More devices don't mean more intelligence

The catchy title of an article in The Next Web, “Your home isn’t smart, it’s just connected — here’s why”, reflects exactly how I feel after a few years researching the adoption of so-called smart technologies.

This is not just about terminology, and is related to the recently announced alliance between Amazon, Apple, Google, the Zigbee consortium, along with companies such as Ikea, Legrand, NXP Semiconductors, Resideo, Samsung SmartThings, Schneider Electric, Signify, Silicon Labs, Somfy and Wulian, to make their platforms and devices able to talk to each other, establishing universal standards for the smart home.

Over the past few years, my house and my smartphone have been filled with devices and applications that have allowed me to connect just about everything: lights, car, consumption meters, a humidifier, a digital assistants, an alarm, four cameras, the doorbell, the heating, the garden’s irrigation… but does that make my house smart? No, it simply allows me to operate certain devices or access certain functions, but these are all still objects being made to work through remote control or programming. Sure, my smartphone can make certain devices behave in certain ways, but that’s not artificial intelligence by a long stretch.

Ten years ago, my WiFi reached some parts of my house and connected some computers and smartphones. Now, I don’t just have WiFi: I have a series of devices in a mesh network that gives me coverage in every corner: there are almost 30 devices connected to it, some of which can be prioritized to give them more bandwidth while carrying out certain tasks, or I can create a network for guests so that I can share access without having to provide those passwords I could never hope to learn. More comfortable? Possibly. More powerful? Sure. Smarter? I don’t think so. Or at least, not in a meaningful sense.

On the other hand, this constellation of technologies make my home a complex place. Some lights are controlled by the Signify app (originally Hue), while others are controlled by Kasa plugs. Some wizards integrate and manage both, but some do it better than others or allow me to program shortcuts more easily, so in the end, I usually ask Alexa to turn lights off, but Google Home or Siri when I have questions about anything. The smart thermostat allows me to program the heating when I’m returning from a trip, because it doesn’t know about my travel plans (even if that information is also in my smartphone. Smart? I can think of quite a few single-cell organisms with more intelligence and response to change than that.

Will 2020 be the year when we transition from connected homes to smart homes that are able to integrate all those sensors from different manufacturers securely, protecting our data, able to work things out for themselves based on our habits and routines? Or will we continue with this partial automation, trying out gadgets on an ad hoc basis? Is it really so much to ask that, once so many things in our homes are connected, they can then work together to really make our lives easier?

(En espa?ol, aquí)

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