How Smart are Smart Homes?

By Billy Aldridge

Like it or not, the computer has invaded everything from your office to your car.  Now it has designs on your home.  While many praise the coming era of smart appliances, I for one am not so certain that this is going to be such a blessing.  Granted, saving resources including power and water is essential to the future of humanity.  And the quickest way to accomplish greater efficiency is to make dumb appliances smarter.  In fact there are now examples of “Smart Homes” being designed and built that are touted as the best thing since sliced bread.  These structures can do everything from turn off the lights in rooms where nobody is present to learning about your habits in order to save resources.  These houses can even be remotely accessed via your smartphone so you can keep an eye on things when you are away.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  And some of the innovations offered by the first wave of smart appliances is interesting to say the least.

Smart Fridge

For instance, Samsung’s T9000 Smart Fridge sports everything from a “Grocery Manager” that helps you keep track of what’s in your fridge to recipes and coupons that can be accessed via the fridge’s built-in 10 inch tablet that comes preloaded with apps.  The apps let you do everything from setting termination dates on the food in your fridge to drag and drop shopping items.  You can even tell the fridge what items you have inside and then let it surf Epicurious to find a recipe that can be cooked using these items.

Smart Thermostat

There are actually several smart thermostats to choose from, including those made by Nest, Ecobee, Rheem and Honeywell.  What these devices are designed to do much more than simply regulate your home’s temperature.  To quote Ecobee:

“Unlike all other programmable thermostats, ecobee thermostats have built-in DataRhythm Technology that uses a complex set of data points including your HVAC equipment type and historical run-times, weather, and the ongoing energy performance of your home to make intelligent, unique and personalized heating and cooling decisions for you - resulting in more energy and cost savings! Now that’s smart.”

Of course being wifi enabled also means that there is a potential for these and other wifi devices to get hacked.  In a blog on Atlantic Monthly, writer Christopher Mims points out some of the vulnerabilities inherent in online capable devices:

“As with the internet itself, we will in time become ever more reliant on the internet of things. Baby and pet monitors, home automation systems and even our cars will send us information in ways that will make our lives easier but also encourage our dependence on these systems. In this way, hackers do not even need to figure out how to harm us or damage our connected devices to cause mayhem: They simply need to send us false readings from the sensor systems we're using.

This could allow hackers to set up scenarios in which users would be the agents of their own undoing. For example, a smart thermostat set to keep a house at a certain temperature for pets while an owner is away could send false readings to the user, encouraging them to send instructions to it remotely, perhaps to make the house warmer, without realizing that the home's heating system is already at full blast.” 

Other web-enabled devices such as home surveillance systems and nannycams can be turned against thei

r users by wily hackers who are all too eager to seize the opportunity to eavesdrop on families who employ these devices.  These kinds of surveillance systems also provide an opportunity for technically savvy burglars to not only case a home or business from a distance, but they could also be used to conceal the perfect crime by showing the owner a still frame or video loop as the burglary was taking place. 

Smart Oven

Like the smart fridge, Dacor’s Android-powered oven which debuted at this year’s Home Electronics Show is internet-enabled and designed to provide cooking assistance to novice chefs.  By keying the weight of a round roast into the unit’s built-in 7-inch LCD screen the oven will set the temperature and cooking time for you. 

There’s an App for That

Whirpool’s 6^th Sense Live app lets you control your kitchen via your smartphone.  It can do everything from

 set your smart fridge’s temperature to run your smart dishwasher remotely.  Speaking of apps, the same

 company that makes LG smartphones has introduced several new smart appliances this year at CES, including a smart washing machine, a refrigerator, an oven and even a robotic vacuum cleaner, all of which are capable of being controlled by an Android device.

While energy efficiency is a worthwhile benefit, whether the high cost of remotely controlled appliances added to the risk of being hacked will prove worthwhile to the average consumer is anybody’s guess.  Time alone will answer the ultimate question of how smart are smart houses?

As a plumber Billy Aldridge has remodeled many a kitchen.  He is one of the doctors of Plumbology at Aldridge and Sons plumbers in Jacksonville, FL.  For more helpful hints and how-to videos, go to http://plumbers-jacksonville-fl.com