HOW SMART IS SMART?

Everything connects to everything else these days, but it’s important to know your smart home’s limits

- ALEX COX

The Internet of Things is everywhere. That’s a fact of modern life. Enterprising companies have created smart devices, or at least devices that purport to be smart, which slot into virtually every market vertical because it’s so easy; the wide availability of off–the–shelf networking packages and software solutions means connecting something to the internet is now a triviality. You could probably connect your cat to the internet if it could bear to wear the appropriate hardware.

There’s obviously something of an argument against the speedy expansion of the Internet of Things. It’s entirely justified, too: those stock components, those thrown– together software packages from companies often more familiar with (say) pet food dispensers than coding secure applications, have the potential to be equal parts inefficient and insecure. Quite often they’re entirely unnecessary, connecting things to your network that don’t need that function, however convenient it might seem.

In a broad sense, it’s basically the same argument often levied against services like Alexa and Siri. These things probably aren’t going to cause you a problem, but you just don’t know what data is going to end up where, however much assurance you might get from the manufacturer.

If that seems like a strange way to begin a look at some of the oddest connected devices out there, it probably is. But it’s important to go into these things with your eyes open. They’re fun, and they might even be practical, but make sure they’re useful enough to earn their place on your home network.

Getting smart in the bathroom