In Praise of Dumb Tech
By: Stephen Moore
Tags: Gadgets, Tech, Smart Home, Digital Life, Technology

In Praise of Dumb Tech

Photo: Thomas Kolnowski/Unsplash

The world of design has produced some life-changing inventions across a plethora of industries and sectors, with our lives being improved in previously unimaginable ways. At the same time, some companies continue to make pointless iterations and updates to existing products in the hope of designing the next big thing — whether it makes sense or not. For a while now, the current trend has been to make everything “smart.”

And I mean everything. If an object exists, you can bet your life someone is attempting to make it smarter. While some companies get this fusion of object and internet connectivity right and produce incredible results, the trend also leads to a whole host of pointless and expensive gadgets that might be worse than their normal alternatives.

Imagine the scenario. You arrive at your front door, about to put your code into your smart lock when you realize the door is already open. Strange. It then dawns upon you that your lock has been hacked, and your house ransacked. If you’re one of the luckier ones, the technology fastened to your door may have only given your Wi-Fi password away, or locked you out entirely. Do locksmiths know how to unlock smart locks?

After you’re finally able to get into your house, you decide to make yourself a snack with your Revolution R180, heralded as “the world’s first 2-slice, high-speed smart toaster.” This gadget saves you all the hassle of using dials by letting you mash your crumby fingers into a touch screen while saving you the trouble of lowering the toast with its auto lowering and lifting mechanism. It comes at a completely reasonable $300. Sweet relief. How did we survive without this?

Like a lot of people, you like a cup of tea with your toast. But the kettle is on the other side of the kitchen, and you just sat down. If only there was a solution… Enter the smart kettle, created by companies who believe that despite the fact that humans have been boiling water for thousands of years, internet connectivity can make it easier. Its biggest selling point? You can boil water from anywhere. Your life will never be the same after you’ve boiled your kettle from the living room.

You go to your “smart fridge” to grab some milk. You don’t need to panic about whether there’s milk in the fridge because through the magic of the internet (and the three cameras placed inside), you can see through the fridge door. You’ll never have to open the fridge door again — until you have to retrieve your milk, obviously.

If an object exists, you can bet your life someone is attempting to make it smarter.

It also comes with a tablet fixed to the front of it that allows you to leave notes for other people, make a shared online grocery list, see recipes, stream music, and play videos. The problem is that all of this would be more easily performed on a tablet that wasn’t literally attached to your fridge; a tablet that would also cost far less than the $5000 smart fridge.

You may be starting to realize this kind of smart appliance doesn’t exist because it’s useful — it merely exists because the idea is possible, and it could be potentially profitable.

However, you can reorder groceries directly from it. Handy, right? After you’re done screaming at your fridge to order more milk like some kind of deranged person, you fancy some eggs. But, what if the eggs are off? Well, thanks to Quirky’s Egg Minder, you have an internet-connected egg holder that can tell you if your eggs are still fresh. You’ll never have to go through the pain of looking at the box label or dropping them in the cup of water ever again. It will even send a notification when you’re in danger of becoming eggless, in case your eyes stop working.

When you fancy making yourself something to drink, you look to your Juicero — quite possibly the worst smart home product invented to date. The machine can produce you the perfect juice, unless your Wi-Fi just went down. You should really get round to sending it back, after somebody discovered it was an entirely pointless concept because they could just use their hands to squeeze out the contents of the sachet. And last time I checked, hands cost $0, not $400 (reduced from the launch price of $700).

A notification pops up on your phone, prompting you to check the health of your cats. Where would you be without your LuluPet AI Smart Cat Litter Box Pet Health Monitor? This poop-examining litter box is kind enough to send you daily updates about your cat’s latest business (literally). It sure makes for interesting coffee talk.

Another honorable mention comes at the dinner table, with the My Smalt salt shaker. (Yes, “Smalt” is smart and salt combined. Very clever.) Branded as a “centerpiece” and resembling a rejected companion robot from Star Wars, the Smalt can play music, offer mood lighting, be controlled by voice or phone, and deliver you the perfect pinch of salt. It can’t however, actually grind salt.

As the day draws to a close, you go to the bathroom. Here, you can look into your Savvy SmartMirror by Electric Mirror, who decided it would be simpler for you to spend $2,000–6,000 on a mirror that can tell you the weather while you brush your teeth than to glance down at your already expensive smartphone.

Finally, you sit on your Kohler Numi smart toilet. Forget the internet of things, this is the internet of toilets. This product is like a parody of itself. Who knew you needed an “immersive experience” when you sat down on the loo? Not only does it provide LED mood lighting and music, but you can also control the temperature of the seat itself — perfect for those cold mornings. Best of all, it will only set you back $8,000, a steal for an “intelligent toilet.”

The biggest problem with the “smart” world is that very few have figured out how to build products that actually do anything useful enough to justify their price tags. In many cases, adding complexity to once-simple devices is leading to all kinds of unforeseen problems, meaning that many smart products try to “do it all” and end up being not very good at any of it.

The future might be smart, but at the moment, a lot of it sure is dumb.