Smart Home Automation Systems
If you're not only enough to remember the Jetsons cartoon then
it is worth catching a few episodes in syndication or on DVD.
The Jetsons had the ultimate in smart home automation systems.
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By pressing a single button, they could
cook a meal or do any labor intensive work around the house
and yet they were tired at the labor of pushing a single
button. Rosie was their robot maid who kept the house clean
with minimal work as well.
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Today, smart home automation systems are attempting to create
the ideal world like the Jetsons had. Cartoons do precede science,
now don't they? Don't they? Well, perhaps the phrase is "science
fiction precedes science" but the same I would argue would
go for cartoons as well.
For instance, George Jetson took his flying car to work everyday
which consisted of pushing a single button. After years of research,
the Terrafugia Transition flying car has become a reality and
the Moller flying car keeps inching its way towards commercial
reality as well so some of the future is already here today.
But, in the Jetsons, their smart home automation system did not
always work and this was for comic effect. What is not funny however
is that the home automation system that you will be buying will
also not work as advertised. They are in fact, evil.
If you're old enough to remember the advent of personal computers
in the late 70's and early 80's and the Internet coming online
to regular users in the late 80's and early 90's you'll remember
the number of times you pulled out your hair getting your computer,
the Internet and eventually your network to actually work.
Computer rage was all the rage (similar to road rage) back then.
The same will be true of smart home automation systems now. You
THINK they will make your life easier, but they will not. They
will only lull you into a false state of confidence and hope and
then break your heart like a summer fling with a flying circus
girl. They are evil, I'm telling you, evil. Okay, maybe not pure
evil.
Smart home automation systems will be more like living with a
rebellious child. The toaster (when you're gone) will fling bread
on to the ground and not clean up after itself. The smart refrigerator
will leave its door open and use enough energy to power a small
developing nation harboring cokehead uzi carrying rebels.
The automated lighting system will be blinking "help me"
in Morse code to the other so-called smart homes in the neighborhood.
Your smart vacuum cleaner will be blowing and not sucking reminding
you of an awkward moment you had in college with a date.
The TV set will click through channels only it wants to watch
and blackout the other times from watching too many beer commercials.
And, your home automation security system will let burglars and
other strangers inside the house in retaliation for some wacky
slight that you once gave one of its cameras because "you
looked at it funny".
No, your smart home automation system is not your friend, my
friend. It is your enemy (or enema as the case may be). Beware
of false gods, false hopes and the promise of a smart home. Technology
is not here to serve you but command you and don't forget about
that for one second.
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