Why I don't like (some) smart devices

Some things are better off with less features

Virtually every device, appliance, and vehicle today has some sort of computer in it. This is a good thing in it of itself. It often allows these things to do their respective jobs more efficiently and make a better product overall. Where this gets annoying is when it becomes a “smart” device.

For the purposes of this post, a smart device is a device that connects to the internet and allows some form of remote control or monitoring from your phone or other personal device. For a lot of devices, this feature set has a lot of practical uses. Like a doorbell that tells you who’s there, a vacuum that cleans the house for you, or a thermostat that can be adjusted from anywhere. These are genuinely useful devices that enhance people's lives every day. I love those, they’re new practical uses for tech and I want more of that, but what I want to get into is the more useless and gimmicky type smart functions.

So let’s start with the useless, but innocent ones like my parent's Whirlpool washer and dryer. Now you can use them as a normal washer and dryer with no issue, but they have some rather useless smart features. They got an app where you can get a notification when the laundry is done, which may be useful in a hypothetical scenario, but, rarely, I both don’t hear the chime and forget I’m running laundry. It’s the kind of thing that's not worth downloading an app over. So all in all while not really useful and is a bit of a data grab, this is an overall harmless feature set that most people won’t touch. Where this get’s interesting is when it’s encroaching, imposed, and charged for.

Cars have been varying degrees of smart for close to 20 years now (my 2004 Grand Cherokee was available with a built-in touchscreen GPS and radio). As we all probably know the interface tends not to be great but is overall fairly useful. (that’s another post for another day) Recently some car manufacturers, namely BMW, have taken to charging for basic yet non-essential features in the car (infamously heated seats, which ‘04 jeep has for free). This leads to a system of buying an expensive car and then letting the manufacture slow bleed you for pure profit every month. Sure if you can afford a BMW you can probably afford 18 dollars a month to keep your butt warm, but this isn’t as much about that as it is the principle of it and the trend it’s setting in the consumer tech sector (wish if we’re honest now includes most things we own).

This is starting to leak more and more into everyday products for everyday people. LG recently announced that their ThinQ line of products and eventually their entire line will be shifting more towards “customer engagement.” and wants to introduce a “platform-based service business model that continuously generates profits, such as content and services, subscriptions and solutions”. (source: The Verge) LG wants to get a subscription and ad money off your smart TV, fridge, and washer. They see an opportunity to make more money under the banner of a “smart product” that will provide marginally useful features and use as a way to hijack home appliances as another way to charge for a subscription and sell and display Ads.

Ultimately it’s bad for consumers. Companies are creating new, marginally useful, features in products that don’t need them and using them as grounds to charge extra and surveil the user. And unfortunately, it looks like this idea is spreading, LG is already saying this will expand to its entire business and I imagine other companies will follow if they don’t lose customers over it. Ultimately the solution is letting companies know through your purchases and voicing your opinions. Showing them that not everything needs to be smart, in fact, a lot of devices are better off dumb.