The ‘internet of things’, the concept that many
appliances in your house – your lighting, television set, oven, fridge or your
espresso machine, washing machine and thermostat – are connected with you through
internet, has been a hot issue of late.
It is a development that many internet guru’s see as
inevitable and as the next hot development to happen in the world. It has been all
over Twitter and LinkedIn lately and if you believe these aforementioned internet
guru’s, you will be able to steer your whole house with your smartphone in little
more than a jiffy.
But stop… wait a minute! Where I mentioned “of late”,
I should have said more accurately, ‘it has been a hot issue for over ten years’.
Unless you see there different things – which is of course perfectly possible – I
haven´t seen the department stores being flooded with connected refrigerators,
ovens and espresso machines yet.
I have to admit that I’m far from an early adopter!
Heck, I can rather be considered as a late adopter… or to use this beautiful
Dutch proverb: “I am watching how the cat climbs out of the tree”, before I
sprint to the department store to buy the latest gadget.
Nevertheless, I have the idea that, except for the
Smart TV – which reputedly forwards private information about one's television and
internet behaviour to the Samsung laboratories – and perhaps an odd, connected thermostat
or game computer, this whole ‘internet of things’ revolution is still not going anywhere, in my not very humble opinion.
Perhaps, there is a good reason for that?!
Could for instance my refrigerator read the minds of me
and my family and decide about what we are going to eat the next week? My wife
surely can, although she has a tendency to remain slightly within her comfort
zone! On top of that, she is a sucker for good bargains at the supermarket and
she carefully picks the best products for the best price.
Yet, I have serious doubts if my refrigerator can do
that? Probably it will keep a kind of safety stock for daily products, like
dairy, bread and sandwich fillings – which we would need to learn it anyway - and
order the things that we always order at the supermarket.
Still, I wonder if we would be glad about it, when we
would have to visit the supermarket’s internet service point every day in order
to pick up a few odd groceries, which fell below the safety stock within that
day. And if you don’t mind, I would like to keep our daily groceries out of the
Samsung laboratories: just in case!
And an even bigger problem is, when you would ask your
refrigerator or your coffee machine to order foodstuffs and things for you, it
would every day order the same meat, the same brand and flavour of coffee, the
same veggies, the same additional products, like potatoes, rice, couscous and
flour. And it would order those things at the same supermarket and at probably
too high prices, as it doesn’t know the bargains by heart, like the Mrs. does.
And in our own household the rule of thumb is: “Repetition,
predictability and lack of surprise is the mother of boredom!” Therefore we
want to be boss of our own refrigerator and coffee supply, as we know best ourselves
what we want to eat, drink or have.
And I can’t help wondering exactly how useful a
thermostat is that one can manage through his smartphone?! My ‘old-fashioned’ Honeywell clock thermostat still works like a
charm and when we leave the house for a few days or weeks, we put it lower and
accept a few hours of low temperatures when we return.
At least I don’t have to THINK about directing it on a
daily basis, when I go home from work, as it would be another task on my yet impressive
task list.
Summarized, I could not think of many ways in which the
‘internet of things’ could improve our family life, but I do see some specifications
and habits which could actually deteriorate that.
But never mind, I’m just a – nearly fifty years – old grumpy
guy and I was never an early adopter. Never…
(Which does not mean that I have
not been right about such things more often, by the way)
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