When Your Smart Light Starts Networking
Why does my smart light turn on by itself? According to Chad, it’s networking.
Smart home technology was supposed to make the house easier to control. Instead, every light, speaker, thermostat, refrigerator, doorbell, and appliance is now connected to everything else—and apparently they’ve started socializing.
A light turning on by itself once meant a bad switch, faulty wiring, or possibly a ghost. Now it means opening three apps, checking the Wi-Fi, reviewing an automation schedule, blaming Alexa, and wondering whether your refrigerator knows something you don’t.
That’s the problem with making everything smart. Eventually the devices stop feeling like appliances and start feeling like coworkers.
We’ve already seen what happens when Home Automation Gone Wrong turns simple household tasks into systems requiring technical support. And Technology’s Time Borrowing Program demonstrates the other great promise of smart devices: saving you five minutes before demanding twenty of them back.
Maybe the smart light isn’t malfunctioning at all.
Maybe it really is networking.
And judging by the other devices in the kitchen, it’s making connections.
Explore more Chad Geepeety™ cartoons about smart homes, connected devices, and technology that knows a little too much.
