I have a confession to make: I live in a broken (smart) home.
As I’ve adopted the smart home life, I’ve added many different smart devices throughout my home. To date, there are over 40 connected smart home gadgets in and around my house. Most of them aren’t made to talk to one another, so over the years I’ve built IFTTT recipes, Alexa routines, or Yonomi routines to make what I want easier to accomplish with the devices I have on hand. At this point, not a day goes by that something isn’t working as planned. This is one of the major downsides to today’s smart homes, stuff breaks.
The great thing about a light switch is that when you flip it on or off, it generally turns something on or off with almost 100% reliability. This is not the case with many smart home devices. I’ll ask Alexa to turn on my daughter’s light and instead I’ll hear about how her light isn’t responding. I’ll then click the “On” button on the Hue switch that controls that light, but that will blink a red light as the command fails. So I’ll take out my phone and turn on the light. So much convenience!
Sometimes it’s not the device’s fault. Sometimes the company that made the device has decided to make a change and it no longer works like it has for the past five years. Nest isn’t talking to anyone anymore. And we can’t go to its birthday party. People that bought into Lowes Iris smart home know this all too well.
When my smart home was just switches, bulbs and thermostats, things were simple. I had to worry only about the Insteon, Nest, and Hue apps. When I added my first Amazon Echo, it was meant to simplify things even further. Instead of everyone having to use apps to control everything, now we could all just use our voice. This has gotten much more complicated over time. I now have six different device hubs from six different companies, communicating over three different protocols. Not to mention the devices that are just WiFi. I have eleven smart home apps. My devices and groups list in the Alexa app is enormous, and every time I have to change out a light bulb, I have to make changes in three or four different apps. Things are bound to break.
When I finished my basement, I added a second Harmony hub and a new harmony remote just for the basement. It has been ten months and I have yet to see Alexa discover the routines from that second hub. I’ve put more time into trying to fix that one issue than I’ve put into this site in the past ten months, and I still haven’t found a fix.
For me, technology and troubleshooting are just a way of life. I live and breathe this stuff whether I’m at my job in the tech sector, or at my house relaxing. I keep a very close eye on all things smart home, not just to improve my life, but to bring you great content. And yet I’m still struggling to keep my smart home running smoothly.
When everything is working properly, I often feel like I’m living in the future. When even one thing is broken, I feel like I’m in smart home hell.
