<story><title>The Internet of Way Too Many Things</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/allison-arieff-the-internet-of-way-too-many-things.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antr</author><text>I just bought a home, and just started a considerable renovation. I&amp;#x27;m putting in new water pipes, new electrical wiring, etc. I thought of putting &amp;quot;smart&amp;quot; devices (i.e. switches, alarms, thermostats, etc.) given the &amp;quot;advantages&amp;quot; these promise.&lt;p&gt;After considerable research, it&amp;#x27;s not worth the hussle or money. Let&amp;#x27;s put aside the fact that these are considerable more expensive, and won&amp;#x27;t breakeven in years (some devices smart devices simply don&amp;#x27;t breakeven).&lt;p&gt;The main reason I decided not to have any of these installed was due to how cumbersome they are to operate. Each appliance&amp;#x2F;brand has their own app&amp;#x2F;portal, which does not connect to other brands, making it impossible to have an overview of your &amp;quot;smart home&amp;quot;. Even more scary, some of these devices are operated by startups, god knows, if they will be alive next year. Good luck getting that app to work with iOS 10! It&amp;#x27;s a true headache, it&amp;#x27;s even a headache for contractors, who have no clue how these work. It&amp;#x27;s going to take some time (and education) to have an OS that makes a smart home smart...&lt;p&gt;and don&amp;#x27;t get me started on the smart baby monitors, etc... if my siblings an I were brought up just fine in the 80&amp;#x27;s without being in a &amp;quot;smart onesie&amp;quot;, I&amp;#x27;m sure we can do just as fine today.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joshstrange</author><text>I agree with nearly everything you have said except for:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and don&amp;#x27;t get me started on the smart baby monitors, etc... if my siblings an I were brought up just fine in the 80&amp;#x27;s without being in a &amp;quot;smart onesie&amp;quot;, I&amp;#x27;m sure we can do just as fine today.&lt;p&gt;I even agree that the baby monitor mentioned is a little over the top (I don&amp;#x27;t care for the lights&amp;#x2F;music&amp;#x2F;coffee aspect) but it&amp;#x27;s important not to write things off just because &amp;quot;I was raised just fine without X&amp;quot;. That logic doesn&amp;#x27;t hold for most things. And for high-risk babies that onesie is probably multitudes of times cheaper than expensive medical equipment to do the same level of monitoring.&lt;p&gt;(Sad Personal Anecdote Below)&lt;p&gt;My youngest sister died when she was very young (&amp;lt;2 mo old) due to a medical condition (birth defect). Now this isn&amp;#x27;t to say that this product would have saved her life. In fact I&amp;#x27;m nearly 100% positive it wouldn&amp;#x27;t have. My parents were already awake due to me waking up from a bad dream and so my mom caught her stopping breathing probably almost immediately and we lived next door to a doctor who was over within minutes before she was rushed off to the hospital. She still died but I can&amp;#x27;t help but think that while she couldn&amp;#x27;t be saved there are other babies and young children out there that could be saved from such a device. Also there is nothing to say that constant monitoring wouldn&amp;#x27;t have caught signs of this a little earlier allowing my parents enough time to get her to professionals. All I&amp;#x27;m saying is don&amp;#x27;t write off this just because you &amp;quot;got by fine without it&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Internet of Way Too Many Things</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/allison-arieff-the-internet-of-way-too-many-things.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antr</author><text>I just bought a home, and just started a considerable renovation. I&amp;#x27;m putting in new water pipes, new electrical wiring, etc. I thought of putting &amp;quot;smart&amp;quot; devices (i.e. switches, alarms, thermostats, etc.) given the &amp;quot;advantages&amp;quot; these promise.&lt;p&gt;After considerable research, it&amp;#x27;s not worth the hussle or money. Let&amp;#x27;s put aside the fact that these are considerable more expensive, and won&amp;#x27;t breakeven in years (some devices smart devices simply don&amp;#x27;t breakeven).&lt;p&gt;The main reason I decided not to have any of these installed was due to how cumbersome they are to operate. Each appliance&amp;#x2F;brand has their own app&amp;#x2F;portal, which does not connect to other brands, making it impossible to have an overview of your &amp;quot;smart home&amp;quot;. Even more scary, some of these devices are operated by startups, god knows, if they will be alive next year. Good luck getting that app to work with iOS 10! It&amp;#x27;s a true headache, it&amp;#x27;s even a headache for contractors, who have no clue how these work. It&amp;#x27;s going to take some time (and education) to have an OS that makes a smart home smart...&lt;p&gt;and don&amp;#x27;t get me started on the smart baby monitors, etc... if my siblings an I were brought up just fine in the 80&amp;#x27;s without being in a &amp;quot;smart onesie&amp;quot;, I&amp;#x27;m sure we can do just as fine today.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>guybrushT</author><text>One of the companies that is solving this very problem is Xiaomi. Their method is quite crude - that is, they make everything themselves. But the end result is that everything they make - from an air purifier to a TV - is connected and operated via a similar &amp;#x2F; familiar OS called MIUI.&lt;p&gt;They give away their phones for very cheap, because the phone is the Trojan horse - it is the remote control for all the other devices it makes.&lt;p&gt;Xiaomi is the largest and fastest growing IoT company on the planet, and worth keeping an eye out for.</text></comment>