IoT at Home: Is Multifunctionality Here Yet?

Do you remember the classic movies and corny TV series back from the 70s-80s? The ones where people filled their homes full of automated gadgets and robot helpers that did their chores, cooked their meals, and also kept them company, transforming into characters in their own right (looking at you, C-3PO). Now, in 2021, humanity’s fantastic dream of robots is not a dream anymore. Our homes are packed with smart tech that can relieve us from the dirty, hard, or mundane chores we don’t want to or don’t have time to do.

The home robots are here, and they’re here to stay. While the novelty of devices like robot vacuum cleaners or lawnmowers, smart kettles, and all-seeing security cameras cannot surprise the consumers anymore, it’s a different concept that captures our minds today: the multifunctionality of our homes. And it seems to me that this feature basically comes in two flavors: smart home automation and versatile, multi-skilled devices.

Do Humans Dream of Electric Homes?

And the answer to this question (which I will be leaving for your consideration, just like a certain writer we all know and love) explains the popularity of the Internet of Things (IoT). We are surrounded by sensors of all kinds, be it smoke detectors, humidity control, smart lights, or security cameras. When integrated into a single system, these sensors and devices all contribute to a concept of a smart home.

In a nutshell, a smart home is a combination of interconnected devices, gadgets, and sensors of different systems from lighting and climate to security to entertainment and household appliances. It’s a home that you can control via your smartphone. It’s a step closer to becoming “a machine to live in”, as Le Corbusier brilliantly put it back in 1927.

Imagine your routine in a smart house: you wake up to soft light at a designated time. A cup of coffee is waiting for you in the kitchen. You dress up and go to work while, back at home, robots clean the laundry, dust the windows, and mow the lawn. As you come back from work, your home waits for you with personalized microclimate and pleasant soft music, and a hot dinner that started cooking way before you left from work.

All of this is possible because you’ve set it up to your liking using the connection of appliances to your phone. Sensors today allow you to choose the settings that will fit your needs. They can also be used to automatically adjust in accordance with the changes in the time of day and climate (for example, there are microclimate systems that are able to predict if the rain is going to start and adjust the humidity levels accordingly). This ensures not only your comfort but also saving you some much-needed cash by the means of smart management of energy resources.

Feels like a dream, doesn’t it? Well, smart homes are not without problems. Here are a few issues that should be mentioned:

• Compatibility. Not all your gadgets come from the same brand, and that means they might not pair well together.
• Failures and false alerts. However smart your devices are, they’re just tech, and there will be mistakes. It’s not pleasant to wake up at an ungodly hour because your alarm broke. It’s even less pleasant to know that the security system is prone to failures.
• Network instability and dropped connections. Just like the previous one, this error might lead to the failure of the whole system.
• Data collection and privacy. In our age of growing mindfulness about the privacy of our lives, this issue becomes more relevant than ever. Your smallest, least significant appliance collects your data and stores it somewhere outside of your reach. That can’t be good, can it?
• Specialization. You have a robot cleaner, and it cleans your home well enough. But can it bring you a book from a different room? Can it play with your dog while you’re at work? Can it make you a sandwich? Well...

I, Robot?

Despite the discussed issues, the proliferation of smart homes is in full swing. Things get a bit trickier with multi-purpose devices. Just as household appliances are designed to perform a set of functions within a specific area (cooking, cleaning, freezing, laundry, etc.), smart devices are similarly narrowly-specialized. There are still but a few models of home helpers that can do more than just their pre-designed function.

This is a new toy of a modern human being. We’ve already seen the first attempts at building robot assistants, as well as robots that could perform a variety of functions. Recently, I’ve also seen the news of the development of a robot supplied with an extension arm that can seemingly perform a whole range of little tasks from putting away the groceries to pouring you a glass of wine.

All of this leads me to the thought that the natural development of our devices and appliances will be moving toward designing more multi-purpose, efficient, and secure home assistants. Besides, while smart homes are great, they still need a lot of planning and forethought – something I’d like to delegate to an electric brain that has more capacity to solve tasks like this. I personally would be glad to concentrate on some creative and value-adding work for once. What do you think? ;)