Since the microchip first came to be in the mid-twentieth century, it’s improvement has been sustained and seemingly inexorable. Chips have been getting smaller, faster and cheaper to produce. They’ve also been bestowed with built-in functions like wireless connectivity. In recent years, these trends have reached the point that just about every electronic device we use is equipped with one or several microchips, each of them collecting and transmitting data. The resultant network of connected nodes is called the IoT, or ‘Internet of Things’.
The IoT allows for an enormous amount of data to be harvested. Each connected unit can act as a source of valuable R&D data, which informs the development of future devices. Manufacturers will know exactly when their products are being used, for how long, and in what way.
These advantages are especially apparent in the automotive industry. The average car contains scores of tiny microcontrollers, each collecting data on the various moving parts. When a car develops a fault, the manufacturer is alerted, and provided with actionable data. This leads to improved troubleshooting. A specific failure might correlate with a certain design feature, or even a specific factory on a specific day. With more data, the cause of the failure can be more easily determined, which leads to faster improvement.
The term ‘smart home’ refers to any dwelling containing interconnected ‘smart’ devices. For example, the home’s lights might all be connected to a router that measures their power usage, and allows them to be activated and deactivated via a smartphone app. The bathroom scales might track your weight over time, and connect with your wrist-mounted heart-rate-monitor to provide you with detailed information about what dreadful shape you’re in. The fridge might then deliver a stern admonishment the next time you pay a visit.
This sort of connectivity allows you to interact with your home even when you aren’t there. For example, the ‘Skybell’ doorbell remains constantly connected, allowing you to instruct delivery drivers to leave the package behind a plant pot, or shoo unwanted visitors away from your doorstep, even when you’re halfway across the planet.
The IoT ideal is a world in which every product is assigned a unique identification number, and the quantity of each is monitored. Suppose you’re walking through town and you just happen to walk past a stationary shop. The scales built into your printer’s feed-in tray might have already set up a flag that you’re running low on paper. It would send a notification to your phone advising you to go in and buy some. In practice, things might not even get this far; the printer might end up making purchasing decisions on your behalf, and just order the paper for you from an online retailer.
Similar function might in time be extended to everything we buy. Jars of mayonnaise, olives or pickles might be embedded with a tiny microchip, broadcasting a unique signal to appraise your fridge of its expiration date. The fridge might then appraise the owner of when a product is nearing its use-by date. If you’re a homeowner, this might be a fun novelty. If you’re running a nationwide chain of restaurants, it might make a serious difference to your bottom line.
Many manufacturers have been guilty of overengineering their products for superficial marketing reasons, supposing that every electronics device is going to sell better if it can be termed a ‘smart’ device. Of course, just because something can be done doesn’t mean that it should be done. You can now put a microprocessor in a toaster. But doing so stands just as great a chance of impeding the owner’s ability to make toast as it does.
The borderline-pathological desire to connect everything to everything else is turning at least some consumers off. This backlash is demonstrated with hilarious crudity by the twitter account ‘Internet of Shit’, which documents privacy invasions, touchscreen-equipped fridges which present their owners with legal contracts and light bulbs which cease to function whenever the Wi-Fi goes down.
There’s even an ‘Internet of Shit’ Reddit, whose contributors share stories about how a casino’s high-roller database was hacked into via the thermometer in the lobby fish tank. Swedish tech firm Semcon last year capitalised on the backlash by creating the ‘Internet of Shit’ theme song.
Stories like the fishtank are rare, but they aren’t isolated incidents. Every time a new internet-connected device is introduced into a home or business, it opens up a new avenue for would-be hackers to exploit. There’s a real danger of the entire practice becoming an object of ridicule; the prefix ‘smart’ has already, in some quarters, become suffused with bitter irony.
However many Bluetooth-enabled spice-grinders flood the shelves, some consumers will still prefer a mortar and pestle. The same goes for stovetop kettles, mechanical scales and radios. And this isn’t just a case of aging luddites refusing to get with the times. Even the savviest young tech entrepreneur can sleep soundly each night knowing that their mortar and pestle isn’t going to be rendered inoperable by a firmware update.