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 6th
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
