There are incredible parallels between the failure modes of smart home technology and modern web site architecture:

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

Scott Jehl

@zachleat Yes. I recall using a similar metaphor around 2013 about the electricity in a home being the JS and that the "shelter" part of the home should work well regardless of whether the power is on and people actually got pretty upset, but that was back when folks were writing posts saying progressive enhancement is dead.

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@scottjehl new smart force-field roof requires power to repel rain, advocates say “don’t worry if power goes out, the power has never gone out for me”

Tim Severien

@zachleat Most smart home tech is light bulbs so you can dim them from your sofa and go “RED LIGHT DISTRICT INIT” and impress guests for exactly once because you can tell they’re not impressed.

Alex Russell

@zachleat Responsibility is always an option:

Keeping a smart home guest-friendly — Sensors and sensibility

Chatting last night with an out-of-town friend staying at another smart home I know in the city, he was recounting arriving off a long-haul flight and being unable to simply turn off the lights in the guest room. "I just want to go to sleep, shout at the system to turn the lights off, will you!

Sensors and sensibility (sensorsandsensibility.com)

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@timsev I mean, the keyword is all wrong. If you said RED ALERT I’d be really enjoying it

Josh Wayne

@zachleat The parallels go even deeper because the solutions in home automation also look like the same we use for websites.

Power goes out automated devices still have physical switches as falllbacks.

Smart lock fails physical key backup + only ran it locally so it was less prone to failure in the first place (planned fallbacks)

Company went out of business doesn't matter because I used an open source, local solution and never connected to their cloud anyway (reduced dependencies)

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@joshwayne yeah! These things can be designed responsibly—but most often are not

Jason Petersen (he)

@zachleat you mean internet outage, not power, right?

I have a couple of UPSes in my house but I’m not sure what exactly my home automation is expected to do when the power’s out. Lights? HVAC? My coffee maker? They all don’t work without power.

And yeah, don’t use devices that talk over the internet.

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@jason no I did not originally mean that but both failure modes are important!

Chris Henrick

@zachleat ditto with e-bikes, I’ve heard of manufacturers going under and then customers no longer can get their bike fixed or its software updated.

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@clhenrick woof, that’s an expensive brick

Eric

@zachleat oh hey, a definitely unrelated link https://mashable.com/article/internet-of-things-university-network-

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@eric

that seems HIGHLY RELATED, ERIC

Delia Christina

@zachleat

I wanna know how you got inside your house.

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@DeliaChristina when the internet of things closes a door, you break a window

Dave Rupert

@zachleat I like my appliances like I like my dogs; dumb as hell.

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@davatron5000 my smart dog just pooped in the living room and the roomba smeared it all over and now I’m getting carpet cleaning advertisements on google

Eaton

@zachleat Yeaaah. Like… I love home automation when it's like, ‘turn my xmas lights on and off for me," because the failure state is… I have to turn on my xmas lights manually. Not “I am stuck outside my own door in the cold and I can't reach tech support as the sun goes down and the ice weasels come”

Zach Leatherman :11ty:

@eaton the ice weasels are nothing if not terrifyingly consistent