Don't Forget to Charge Your Spoon Before Dinner: Smart Devices are Out of Control

Download our free app on the App Store. You probably see this ten times a day and don’t even realize it. Almost everyone has an app for their product now, but how many times have you told yourself ”I wish this had an app to it”. My wife has an air freshener in our kitchen that requires an app. I never knew there was such a demand for scheduled scents in your house. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love smart devices. Almost every light in my house is connected to my Home Assistant setup. But even I have a line in the sand when it comes to things needing to be “smart”

I have been questioning the convenience of some of these products lately. I have even started opting out of buying a product that uses some sort of app-based service. I think that when the people who love new technology even start to get overwhelmed with this, it’s time to rethink what we are doing. 

Overthinking the Smart Devices

Here are just a few examples of some of the most ridiculous smart products on the market: 

Quirky Egg Minder

An egg tray that has an app telling you about the eggs in your fridge. A question I’ve never had in my life. 

From the product description: 

• It syncs with your smartphone to tell you how many eggs you've got at home (up to 14) and when they're going bad. 
• Wirelessly connects to your mobile device to track the number of eggs you have and tell you when they're going bad 
• In-tray LED lights indicate the oldest egg, while push notifications alert you when you're running low.
  

Smart Utensils

Honestly, after looking at the website I’m not sure if this is a joke or not. Sorry honey we can't eat dinner tonight, I forgot to charge the spoons. I’m not even sure what these are supposed to do, but they mention AI on the website so I’m sure it's going to be horrible. I’m imagining some sort of AI uprising where my smart fork ends up trying to eat me instead.

Smart Toothbrush

This one probably makes me the maddest. It’s not made by some weird knock-off company, or a weird, sketchy startup. It’s the Oral-B smart toothbrushes, and yes, they use AI with them. Just shoot me. 

From the product description: 

• Interactive Color Display
• 3D TEETH TRACKING with A.I.
• 7 Smart Brushing Modes
• Bluetooth® Connectivity
• Smart Pressure Sensor

I just assume the 3d teeth tracking is used to upload my dental records to some 3 letter government agency. 

At some point, society needs to band together and put a stop to this. It’s not just that everything has to have an app and AI integrated into it. It doesn’t just stop there. Everything has to have an in-app purchase so you can use it to its “full potential“. You're going to pay a monthly fee to scoop peas with your smart spoon and you're going to like it. 

A Subscription for Everything

I dare you to open the App Store and count how many apps have an in-app purchase. My guess is at lease 90% of them do. Hey, I get it, you need to get paid for your work. There needs to be a justified product behind that subscription though. I have no problem paying a one-time fee for an app. The other problem is that the “free” version is usually useless on its own. 

I hope that someday app stores start to crack down on these subscription based apps, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. 

Conclusion

I know I can’t be the only one fed up with all of this.  I feel like an old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn. The thing is I’m not made of money, I can’t afford to use these products that require subscriptions to function. Even if I had the money, no one should be required to pay every month to do something like brush their teeth. I know it’s not required at the moment, but how far are we away from the day when every product is like this and we have no choice but to use them? When that day comes, it will be too late to go back to the way things were before. I’m afraid we might already be at that point.