The Internet of Things is Killing Me

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The Smithie was housesitting for friends with two elderly dogs this past weekend, and I stopped in to drop off a few things. "Why are all the family room lights on in the middle of a sunny day?" I asked.

"I don't dare turn them off," she said.

No, she wasn't suffering from some extreme fear of any possible shadow. She was staying at a smart house. Everything was connected, and run from a screen on the kitchen wall that looked more complicated than an air traffic controller's  flight center. The Smithie had turned off the lights the day before and it had taken her forty minutes to get them back on when darkness fell. She wasn't sure how she had done it, so she refused to touch them again.

"Their coffee machine is on my phone now." I looked, and she was right: among her possible internet connections was KEURIG and WATER.

"What does 'water' do?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I've decided to wait until I get back to my apartment to take a shower, though."

Now, I understand why these friends are super-connected. The husband is a highly-skilled engineer and they're empty nesters, with no kids to suck up their time or mess up their settings. Plus, they're very green, and I'm sure everything is programmed for maximum efficiency and minimum power usage. 

What I'm not sure is how this is going to work for those of us without electrical engineering degrees. I'm not very internet-connected at all, and my devices are still kicking my ass. 

Take my smartphone. I admit, it's not top-of-the-line.  To be precise, it's a $35 burner I got at Wal-Mart because I had broken my last phone and was desperate to get something before leaving for Bouchercon. It works, right? And I can use it on my family plan, and it's not like I need the latest Galaxy 3000 Notebook which will probably burst into flames anyway. It texts, it takes pictures, and I can connect to weather.gov and Google Maps. 

What I can't do is get rid of all the preloaded bloatware that's taking up much of what limited memory the phone has to begin with. (This device is the smartphone equivalent of a foggy minded post-menopausal woman, ie, me.) One of my kids' friends tried to tell me how to "break" the phone. It sounded like the times in Charlie Brown when the adults are speaking: wah wah wah wah. My solution? I delete any app I don't need in the next four days, then download it again when I have to. I've gotten the Target app so many times they probably think I'm a Russian hacker.

At the Very Small Library where I volunteer, we had a wonderful new energy saving system installed last year. A heat pump - heat exchange pump? - it's supposed to save us big bucks by sucking heat out of the air, even when it's cold. Sounds great, right? Free heat! Except when the air temperature falls close to, or below, 0 F. Would you care to guess how many times during a Maine winter the outside temperature falls close to or below 0 F? If your answer is "Often enough to keep the librarian and volunteers huddled around plug-in electric heaters while the patrons browse in parkas," you're correct!

It's very efficient now it's warm outside. Unfortunately, it was programmed by the installer, a big guy who evidently runs hot in the summertime. Since those of us working there have only the most rudimentary understanding of how to reprogram to a temperature somewhere north of "frosty," we've mostly given up in favor of wearing sweaters indoors.

Then there was my recent attempt top be safety conscious by changing my router's (easily guessed) password. Remember? We were all supposed to reboot our routers to prevent the Russians from hacking them? I did my part for a safer America. I changed the password. Then I had to change the password on my laptop, so it could access the router. Then my phone. Then my Kindle. Then the Smithie's phone and laptop. Youngest's phone, laptop and Kindle. When the Sailor came home on leave and the Very Tall Boyfriend dropped in, they had to change the password on their phones.

At this point, I was thinking, "Здравствуйте, Russian friends!" But the worst was yet to come. I could NOT get my Amazon Echo to recognize the new password.

Suddenly, my life was in shambles. No instant-on kitchen timer. No classical music on demand. No weather updates. Worst of all, no podcasts to lighten the time I spent cooking, cleaning, and folding laundry. I was on Episode 43 of "The History of Rome." Caesar was in Gaul, and I needed to know what happened next!

Okay, I know what happened next, having seen the Shakespeare play and watched I, Claudius. Still, I loved that podcast.

I tried rebooting Alexa, my Kindle, the router (again.) I tried to convince Amazon it was a new Echo, so it would let me run a straight start-up. (I didn't fool them.) It wasn't until the Smithie's Very Smart Girlfriend was tooling around with her tablet in the kitchen that we had a break-through. "Hey, your Echo's not working," she said. "Want me to fix it?" Twenty minutes later, I had Caesar and Pompey back.

I have no idea what she did. If the Smithie ever breaks up with her, I'm screwed. I'll have to toss out the old Echo and get a new one if I lose the connection again.

You can see, with my experiences, why I'm a little dubious about the smart home of the future. What if the sprinklers go off as soon as I step onto the grass? What if the alarm sounds every time I open the door to get the mail? What if I can't get in to the refrigerator? Admittedly, that last might have some positive results. My doctor does want me to drop a few pounds. Maybe I could get a smart scale that cheers when I do well and nags me when I don't... or maybe not.

How about you, dear readers? Are you a fan of the Internet of Things? Or do you think your stuff is smart enough as it is?