Interesting ideas but much of what we see in the IoT space are solutions in search of problems.

Do I really need or want my alarm system hooked up to my phone? Or my phone to dim light bulbs for me, or change the thermostat? There are of course certain very specific scenarios where this might help a person (a person in a wheelchair for example, or maybe coming home from an extended absence where your HVAC was turned way up/down to save money, or maybe your garage door opener’s battery died on the way home). Grocery shopping might be the one area that it’s a big help, if you’re at the store and forgot what’s missing from your fridge, for example.

But mostly, these scenarios of devices talking to each other and/or to our phones, seems highly overrated to me. Like 3D TV (which bombed hard) and like 8K TV which will also bomb, it’s as much about gimmickry to sell us more stuff, as it is about solving real tech problems.

ALSO: there is enormous potential for privacy invasion by advertisers and others seeking to know what our devices are saying to each other. Given current business practices and the fine print in privacy policies (which are intentionally made so long that few will read them and thus few will find the things to which they would likely object), I have little hope for the IoT to be done responsibly. There is no reason (if we’re evaluating the state of our society honestly) to be anything but skeptical in this regard, because we as a society have let so many get away with so much already, all in the name of either convenience or “security.”

That’s not to say none of the IoT stuff can be beneficial but I think most of it we can certainly live without and won’t miss a thing by having done so.