For those of us who are ill/disabled this technology has been excellent. The systems still need improvement though, for example it’s difficult when smart plugs go offline, and also tricky if someone wants to manually switch lights off and on. But before I had this I often just didn’t have lights on most of the time because I couldn’t turn them off when I wanted. This is much better

I just don't get smart lights. If I want to turn the lights on the I use the switch on the wall. If I ever needed them to be timed, I can get a timer that fits over the switches for a few pounds.

When they complicate things they make them become obsolete that much faster or fall apart sooner than they should. Can we please go back to the old days when stuff lasted a decent amount of time?

Weird thing is seeing a neighbor's refrigerator show up as "available" to connect on our wifi list. This thing could be next door or across the street. Either way, if it were mine, that's not something I'd want showing up on someone else's device.

Rube Goldberg living. Doing things the hard way when it should be simple.

I actually prefer voice control. My stereo system is voice controlled and it is so much easier than scrolling through lists of albums, artists and tracks. I've yet to hook up the house lights, but when I do, I'm going to name one the "f***ing light" and then I can say "turn the f***ing light on". :D

People living with a disability find these 'gadgets' life-changing.

My brother is WAY into the stuff. I have to use my phone just to lock and unlock his door. Once, when I was dog sitting, I was walking the dog and I got a notification that the battery was low. I had a mini heart attack because I didn't want to get locked out because of a few AA batteries.

Welcome to the Jetsons

my house is a pain in the a*s because all of the switches are in different places, so we have a button on the tv to where if we hold a button on the remote and click a moon-shaped symbol, it dims the lights and turns off certain lamps. we call it the “good evening” button, super helpful

Now I'll be impressed if my fridge texts me "We out of eggs dipsh!t."

I invite you to a future 10-20 years from now. I don't know yet how or why but you will probably want your fridge to connect to the internet... We just don't know yet what for exactly.

Just got a new stove. The thing came with WiFi! Even the sales people at the store thought it was a dumb idea. We all agreed the it's just an accident waiting to happen.

I would be SOL. I don't have a smart phone, I have a flip phone. I don't even have an ice cube maker or filtered water on my fridge. I figured it's just another thing that will need repair and another filter I would need to replace. Nothing wrong with ice cube trays.

You're not "supposed" to do it from your phone. You can do it from your phone, but it doesn't mean that you are meant to. They are mostly designed to work around a home automation assistant. Whereas you CAN do everything from the app, it's mostly meant for setting up your preferences and settings and such. Ive had hue for about 4 years now, and I've opened the app maybe 10 times in all of that 48 months

You really do not have to use the phone. There are also manual switches.

I have swapped out all the lights in my apartment for smart bulbs, it's nice to have them scheduled to come on and off during certain hours. The way my apartment is designed, you have to walk in a good 5 feet before you reach the light switch. And the light switch for the hall way is at the start, but there isn't one by the bedrooms so it's inconveniently dark . I like that i can have the lights on before go up the stairs at night.

I use this option and it's great. I don't need to always use my phone, I can just ask Alexa to dim or change color.

NOOOOOO!

I would like my massager to come to me when my legs cramp and I can't walk, is that part of smartphoneery??

I kinda like having this though. Makes life easier in some ways.

I remember seeing a remote control microwave in a big box home improvement store, about 15 years ago. I just thought, does the remote control also put the food in the microwave for the user? The only way an rc microwave makes sense to me is if a young child puts in a bag of popcorn, but isn't old enough to set the timer, the adult has a broken leg, so uses the rc to control the microwave. But how common is that scenario?

I'd just like to note that friends and family visiting your house DO NOT know your secret "room names". While ridiculous, I feel like it's a computer game where you need the secret paraphrase to solve the puzzle. Don't even get me started on zones 🤨🤣🤣

Maybe Amazon echo apps can help here..if it's not smart, atleast it's not deaf..we can straight away tell it to put certain setting or maybe set it based on time or something. Too smart homes could get pretty privacy intrusive

Amen! However, the smart lights are a great way of turning them on and off. More 'set it and forget it'. My lights turn on 1hr before sundown and go out around 1am, different time each day. Also.they have 64000 colors of which I use one. Just nice warm white light.

You can still use a smart light the same way that you would use a regular light. It just gives you the smart options in addition to the regular ones it you want them. Your lights aren't dependent on your phone. And smart lights CAN auto dim when you turn on a movie. You don't need smart screens everywhere to control the lights. You don't need a screen outside of a phone at all. This is making an awful lot out of nothing. As for the fridges, that's fair.

When looking at a new fridge we thought about one of those that can look inside itself so you know what you need, then we realized we still write down what we need and it wouldn't be something we used at all. With Covid and many people ordering groceries from home, I do wonder just how much those are used now.

I don't even have a smartphone ......

Friends of mine who are in tech (but have scruples) sometimes spend commuting time seeing who has left their house networks unguarded. They wouldn't do anything, but shake their heads at the numbers of homes they could breach with just their phones and their know-how.