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If extraterrestrials or tech companies were trying to understand what a "smart home" was yesterday, via Google last event of launching of own brand material, they would leave with a rather confused and incoherent image.
The presenters of the company tried to sketch a vision of the domestic felicity generated by the gadgets, but the effect was closer to the chaos described above, the existing connected devices being accused (by Google) of being responsible for owners' ease of use of devices and control of their headaches – which required another type of "hub" device, which now needed to be unveiled, designed and priced to solve the problems associated with the making of the smart home.
Discover the "Made by Google" Welcome Center.
The smart consumer might think that you have to buy smart products and you will face serious problems just to handle an ever-increasing number of high-maintenance devices.
What looks great to throw good money after the bad. Unless you're a strong believer in the convenience concept of push-button-compatible gadgets – and the perpetual affirmation that the nirvana of the smart home has remained suspended it's true just around the corner. One more device at a time. Uh, and thanks to AI!
Yesterday, during the Google event, there did not seem to be any danger of nirvana.
Your idea of paradise is only if you pay $ 150 for a small screen housed inside a speaker. (ie after you've screamed for all the other connected devices that will form the chained rays on this control screen.)
Let's be clear, a small tablet is defined by its limitations: no standard web browser, no camera … No, it is not supposed to be a full-fledged entertainment device.
It's literally just supposed to stay there and build a visual control panel, with the usual type of content, also accessible on all connected devices, such as traffic, weather and recipes. So, $ 150 for a remote does not sound as cheap now, is not it?
The hub that acts as a digital photo frame when not actively used – which Google has done a lot – is also not a kind of magic dust. Call it screen saver 2.0.
A refrigerator also does the same thing with a few magnets and scraps of paper. Just add your own imagination.
During the presentation, Google insisted that the "evolving" smart home that it was showing was not limited to a hardware iteration – claiming that Google's artificial intelligence software is at work in the background, hand in hand with the glove all these devices, to really 'advance the vision'.
But if the best example he can find is the automatic selection by the AI photos to display on a digital photo frame, at the same time he asks consumers to shell out 150 USD for a discreet control concentrator to manually manage all this IoT, which seems disappointing to say the least. If it's not exactly contradictory.
Google also highlighted the concerns expressed by a vast majority of users, who felt overwhelmed by the abuse of technology, stating, "We want to make sure you control your digital well-being."
That's what was said during an event that literally unpacked a new clutch of duplicate, demanding and duplicate devices, which are, let's be clear, just as fond of your data, including the high tablet speaker somehow tried to claim would help people to "disconnect" from all their smart home technologies – so, basically, "buy this device to be able to use fewer devices" …); a ChromeOS tablet that converts into a laptop via a plug-in keyboard; and 2x versions of its new high-end smartphone, the Pixel 3.
There was even a Pixel Wireless Charging Stand that keeps the phone in a similar control position to that of a hub. (Oh, and Google did not even have the time to mention it during the cluttered presentation, but there's no doubt that this speaker co-branded by Disney for children, Mickey Mouse).
What is the average consumer supposed to do with all that incestuous overlapping material that harasses his wallet?
Smartphones have at least one clear purpose – being effectively versatile.
More and more powerful all-in-ones that allow you to do more with less and do not even require you to buy a new one every year, unlike the increasingly expensive and costly house (in terms money and attention), duplication and clutter. And that without even considering the security risks and the nightmare of privacy.
The two technological concepts really could not be further apart.
If you appreciate both your time and your money, the smartphone is the only one, the only one you can subscribe to.
While the smart home clearly needs a LOT of affinettes – if it ever wants to live up to the enthusiastic claims of "flawless convenience".
Or, a total rebranding.
The house of "creative and experimental gadget lovers" would be a more honest and realistic sale for now – and in the foreseeable future.
Instead, Google made a plea for what she dubbed the "thoughtful home." Even as she pressed a button to set up a motorized pedestal on which there was another set of electronics requiring a load that no one really needed – in the hope that consumers would nevertheless spend their time and money. money by equating redundant devices with congested domestic routines. If not, find a storage space in the overflowing drawers.
The different iterations of "smart" home appliances on the market illustrate just how experimental the concept is.
Only this week, Facebook with a swivel tablet attached to a smart speaker with a camera that looks like something you found in a prison warden's office.
Meanwhile, Google has hosted speakers in all kinds of physical forms, many of which resemble toilet fragrance dispensers – what can it do to prevent people from getting noticed?
And Amazon now counts as many Echo devices that it's almost impossible to track. It's as if the online business giant was throwing stones into a well to see if it could cause a sensation.
During the "smart home" part of Google's own brand presentation, the company's presenter parade often seemed like a move to robotics without provoking basic enthusiasm.
And do not dispel the reinforced feeling that the smart home is almost pure marketing, and that maintaining devices requiring updates, wired and / or wireless with objectives that overlap in a variety of ways throughout the country is the last way to help saturated consumers of technology achieve everything that is close to "well-being offline".
Additional convenience may be possible, perhaps – depending on the number and number of smart devices you buy; for what specific purpose (s); and probably only sporadically, until the next problematic update removes the judicious interaction between the kit and the utility. But the idea that the smart home equates to a thoughtful domestic bliss for families seems ridiculous.
All this material that can be updated inevitably introduces new responsibilities and complexities into family life, with the joint power to change dynamics and family relationships – depending on who has access to and control over devices ( and any generated content); whose task is to repair things and solve problems when problems inevitably occur (for example, a device failure OR a snafu generated by artificial intelligence, such as the "false" picture automatically displayed in a common area) ; and who will undertake to take care of and resolve any dispute that may arise from the fact that all the elements connected to the Internet are more and more intertwined in people's lives, by will or by force.
Hey Google, is there an artificial intelligence to handle all this?
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