OMG! Top 5 epic failures of smart homes

Remember the Jetsons?

The you are either old — after all it was a 1960 TV show — or you have read the numerous articles about how the future for smart homes has started and that it will be much brighter and technological advanced as the writers of the Jetsons would have ever imagine.

I certainly acknowledge that we made a substantial leap forward in recent months. But I would not go so far to proclaim that the Jetsons’ version of the bright future of smart homes has arrived yet. Sure! You can come home and tell your DJ Roboter (Sonos) to play the party music or you can even come home and tell Amazon Echo to order the delicious Pizza at your favorite Restaurant to be delivered. And we have got Roomba doing the cleaning. But hey, who would not want to have a robot maid in the house like the Jetsons!

But unless the industry can not fix the below issues, there is still a long way to go. In a survey done, which included 28,000 consumers, Accenture revealed that 47% of respondents pointed out to security and privacy issues as their main concern for not adopting to such technology. Even more worrying for the industry 18% even abandoned the use of smart home gadgets because of security concerns (see item 1 on the list below).

The industry needs to find ways to make the product actually smart, integrated (open) and easy to use. There are some tools out there which unfortunately claim to be smart technology for your home, but they are neither of the above.

So here it is. My top 5 failures of smart home gadgets which need to be fixed.

Forget the Switch, but where is my mobile

What is the marketing promise Nr. 1 of many of the smart home producers? Control everything easily with your phone. Sounds like a good idea. But wait? Does it make life actually much easier than using your old remote to turn on the TV or pushing the switch to turn on the light. If worse come to worse you still need to get up to get your phone or navigate through your 5 different smart home apps to find the light bulb you want to turn on (see next item on the list).

Amazon Alexa has been a significant step forward to make life easier. Maybe this tool will also help in the future.

They just don’t speak to each other

I understand the competition in the industry. But it is just not helping the users. With the rush to market by many competitors we have seen a hodgepodge of competing standards. We have seen many individual brands, like Z-Wave, Zigbee, Insteon, Wink, SmartThings, Nest and WeMo all working on their own ecosystems including communication standards as well as hardware. You need to be very careful in doing proper research to ensure that the devices you want to buy are compatible with your old gadgets.

Home automation is an interoperability mess and it needs someone like IFTTT to bridge the gap!

OMG! Its freezing!

A smart thermostat designed to automatically adjust the temperature of your home based on your preferences and whether you’re home or not. That sounds too good to be true. Of course, only when it’s working properly.

Earlier this year Nest was reported to have some issues with the stability of their devices leaving some of their customers with broker Nests unable to bring back up the heating. And yes, they deliver to Canada and it can be rather chilly in winter…

We see over and over again that smart home companies rush to the market to beat their competitors. It is understandable from their perspective but dangerous for the users to end up with “Beta”-like gadgets which are supposed to take over crucial parts of their life like managing the temperature.

My home does not know where I am

Many of the smart home device like Wink or SmartThings advocate the ability of turning on lights, putting on music and even unlocking your smart look when you arrive at home. Sounds like a cool feature. You actually do not have to do anything anymore to come home to a cozy environment. But what drives me crazy with many tools is that they are just not very accurate. Using WIFI as trigger or the presence of your mobile in a certain area unfortunately gives still a lot of false alarms. I know that there are Beacons available which help a little but still a lot of room for improvement. Keep in mind. You don’t want to spend the evening with your neighbor and the doors get unlocked…

Pay 1 bitcoin to enter your house again

While this is still in many cases only a horror scenario, experts warn that the frequency and severeness of outside intruders. With the right tools it is already today possible to hack into a common SmartThings Hub to control the devices. That’s at least what a group of researchers at the University of Michigan and Microsoft have published what they call the first in-depth security analysis of one such “smart home” platform. They even demonstrate how to open a smart lock. So in the future the you do not need to worry about broken glas or cracked front doors anymore.

Jokes a side, one of the most disturbing recent news about hacking smart devices was about Barbie Hello. This cute little doll listens and talks to kids via a sophisticated cloud-based voice service. The service got hacked and with that the secrets of your kids which they trustfully tell their Smart Barbies.

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So. Power off!

Let me know your thoughts on the above. I will be writing an update soon on what you as user need to keep in mind to be on the safe side in you buying decision. After all with the right choices we might actually come close to the super smart house environment proclaimed in the 1960 by the Jetsons.