly came to understand that Leeo was nothing of the sort. It was a gadget, a night light that “listens” for your smoke detector to go off and then calls your smartphone to let you know your house might be on fire.

So, to “improve” a $20 smoke alarm, the designer opted to add a $99 night light and a several-hundred-dollar smartphone.

This is not good design.

Alas, Leeo is no isolated case, but rather representative of a whole spectrum of products designed for the so-called Smart Home, products integral to the much-lauded, much-misunderstood Internet of Things. (You know, that thing where a bunch of other things will be connected to the Internet.)

Like you, I once had many products that each fulfilled a separate function: a landline, a cellphone, a camera, a video recorder, a stereo, a calendar. Now, I have one product that does all of those things — a smartphone. This level of product integration was a revolution in product design. We can debate the extent to which technology does or doesn’t improve our lives, but it is fair to say that in terms of usability, convenience and sustainability, one product doing the work of five or six is a win...

A veritable museum of Leeo-ish products is currently on display in San Francisco at Target’s Open House, a new store designed to attract folks before they head to the multiplex upstairs — but more specifically, to give Target a piece of the plethora of disruptive innovation happening in the Bay Area by helping start-ups bring their products to market.

What the products on display have in common is that they don’t solve problems people actually have. Technology is integrated not because it is necessary, but because the technology exists to integrate it — and because it will enable companies to sell you stuff you never knew you were missing.

Among the items at Open House:
Whistle, $99. This attaches to your pet’s collar and allows you to set a daily activity goal customized to your dog’s age, breed and weight — and then share that information with other pet owners via social media.

Refuel, $39.99. A black plastic sensor-enabled ring that monitors your propane tank levels and sends you notifications when propane is low so that, its inventor says, you’ll never “get caught off guard by BBQ bummer again.”

94Fifty, $199.95. A “smart” basketball that promises to improve your jump shot.

Inside the Target shop are domestic room displays that look very Philippe Starck circa 1999 and appear intended, inexplicably, to evoke Victorian painted ladies, albeit in frosted plastic. These vignettes are supposed to show how these various products might play nicely together (though many of them — much like electric car charging stations — in fact don’t, as each manufacturer is developing different technologies)...

In Target’s news release, Casey Carl, the company’s chief strategy and innovation officer, says, “We see Internet of Things as a megatrend on the horizon. We know it’s going to generate huge value.”

Value for whom is the question. To be fair, many of these objects are, as the local parlance would put it, in beta, because Open House is meant to be a laboratory, not just a smart-home version of the Apple store. The “community space” is for early user testing of these products.

This being the case, may I make a plea for R&D in four major areas? 1) integration of functions 2) usefulness 3) sustainability and 4) privacy/security.

The move toward the Smart City — programs ranging from 311 to Comstat and sensor-enabled trash collection — is very much about using data to improve efficiency, reduce costs and make better use of resources. This has not carried over to the realm of the Smart Home; instead, the tendency has been to throw excess technological capability at every possible gadget without giving any thought to whether it’s really necessary.

Integration. Instead of one gadget for each function, why not one gadget, many functions? ... Usability. Focus on technology that solves issues people actually face... Work harder to discover people’s domestic pain points: I anxiously await the creation of some truly smart things for the home, like a self-emptying dishwasher or a laundry-folding dryer... Sustainability. Smart cities worry about their ecological footprint; smart homes, seemingly not at all... I shudder to think of the planned obsolescence built into these objects. I am not the first to lament that the efforts focused on less than essential “innovations” in Silicon Valley has led to brain drain in other arenas (medical research, et al). Redirecting some of the R&D money and energy currently devoted to the cool factor toward reducing waste and material usage and improving manufacturing processes instead — now that would be smart. Privacy and Security. Every one of these items is connected to the Internet, and therefore all of your usage patterns are recorded for posterity — to the delight of pet food manufacturers, propane tank distributors, grill manufacturers, designers of baby linens and locksmiths...

I asked a young man working at the Target store how visitors felt about their every action being tracked and he said that they’d come to accept it. And that was that.

The Internet of Things is pitched as good for the consumer. But is it? At this point, it seems exceptionally awesome for those companies working on products for it. The benefit to the average homeowner pales dramatically in relation to the benefit for the companies poised to accumulate infinite amounts of actionable data. You and I benefit by determining whether our dog got enough exercise last Wednesday. Is that a fair tradeoff? Doesn’t feel like it.

Experts estimate that the Internet of Things will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020. It’s coming whether we want it to or not, so let’s focus on making “smart” a whole lot smarter.

I found it pretty difficult to excerpt the article so I'm probably a little over the fair use threshold here. Click the link.

Personally, I've been shocked at how fast companies have started selling completely useless Internet of Things garbage. There are really stupid examples like that Kickstarter cup that can tell you what drink you pour in it, but even the more mainstream stuff like wifi-enabled lights seem pretty impractical at actually solving a problem. Nest seemed great, and their thermostat is I think one of the better executed smarthome products, but then they follow it up with a bad and hugely expensive smoke detector and a rebranded webcam?

Things I'd actually like to replace:
- Keys. Currently my apartment has a magnetic key, but I'd love to switch to a smartphone. Also, my apartment's buzzer system requires a landline, which is a joke. I'd much rather have an app where I could buzz someone in the main gate rather than getting a text and having to walk to the gate to open it.
- USB power outlets and inductive charging. Everyone has at least one rat's nest of extension cords in their house, as well as outlets that never get used. First, basically every power outlet should have outlets + USB; requiring dozens of little AC->USB dongles is stupid as hell. Second, how haven't we made more progress on standardized inductive charging? Google just launched that new beautiful looking router and none of the product photos show it plugged in because then it'd be a mess.
- Adaptive window tinting. Sometimes I want light coming in my windows. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes the reason I don't is to avoid glare, sometimes it's to block out heat. Blinds are almost entirely hideous. If you want light, but privacy you have to use cling film, which doesn't really look the best. I'm surprised we haven't had progress on making adaptive window tinting.
- As the article mentions, a self unloading dishwasher or self-folding clothes washer would be great. I'd even settle for the laundry room sent me a text message when my clothes were done, given that I already use a swipe card to pay for laundry so they already know who I am and what machine I'm using.
- A turn-key home security system that didn't rely on paying for some sort of subscription racket would be great.

I'm sure a bunch of people here use tons of Philips Hue setups, but does anyone here have any especially interesting home automation? What do you think--useful or mostly just hipster nerd garbage?

Maximo · Sep 7, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/o...ieff-the-internet-of-way-too-many-things.html

I found it pretty difficult to excerpt the article so I'm probably a little over the fair use threshold here. Click the link.

Things I'd actually like to replace:
- Keys.

Got a electric keypad for my door for 10+ years and it's amazing, haven't had to worry about house keys for years.

NCR Redslayer · Sep 7, 2015

That refuel thing sounds like a great idea but needs to be slightly better executed.

Stumpokapow · Sep 7, 2015

NCR Redslayer said:
That refuel thing sounds like a great idea but needs to be slightly better executed.

A spare tank costs $20-30 deposit and filling a tank of propane costs $15 so it seems to me that the better solution to running out of propane would be to have a second tank ready and just swap and refill when the first one runs out.

otapnam · Sep 7, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
A spare tank costs $20-30 deposit and filling a tank of propane costs $15 so it seems to me that the better solution to running out of propane would be to have a second tank ready and just swap and refill when the first one runs out.

Or use charcoal n wood. Like real bbqers

Ferrio · Sep 7, 2015

The propane one wouldn't be bad for people who have huge propane tanks for heating etc. Overkill for the BBQ.

bearythebear · Sep 7, 2015

I wonder how Hank Hill feels about this propane accessory.

zoku88 · Sep 7, 2015

I'm a big skeptic when it comes to IoT. Mostly about security because I don't trust most companies to do a good job of it.

EDIT: I mean security from hackers as opposed to like, IoT specifically pertaining to home security.

Commodore · Sep 7, 2015

I work for Nest. So Nest stuff. A smart thermostat is effectively practical, and often manages energy better than you would want to manually. Lots of things come into play, added data from wifi (weather) how it discovers patterns with your behavior, what temperatures you like and what times, and when you're there and when you're not. Heating/Cooler take roughly half of your energy bill for the year, and a smart thermostat like Nest has been proven to shave about 15% off, which is on average about $150 a year. Also how it understands cooling and heating and is able to turn off earlier and still maintain cold air. The con for a smart thermostat is its more expensive, but lots of energy companies are recognizing they can use less energy when people are using a smart thermostat because they can still be lazy and it'll automatically adjust to using less, so they're offering rebates to help with the cost, in my area, they offer a $100 rebate. There's also the Nest Protect and Nest Cam. Interesting thing about them is when you say add a connected Smoke/CO2 detector and you already have a Nest thermostat, you can have it automatically do things if something happens. One case might have your furnace pumping out carbon monoxide, your Protect detects it, and can tell your thermostat to turn off automatically. Stuff like that.

Some of the smart home stuff out there barely has a solid use case. For me, I look for things that either save money, or save me time. Everything else is a bit of fluff from there.

Also if I were to go with a smart lock, I'd go with the August.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFlPncm4fnY

j_k_redtail · Sep 7, 2015

I am lazy about food and grocery shopping. Give me an app with the ability to take an inventory of items in my kitchen, suggest things I can prepare with said items, and simplify the ordering process so things are fully stocked. Even better, maybe it should cook the food for me, place the table, and do the dishes.

Somnid · Sep 7, 2015

Existing smoke alarms are some of the worst products in existence. When you get an ear piercing chirp at 3:00am and you can't immediately fix it, or if you're searing your delicious steak and work up some smoke and set it off knowing full well you are in no danger you simply rip it out of the ceiling. Fuck it, I'll take my chances. And that's why I'd totally buy a $100 smoke detector if they promised to put a modicum of thought into it, because nobody else does.

jooey · Sep 7, 2015

zoku88 said:
I'm a big skeptic when it comes to IoT. Mostly about security because I don't trust most companies to do a good job of it.

EDIT: I mean security from hackers as opposed to like, IoT specifically pertaining to home security.

Yeah, feels like there's been more flaws with this stuff than not. Even the 'golden child' Nest.

A lot of what people are pushing out to ride the IOT wave (like the examples in the OP article) are only a notch or two above As Seen on TV-type crap, only targeting higher income brackets. and we still haven't perfected robots that deliver you beer and chips

MonorailCat · Sep 7, 2015

Somnid said:
Existing smoke alarms are some of the worst products in existence. When you get an ear piercing chirp at 3:00am and you can't immediately fix it, or if you're searing your delicious steak and work up some smoke you simply rip it out of the ceiling. Fuck it, I'll take my chances. And that's why I'd totally buy a $100 smoke detector if they promised to put a modicum of thought into it because nobody else does.

yup, I bought a cheap smoke detector once.
Woke me up scared shitless at full volume at 2 AM just because the battery was low.
Ripped it of the ceiling and killed it.

Now I have a more expensive 10 year battery smoke detector.

But: how hard can it be to just program a detector to WARN at a LOW VOLUME and alarm at high volume. But nope: battery is low? wake up the whole neighborhoud!

Orbis Tabula · Sep 7, 2015

I do feel like we're in this weird transition period in which technologies and applications which are possible and starting to flood the market place, only a few of which are actually useful. But then, maybe that's what technological progress always feels like.

Jonm1010 · Sep 7, 2015

j_k_redtail said:
I am lazy about food and grocery shopping. Give me an app with the ability to take an inventory of items in my kitchen, suggest things I can prepare with said items, and simplify the ordering process so things are fully stocked. Even better, maybe it should cook the food for me, place the table, and do the dishes.

If grocery stores and such were better about posting current store prices online and such a brilliant money saving app would be to scan your items and then get a breakdown of the lowest cost anywhere near you or online and then another breakdown of what store currently offers the lowest final ticket.

Zeyphersan · Sep 7, 2015

So far the only IoT stuff I'd actually get real sustained use out of would be those door locks that work with your phone, a Nest thermostat, and yes, some wifi lights because I'm a tool

Gordon Shumway · Sep 7, 2015

These ads be watching..

Somnid · Sep 7, 2015

MonorailCat said:
But: how hard can it be to just program a detector to WARN at a LOW VOLUME and alarm at high volume. But nope: battery is low? wake up the whole neighborhoud!

Or an "I know what the fuck I'm doing" button that silences the smoke alarm for a 15 minute duration, or stops the low battery chirp for 8 hours.

The Technomancer · Sep 7, 2015

Work harder to discover peoples domestic pain points:

This is the biggest problem I see with all of this stuff. So much of it is stuff that I see and go "oh yeah that would be cool I guess", not "holy crap why hasn't anyone made that before? I need one now"

BlastProcessing · Sep 7, 2015

Once I got a car with Keyless entry I feel like a goddamned caveman when I have to dig out my keys to open the front door.

Dan · Sep 7, 2015

That smart basketball sounds hilarious.

I was also a little surprised the article didn't mention anything about energy costs. A lot of these devices seem to add negligible tangible benefits to home life while being an additional energy drain. You really want to be saving energy, or at least transferring it from an older device/technique to the new one.

- Keys. Currently my apartment has a magnetic key, but I'd love to switch to a smartphone. Also, my apartment's buzzer system requires a landline, which is a joke. I'd much rather have an app where I could buzz someone in the main gate rather than getting a text and having to walk to the gate to open it.

Out of curiosity, does your buzzer truly require a landline, or just a local number? I ran into the latter issue at my condo, so I got a local number from Google and just forward that to my cell.

- USB power outlets and inductive charging. Everyone has at least one rat's nest of extension cords in their house, as well as outlets that never get used. First, basically every power outlet should have outlets + USB; requiring dozens of little AC->USB dongles is stupid as hell. Second, how haven't we made more progress on standardized inductive charging? Google just launched that new beautiful looking router and none of the product photos show it plugged in because then it'd be a mess.

I'm not sure if there's a catch since I've never really investigated, but I've seen a variety of USB/AC outlets for sale at Home Depot. I would hazard a guess that many new homes are now being sold with these already installed in certain places.

John Kowalski · Sep 7, 2015

100% LoSoMoSoLoSoMo is all i need.

dhonk · Sep 7, 2015

USB is going to change eventually though? I mean it seems like its already started with Type C.

Futureman · Sep 7, 2015

Is there a good product for unlocking your front door with your phone?

I'm buying a house with my GF and Nest probably doesn't make much sense as it's radiator heating with no AC.

Buddha Beam · Sep 7, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
but even the more mainstream stuff like wifi-enabled lights seem pretty impractical at actually solving a problem

The thing with lights is that in order for the to work, the light itself has to be on all the time and you need to be able to turn it on and off with your smartphone. So it's a huge design flaw in that regard, but it is better, I found, than the old fashioned timers. We make use of smart light bulbs and socket thingies when we have to travel. But beyond that, they're worthless. Nobody in their right mind wants to control their lights all the time with their smartphone.

I have a smart light switch, which I think more or less resolves my personal issues, but six weeks later and I still haven't gotten around to installing it, haha.

Allforce · Sep 7, 2015

I'm really surprised (but maybe this exists) we don't have some sort of grocery store subscription plan that allows you to scan items in your own pantry/fridge/freezer that you're low on, and then send that info to the grocery store to be collected and packaged up for you to pick up.

So basically Kroger could charge 9.99 a month for the service (which would off-set the cost of labor if someone didn't pick up their order). You'd have a full grocery list already sent to Kroger, and stop in, pay, and out you go to your car with your cart. Any last minute items could obviously be picked up while at the store as well.

Grocery shopping takes up a good chunk of time and I know my wife and I would gladly pay a subscription just to roll up to the store and grab our stuff and get home within 20 minutes.

Jonm1010 · Sep 8, 2015

Allforce said:
I'm really surprised (but maybe this exists) we don't have some sort of grocery store subscription plan that allows you to scan items in your own pantry/fridge/freezer that you're low on, and then send that info to the grocery store to be collected and packaged up for you to pick up.

So basically Kroger could charge 9.99 a month for the service (which would off-set the cost of labor if someone didn't pick up their order). You'd have a full grocery list already sent to Kroger, and stop in, pay, and out you go to your car with your cart. Any last minute items could obviously be picked up while at the store as well.

Grocery shopping takes up a good chunk of time and I know my wife and I would gladly pay a subscription just to roll up to the store and grab our stuff and get home within 20 minutes.

Another great idea.

I could see a lot of busy people doing this.

Have your order in by X time and it will be ready for you at X time.

iamblades · Sep 8, 2015

The complaint about devices that can only do one thing is pretty silly when you consider the nature of a home layout. How are you supposed to combine a smart lightbulb with a smart thermostat with a smart doorbell, when these things are located dozens of feet from each other?

Sure there are things you can combine like the nightlight smoke detector example, but things like the smart basketball or propane meter are pretty difficult to design with other functions. Adding the smart phone on to the 'device' was kind of silly, the reason these device exist is because everyone already has smart phones.

Sure many of them may not seem very useful, but the market will decide that in time. They are a relatively low entry cost that may influence changes in future home architecture and appliance design once we learn what features are useful to have, then we can figure out ways to combine them to reduce complexity.

You have always been able to buy useless gadgets, have you ever looked through a brookstone catalog or a skymall?

captive · Sep 8, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/o...ieff-the-internet-of-way-too-many-things.html

- USB power outlets and inductive charging. Everyone has at least one rat's nest of extension cords in their house, as well as outlets that never get used. First, basically every power outlet should have outlets + USB; requiring dozens of little AC->USB dongles is stupid as hell.

these exist. I plan on putting in a bunch at my new house. Agree on inductive charging though.

Stumpokapow said:
A spare tank costs $20-30 deposit and filling a tank of propane costs $15 so it seems to me that the better solution to running out of propane would be to have a second tank ready and just swap and refill when the first one runs out.

this is exactly how I and many others handle that situation. I know people with 5 propane tanks.

This is my problem, and its also why I think very few successful things will come out of IoT, for home automation, as it currently exists. Every company wants to be the one stop solution. Instead of simply admitting that maybe they are good at one or two things, and opening up their system to others. They don't stay in their lane and try to do hardware, software etc. Instead we get 4 or 5 different companys all doing the same things and one company has a great thermostat and another has lots of sensors but no one is good at everything but they don't all integrate together.

Insteon for example, has all the sensors you could ever need to have a great smart home, but from what I've read their hub sucks, its hard to program and insecure. I will say that I have to give props to Insteon and NEST cause you can allegedly use the NEST with the Insteon hub.

Korey · Sep 8, 2015

The Amazon Echo is a huge offender of this.

mrklaw · Sep 8, 2015

Somnid said:
Existing smoke alarms are some of the worst products in existence. When you get an ear piercing chirp at 3:00am and you can't immediately fix it, or if you're searing your delicious steak and work up some smoke and set it off knowing full well you are in no danger you simply rip it out of the ceiling. Fuck it, I'll take my chances. And that's why I'd totally buy a $100 smoke detector if they promised to put a modicum of thought into it, because nobody else does.

I think smoke detectors are deliberately dumb because you want them to be bomb-proof and last ages on a battery. They're a disaster avoidance device, you don't want to be fucking about with them too much.

Although - they could fit them with a simple passive IR motion tracker, and not make a sound (or make a quieter sound) if it detects motion - i.e your burnt toast/steak would have you moving around so then it wouldn't go off.

But we see things like this every year at CES, just this year it has IoT attached to it.

chubigans · Sep 8, 2015

I'm building an office and it's been a fun ride trying to figure out how "smart" it should be. Settled on:

-Philips Hue Lights (love these things, it's gonna be awesome)
-USB/outlet combo on almost all outlets
-Nest thermostat
-RING video doorbell

Nothing else has really jumped out at me so far, a lot of it just superfluous weird things that I can't figure out why I would ever need it.

mrklaw · Sep 8, 2015

j_k_redtail said:
I am lazy about food and grocery shopping. Give me an app with the ability to take an inventory of items in my kitchen, suggest things I can prepare with said items, and simplify the ordering process so things are fully stocked. Even better, maybe it should cook the food for me, place the table, and do the dishes.

flip that around as I don't care what I have in my kitchen. Give me an app with a monthly meal plan for the whole family (I'll enter the various tastes and preferences etc), designed to make the most efficient use of fresh vegetables and eg a weekly supermarket shop. Tapping into the different supermarket websites to pull down special offers and rolling those into the mix.

Fuzzy · Sep 8, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
- Adaptive window tinting. Sometimes I want light coming in my windows. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes the reason I don't is to avoid glare, sometimes it's to block out heat. Blinds are almost entirely hideous. If you want light, but privacy you have to use cling film, which doesn't really look the best. I'm surprised we haven't had progress on making adaptive window tinting.

The hospital I helped build here in Toronto that opens next month has these in order to save on cooling costs. They really need to make their way to the home market.

clav · Sep 8, 2015

Disguised pollution.

Wireless radios don't last forever.

Persona7 · Sep 8, 2015

I can see the nest being useful but I don't see why I would ever need lightbulbs connected to the internet.

Snowman Prophet of Doom · Sep 8, 2015

Persona7 said:
I can see the nest being useful but I don't see why I would ever need lightbulbs connected to the internet.

I could see the utility in having an app that allows you to check whether or not you left any lights on, and turn them off remotely.

mrklaw · Sep 8, 2015

Snowman Prophet of Doom said:
I could see the utility in having an app that allows you to check whether or not you left any lights on, and turn them off remotely.

with the amount that eg the philips hue lights cost, you'd need to accidentally leave the lights on a *lot* to make that remotely cost effective.

I could see it perhaps being used for flexible scene settings in rooms, but most installers would use other systems to do that.

McHuj · Sep 8, 2015

Persona7 said:
I can see the nest being useful but I don't see why I would ever need lightbulbs connected to the internet.

I got an ecobee recently to help better balance the house temperature and to be able to remotely change the temp when I need to (like when we decided to leave for the day, but forget to adjust the AC).

I agree about the lightbulbs except the outdoor ones, I hardly ever use them so if I'm out, I'd like to turn them on before I get home so the drive way is lit. I hate turning them on at like 5pm.

I think the biggest issues for IOT stuff will be security and reliability of older products. I just don't see companies like Samsung providing tech support for an appliance that's 5+ years old. I think there will be may angry consumers in the future and many class action lawsuits.

Somnid · Sep 8, 2015

Korey said:
The Amazon Echo is a huge offender of this.

It's like the cure for this actually. It makes many of the lighting devices worthwhile because you aren't using a phone in place of a switch, you just talk to it from across the room. It's easier to set cooking timers than it is to use the one on my stove, it's easier to get the weather than looking at my phone or watch, it's easier to play music than turning on my computer. It's simplifies the interface and it does so for a wide variety of things.

mrklaw said:
I think smoke detectors are deliberately dumb because you want them to be bomb-proof and last ages on a battery. They're a disaster avoidance device, you don't want to be fucking about with them too much.

Although - they could fit them with a simple passive IR motion tracker, and not make a sound (or make a quieter sound) if it detects motion - i.e your burnt toast/steak would have you moving around so then it wouldn't go off.

But we see things like this every year at CES, just this year it has IoT attached to it.

That's the thing most normal smoke detectors tell you to replace the battery every 6 months. They are just dumb. You can make things more complex, you just have to make sure they fail safe. It is correct to make the last line of defense a high pitched whine because it gets you to do something (even if it's the wrong thing, you have to choose to actively deactivate it), the problem is a well designed device would never reach this state under normal circumstances but for smoke detectors it's expected behavior.

Also, earlier Nest smoke detectors did something like this, the problem is it could read false positives and just not go off at all, even when something was wrong and they had a recall. That part can be made simpler even if mildly more effort on the user.

Commodore · Sep 8, 2015

Persona7 said:
I can see the nest being useful but I don't see why I would ever need lightbulbs connected to the internet.

Stuff like Lifx or Phillips Hue, LEDs last for 23 or so years. So you more or less buy one and then don't buy light bulbs for a long time. So there's that. But that's just normal LEDs. The connected aspect is more of a gimmick. One nice thing is when you're on a vacation you can set them to randomly turn on in various parts of the house. If you have a Nest, you can connect them and when it think you're away it'll do that stuff automatically. If you have an Amazon Echo and Hue, or Belkin's bulbs connected to a Smart Things hub or something, you can just say turn on/off the lights. That's something while being kinda barely convenient, I'd could see myself doing. Some of them change colors, or you can set them to change during different times of the day to different hues to reflect the type of lighting or mood you want. There's a bit of a cool factor there, but nothing necessary.

Commodore · Sep 8, 2015

Somnid said:
.
It's like the cure for this actually. It makes many of the lighting devices worthwhile because you aren't using a phone in place of a switch, you just talk to it from across the room. It's easier to set cooking timers than it is to use the one on my stove, it's easier to get the weather than looking at my phone or watch, it's easier to play music than turning on my computer. It's simplifies the interface and it does so for a wide variety of things

That's the thing most normal smoke detectors tell you to replace the battery every 6 months. They are just dumb. You can make things more complex, you just have to make sure they fail safe. It is correct to make the last line of defense a high pitched whine because it gets you to do something (even if it's the wrong thing, you have to choose to actively deactivate it), the problem is a well designed device would never reach this state under normal circumstances but for smoke detectors it's expected behavior.

Also, earlier Nest smoke detectors did something like this, the problem is it could read false positives and just not go off at all, even when something was wrong and they had a recall. That part can be made simpler even if mildly more effort on the user.

1st gen Nest Protects disabled the wave feature. It wasn't a recall technically, it was more of a firmware update. They discovered the feature didn't work like they wanted it to testing it further and decided to disable it. The 2nd gen Protect which just came out a month or so ago, now lets you turn off alarms with the app. But the way the Protect works is it'll do sensor/battery checks, and when there is an alarm or a battery issue, it'll warn you via a voice alert first. I had one guy have his alarm way up high, like 30 feet up, and it told him for a whole month the battery was low, and it finally escalated it to telling him the alarm would sound soon, and finally did, and he then had to change the batteries.

Somnid · Sep 8, 2015

Commodore said:
1st gen Nest Protects disabled the wave feature. It wasn't a recall technically, it was more of a firmware update. They discovered the feature didn't work like they wanted it to testing it further and decided to disable it. The 2nd gen Protect which just came out a month or so ago, now lets you turn off alarms with the app. But the way the Protect works is it'll do sensor/battery checks, and when there is an alarm or a battery issue, it'll warn you via a voice alert first. I had one guy have his alarm way up high, like 30 feet up, and it told him for a whole month the battery was low, and it finally escalated it to telling him the alarm would sound soon, and finally did, and he then had to change the batteries.

Yeah that sounds great. Once I get to a place where I can install my own I'm definitely looking into it.

iamblades · Sep 8, 2015

Commodore said:
Stuff like Lifx or Phillips Hue, LEDs last for 23 or so years. So you more or less buy one and then don't buy light bulbs for a long time. So there's that. But that's just normal LEDs. The connected aspect is more of a gimmick. One nice thing is when you're on a vacation you can set them to randomly turn on in various parts of the house. If you have a Nest, you can connect them and when it think you're away it'll do that stuff automatically. If you have an Amazon Echo and Hue, or Belkin's bulbs connected to a Smart Things hub or something, you can just say turn on/off the lights. That's something while being kinda barely convenient, I'd could see myself doing. Some of them change colors, or you can set them to change during different times of the day to different hues to reflect the type of lighting or mood you want. There's a bit of a cool factor there, but nothing necessary.

If you've priced dimmers and compatible bulbs as well, the connected bulbs are fairly price competitive. Some of those remote control dimmers are expensive as hell.

In an ideal world, houses would be wired with low voltage controllable circuits for lighting separate from all the outlet circuits, but in the real world there are lots of existing houses that aren't really wired for this kind of functionality. Even new houses are being done mostly without it because its more expensive.

There does need to be an open standard that all of these devices use to communicate, but this is a brand new thing, so that should come eventually.

Killthee · Sep 8, 2015

Allforce said:
I'm really surprised (but maybe this exists) we don't have some sort of grocery store subscription plan that allows you to scan items in your own pantry/fridge/freezer that you're low on, and then send that info to the grocery store to be collected and packaged up for you to pick up.

So basically Kroger could charge 9.99 a month for the service (which would off-set the cost of labor if someone didn't pick up their order). You'd have a full grocery list already sent to Kroger, and stop in, pay, and out you go to your car with your cart. Any last minute items could obviously be picked up while at the store as well.

Grocery shopping takes up a good chunk of time and I know my wife and I would gladly pay a subscription just to roll up to the store and grab our stuff and get home within 20 minutes.

Amazon Dash that works with your local grocery would be sweet.

tokkun · Sep 8, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
- As the article mentions, a self unloading dishwasher or self-folding clothes washer would be great. I'd even settle for the laundry room sent me a text message when my clothes were done, given that I already use a swipe card to pay for laundry so they already know who I am and what machine I'm using.

There are research teams at both MIT and UC-Berkeley working on laundry-folding robots. The Berkeley team has been working on it since 2008. Apparently it's a tough problem.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/19/407736307/robots-are-really-bad-at-folding-towels

Krejlooc · Sep 8, 2015

Stumpokapow said:
Second, how haven't we made more progress on standardized inductive charging?

Because inductive charging is just a temporary stop gap on the way to true wireless electricity, which is the ultimate goal. The cost of switching to a new standard is astronomical and takes years, so I'm fine with inductive charging just being this niche and everyone waiting a decade for full wireless electricity to actually take off.

Crud · Sep 8, 2015

Korey said:
The Amazon Echo is a huge offender of this.

I saw the ad on tv. The whole time I was thinking about why it exist.

Salsa · Sep 8, 2015

Interesting read.

I was actually thinking not about a "thing" but something similar today when I entered my house and wondered why Spotify doesnt directly switch to remote-play from my computer / speakers from my phone automatically and instead asks me to do it

dunno, just sprang to mind that I had that thought today when reading the article

edit: idk about the window tinting thing. like yeah that'd be neat but I just think the technology isnt there yet?

edit2: just read Fuzzy's post. huh.

Deku Tree · Sep 8, 2015

Yeah I haven't really felt like most of these new internet things are worth the price their asking for them. It's like 95% of the time they are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. And the other 4% of the time they want you to pay way too much to experience the slightest amount of convenience over what already exists. I hope these new things get better.

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