Let’s face it, folks. We live in a world that is getting increasingly lazy. Yeah, I said it. Lazy. I don’t care how many days a week you go to the gym, or how many miles you walk/run every week, or how many stairs you choose to take, or how many weights you lift. We are all lazy. Admit it. ‘Cos it’s true.
What contributes to this lazy culture? Technology. Example: we now have “smart homes.” Let’s think about that for a sec. Smart. Home. These are two words that I, at my advanced and decidedly old-fashioned age, never thought to string together. Now don’t get me wrong. I love my home. It’s cozy, pretty and more importantly, it’s paid off. But smart?
My home has never, in the 36 years we’ve lived here, demonstrated to me that it possesses anything but an average IQ. It shelters us, keeps us warm, dry, cool, and safe from prying eyes. It gives us a place to get our mail and all my Amazon packages, it serves as a family gathering place, it’s our nest. I love it. But I’m afraid it’s not smart. Sorry, house.
It seems like smart homes can do everything except pay their own mortgage and taxes. Smart homes can clean themselves. There’s automatic vacuums that clean your floors without you breaking a sweat.
You can order your Amazon Alexa (which I admit we do own) to activate the automatic iRobot vacuum. You could be in the shower, in the bathroom, in the attic, anywhere within shouting distance of Alexa and you can have your floors automatically cleaned. (I would prefer if, instead of cleaning my floors, the iRobot would hightail it into the bathrooms and scrub them, but that’s just me.) Lazy.
Smart homes can lock the doors remotely. You can program your smart home to unlock your door when you approach it. I’m afraid I’d be tempted to mess with my smart home.
I’d run to the door, listen for it to unlock, and then run away again and listen for it to lock back up. I could probably amuse myself for hours doing this. But I’m afraid that a smart home would eventually find a way to retaliate, like turning off the hot water when I’m in the shower, or lifting one end of the bed and dumping me on the floor.
Smart homes can wake you up gently in the morning by using a light that eventually gets brighter and reaches max luminosity when your alarm goes off. I have a vision of me sleeping so soundly that our bedroom ends up looking like it was erected on the surface of the sun, because I like to hit “snooze” more times than is necessary. Waking up with a sunburn is not ideal.
Smart homes can help you find lost items such as keys, phone, whatever. Smart homes can adjust the temperature in your house automatically. Smart homes can tell you when your basement is leaking water.
Smart homes can provide video footage of what’s going on outside your house. Smart homes can show us what our new dog is doing when we are not there, although in our case, ignorance may be bliss at this stage of the game. (More about our new adopted dog in my next column, I promise). Smart homes can lower or raise your blinds, turn your TVs on and off, your computers on and off, turn your lights on and off, and fire up your appliances. Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy and lazy.
You know, the more I write about smart homes, the more I want one. Not so much for the positive green effect they have on the environment, or the convenience, or the security, or the fact that it’s sounding more and more cool the more I write.
I’m thinking that having a smart home could be really a lot of fun. Kinda like a high-tech, futuristic Home Alone-esque scenario. I know I could devise several Smart home ways of annoying my husband when I’m not home, instead of doing it in person like I always do.
So, yeah, erase my previous “lazy” statement. I want a smart home now.
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