I despise gadgets too-smart-to-function-normally as much as anyone, but here is a counter example:
For a long time now, cars have a well integrated set of bells and whistles all connected via fairly reliable communication protocols (like CAN and such) and for the most part they just work. I never had the parking break not engage or cruse control drift. (I am not talking about the touchscreens and apple and android integrations as the article mentions it, those are closer to the 'smart' trend).
What if we didn't insist on retrofitting existing 110V systems and imagined a house with a modern power bus?
What if we stopped focusing on selling things in the <$100 range and sold entire systems that are designed to work well together?
What if we stopped insisting on unreliable radio communication and just used good'ol wires. The lower power thing is only good for sensors anyway. Anything else will need power.
Obviously this is not an option for existing homes maybe not even new homes, but what about hotels and office buildings?
I am just wondering (hoping) if this whole mess is not the fault of technology per say but the fault of the business minds and todays hype culture.
Can we use technology to make things better, not just smarter? I would be into that.
> I never had the parking break not engage or cruse control drift.
Well, at least around here those things are required to have an old style steel wires fail-safe. And I know that because I have needed the fail-safe once.
But about selling living-place automation as a package, it is basically the say everybody was doing it since the 80's. The <$100 things are basically a reaction from consumers against the huge packages inability to keep working after deployed for a few years (due to planed obsolescence) and the plain bad deal of depending on a single packager.
Well, that sort of thing has existed for a long time, like KNX, but usually prices are a lot steeper and a higher degree of technical competence is required to set it up.
The problem is the incentive structure. Companies will prefer proprietary protocols over standards unless the standard is very popular, and no standard will become that popular without a huge ecosystem in place.
For a long time now, cars have a well integrated set of bells and whistles all connected via fairly reliable communication protocols (like CAN and such) and for the most part they just work. I never had the parking break not engage or cruse control drift. (I am not talking about the touchscreens and apple and android integrations as the article mentions it, those are closer to the 'smart' trend).
What if we didn't insist on retrofitting existing 110V systems and imagined a house with a modern power bus?
What if we stopped focusing on selling things in the <$100 range and sold entire systems that are designed to work well together?
What if we stopped insisting on unreliable radio communication and just used good'ol wires. The lower power thing is only good for sensors anyway. Anything else will need power.
Obviously this is not an option for existing homes maybe not even new homes, but what about hotels and office buildings?
I am just wondering (hoping) if this whole mess is not the fault of technology per say but the fault of the business minds and todays hype culture.
Can we use technology to make things better, not just smarter? I would be into that.
Edit: formatting