Smart objects might make the mistake of assuming that our habits are monolithic and that we repeatedly respond to a particular condition in a particular fashion. I wonder if smart objects will ever become so flexible as to actually make life easier without getting in the way of what we might really want. My chest tightens when I contemplate all the variables in play that create the routines of my life. To configure a system effectively seems presumptuous and practically impossible. And I would become trapped to follow the idealized routines that I had specified, or be forced to face reconfiguring my house systems again.
Technological advances breed something even more profound than convenience.
With new technology comes the crankiness of the people forced to live through its transition to the commonplace. Since we will be of the first generation living with smart objects and clever personal networks, a certain unnaturalness will seep into the most ordinary tasks. We will contemplate the automatic governance of our lives as we lie in bed wondering what the bed is saying to the shower. We won't trust these new systems, so we will always expect them to fail. I have no doubt that successive generations growing up with this mode of living won't trouble themselves with such worries.