I’ve always wondered just how far we can be willing to take things when it comes to how Smart technology is taking over the world. It started with smartphones but now, just about everything else can be smart. Your air conditioner, your refrigerator, your cooker. Hell, even your door can be smart as well.
If everything can be smart in your house, and you can control them all from the tiny little device in your hand, called the phone, doesn’t that place more value than necessary on your phone? It could mean that whoever holds the phone at any point in time could have absolute control over the devices that the phones control.
For some devices, all that is required to link them all together is to have a common email. If they’re all registered with the same email, then whatever happens on one will be reflected in the other. But when it comes to other devices and actual appliances, they use tools like WiFi and Bluetooth. And as you know, as long as it’s smart, then it can sure as hell be linked to your phone.
You can now control your TV via your phone, you can control your sound system through your phone as well. Your lights, your heater, anything at all that is smart can be controlled with your phone. That’s really cool because it makes it kinda easy. At least, you won’t always have to be carrying bunches or remote controls all over the place. You only need your phone to be able to access them all.
One good thing about this is that it doesn’t require the internet for 90% of its functions. While it needs the WiFi to function, it doesn’t need to access the internet. It only needs a secure and isolated network. That way, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry would be able to control your appliances. I feel it’s just a safety precaution, something that was overlooked during the time of Bluetooth.
If there is anything wrong with Bluetooth, it’s about how easy it is for anyone to connect to it. Any appliance at all, once you see it and click on it, it’ll be yours to control. I’ve had that issue many times on my sound system when someone I didn’t know connected to it before I could. And I couldn’t get them off because no matter how many times I turned it off and put it back on, it connected automatically to the wrong phone.
I was able to get it back though, eventually. But the point I’m trying to make here is that this is a system that is safer than what Bluetooth has to offer and as long as all your devices operate on a closed network, then you’re covered.
Still though, it’s not all that closed. Some of the appliances have to still be connected to the internet. While you don’t need the internet to Chrome cast on your smart TV, you do need it to stream Netflix or YouTube. You don’t need the internet to control your refrigerator, but you do need it for the fridge to give you regular updates based on the weather conditions and also give you smart suggestions on the kind of beverages to consume. And of course, these things store data on the cloud, and the internet is needed to access the cloud.
So, the mere fact that we’ll be getting even a bit of internet also shows that they are all liable to get hacked. You could be locked into your house by your own smart door. You could be frozen by your AC (if that’s even possible, hehe)… so yeah, smart houses are still susceptible to outside influence no matter how closed the network is. But then, I guess it all boils down to us being more careful and also determining just how smart we want our homes to be.
Smart appliances make life easier and so much smoother. Just know what you’re getting into, okay?
