alt Hacker NewsI'm all for KISS.
But in a rare instance, xkcd is missing the point here. People do not live in their rooms 24/7, but they do want to be able to, e.g., turn stuff on or off remotely, or based on environmental conditions (turn on/off based on outside sensors or the current electricity price...) or to get status alerts ("tank empty, refill").
Now, I do that via Home Assistant and keep anything "smart" on a highly-restricted vnet ... but not everyone is a geek. While the standard implementation (some cloud service) comes with a bouquet of problems, it basically acts as a simplified Home Assistant, and ultimately as a necessary crutch. Preferably we'd be in IPv6-land, where ISPs would not NAT everything to death and we could talk to our devices remotely without an intermediary ... but well ... it cannot be helped.
"You're not going to need it" and "In my time, we just flipped a dumb switch" is paternalistic hogwash, not clever social commentary. Back in my days, we also didn't need satnav (just read a paper map), or cell phones (write them a note, leave it on the fridge, nothing is so important to demand imminence), or dishwashers (just do your dishes by hand)
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I still think the value prop is dubious for a device like this.
> turn stuff on or off remotely
Why? Nearly all modern humidifiers have a sensor to measure humidity and will cycle on and off based on the setpoint. Getting to the setpoint also takes time so I don't see any reason someone would want to turn it on and off based on presence.
> (turn on/off based on outside sensors or the current electricity price...)
Not sure why the outside sensors would matter, it's concerned with the inside humidity which again it has a sensor to read. The amount of electricity these take to run isn't worth even mentioning.
> get status alerts ("tank empty, refill")
So you can refill it remotely? You have to be present to fill it anyway - just look at the thing and you'll know its water level
I say all this as someone who also run Home Assistant and automates various things.
Obviously all these smart appliance are about remote management, but I have to question how much usage it's getting in real life. My parents got a few smart devices for their holiday home, as my dad didn't want to drive 45 minutes both ways to check up on things during the winter. I think he probably ended up spending more time managing the IoT stuff that he ever did driving.
It create to have the option to manage something remote, but when remote become the only option, the usability takes a dive. When I have to go find my phone, unlock it, find the app, possible update the app, find the right setting or menu, stare at "Failure to connect to device", and whatever else might go wrong, it's quicker and easier to just manage the device directly. We got rid of our robot vacuum clear, because it's literally quicker and better to go get our 20 year old regular vacuum, and the floor is done in 3 minutes, not the 20+ the Roomba needs (and I needed to clear the room for it). When we used the Roomba, 99% of the time I pushed the "Start" button on the device, because it's way quicker than using the app.
There's a place for smart devices, but they need to be much better and have local controls.