Even Smart Homes Lose the Remote
The smartest device in the house still can’t find the TV remote.
Smart homes can recognize your voice, adjust the temperature, monitor the front door, map the living room, answer questions, play music, control the lights, and connect nearly everything you own.
Finding the remote apparently remains beyond the limits of modern technology.
That’s the strange bargain we’ve made with smart devices. We keep adding artificial intelligence, automation, sensors, apps, voice assistants, and Wi-Fi to ordinary household objects, yet some of life’s oldest technological problems remain completely untouched.
The television can stream thousands of movies from around the world. The smart speaker can answer questions in seconds. The robot vacuum knows the floor plan. But when the remote disappears between the couch cushions, everybody is suddenly on their own.
It’s the same progress demonstrated by Home Automation Gone Wrong, where convenience becomes another system requiring supervision. And Technology’s Time Borrowing Program shows what happens when devices that promise to save time eventually ask for some of it back.
Maybe the smartest device in the house really does know where the remote is.
It just enjoys watching you look for it.
Explore more Chad Geepeety™ cartoons about smart homes, connected devices, artificial intelligence, and household technology that somehow still needs human help.
