It's not a stupid future at all. People thought home pages and the under construction guy GIF were stupid, now look where we are.
There are some very asinine products on the market, there are so very many badly implemented products that throw security and privacy out the window, and there are some that are trying their best with what we have today. All of these are fleshing out the ideas that will stick for tomorrow... and hopefully are getting the user base familiar with the right questions to ask when looking at new stuff.
The ability to reduce home energy usage, let people in remotely, get alerted to activity inside your house when you're on vacation, detect a leak or flood while away or asleep. These aren't stupid. Some of these will genuinely (attempt) to help the world, most of them are nice to have, but not stupid by any means.
Where we're likely headed is that all of these individual devices don't need a direct connection to the Internet, but will have some local/mesh communication protocol to get the data to a main hub. Each local protocol will have security so that you can't sniff raw data just by being near the house, and the hub would use whatever the latest and greatest 'Internet security' offers up, a la TLS.
This is pretty much how Z-Wave and ZigBee devices work with the more established home hubs from Mi Casa, Samsung (SmartThings), and Wink.
We will continue to get burned by manufacturers in the near term. We will get burned by expensive, cheap, no name, and trusted brands. It's a growing pain, we don't have to accept it, but the majority of the products in the near term are going to be awful. Find reviews and analysis, create them yourself, or sit out, but your 'stupid future' is not going to magically stop marching into your house.
In reply to a comment that was deleted (maybe it was getting downvoted?)
I think (hope) the difference will be the utility to the the average user of these devices. We're basically in the infancy of IoT and are already seeing useful consumer grade devices. Going back to the home hubs as an example: You can grab a z-wave light switch from a big box store, a generic z-wave thermostat from Amazon, the hubs go from free to $200, and The only knowledge you need are to be able to replace a light switch in your house and the knowledge you would use to install a new WiFi router, you can have your outside lights come on only when it's dark outside and your thermostat respond to outside temperatures or vacancy just like Nest does. All in, you're less than the price of a Nest Thermostat, are (probably) more secure, and have a real shot at actually reducing your electric bills- and that's just with what we have right this second.
Is it saving the world today? No. Is there WAY too much hype. Heck yes. Are there some REALLY useful devices out there today? Yeah, once you wade through the crop.
Admittedly we're in the super early adopter phase, but there are real non-superficial benefits to making our biggest home energy appliances smarter with respect to consumption. There are attempts to interface with the power providers to have things like dishwashers and washing machines automatically wait for lower usage times to run- which means we can use slack in the energy network instead of firing up more coal or bringing more turbines online. It's a bit of a rosy picture as its well understood that residential use doesn't compare to local industrial use, but let's get any efficiency we can.
As I've said to friends that are dubious on global warming- even if it's not a real threat, is it really a bad thing to use less energy and tear up less of our environment? Even if our residential efficiencies barely make a dent, assuming our privacy and security aren't completely compromised, is it bad to make our homes work just a little better?
Why does this stuff have to be networked though? My outside lights turn off and on each day with a timer switch that installed much like the networked switches today. I input the date and my zip code and now the timer adjusts for the sunset/sunrise throughout the year. It will even randomize the timing +/- 30 minutes so it's not quite as obvious to any observers. I've had this setup for almost 11 years now and it cost me ~$30.
Programmable thermostats have been a thing for about 20 years now. There is no need to have these things networked for only a slight gain in convenience. I'm pretty certain I can turn my thermostat down for vacations in less time than it would take to launch an app and do it.
If the logic is baked into the each of the lowest-level control elements (like the switch/timer that controls your lights) there's no flexibility. What if you later decide you want the lights to turn off from 3-5AM or to turn on 20 minutes earlier than the timer decides? I suppose you could conceivably have a re-programmable but non-networked timer for them, but that still prevents you from establishing more complicated interactions between devices. What if you only want the exterior lights to be on before you arrive home and so you want your phone being connected to your home wifi to override the timer rule?
I don't think each needs to be networked, at least not via IP or directly to the Internet. In fact, I'm hoping the design goes towards local protocols and hubs that are directly connected.
Your programmable thermostat very likely doesn't accommodate the situation where you're out of town for 8 days over the winter holidays and you need it to be just warm enough to not have pipes freeze, and you want it to be warm when you show up with your two toddlers and pregnant wife at 7pm (bedtime). Also, what if you can't remember if you actually turned the heat down or not?
Also, I'm sure you can't turn your thermostat down in less time as I have a Vacation Mode shortcut button that I can access from the Today pull down in iOS that sets the thermostat to 55, turns off all the lights, and turns on motion detection notifications- without unlocking my phone. I'm being pedantic, but it is truly that easy.
Your light switches hooked up to a surprisingly power hungry timer don't tell you that they actually turned on when you're gone. Can't remember if you left the living room on and you're out of town? Check your phone.
Using a local communication protocol helps keep your gadgets from leaking your info all over the Internet like those god forsaken Internet cameras and such are doing these days, and the hubs they connect to allow you to actually interface with them remotely. This leaves the hubs as the weakest remote link, but in that case you only have to worry about one vendor getting it right instead of every vendor. It doesn't remove the risk, but it certainly makes it more manageable.
Z-wave and ZigBee both have their flaws, especially around security, but they do have the advantage of not making everything in your house addressable from the Internet.
These things aren't necessary, but they're not frivolous. They already are bringing efficiencies with not all that much effort.
Probably because since the 2007 when the mobile bonanza started, everything has to be "apped" and sold on shiny websites, animations, cute logos etc. "There's an app for that" is one of the main reasons for this insanity.
> is it bad to make our homes work just a little better?
Not at all. Unfortunately, very few people are actually including proper security and risk costs. A device that improves energy use and makes usage data or admin control accessible by a network may not be "just a little better". The network attack risk may even make the device a net harm.
It is rare to even see these negatives addressed by the people promoting IoT. I consider this extreme negligence, as any problems from a network attack are paid by the end user. Like coal based power, insecure consumer devices avoid paying for their negative externalities.
There are some very asinine products on the market, there are so very many badly implemented products that throw security and privacy out the window, and there are some that are trying their best with what we have today. All of these are fleshing out the ideas that will stick for tomorrow... and hopefully are getting the user base familiar with the right questions to ask when looking at new stuff.
The ability to reduce home energy usage, let people in remotely, get alerted to activity inside your house when you're on vacation, detect a leak or flood while away or asleep. These aren't stupid. Some of these will genuinely (attempt) to help the world, most of them are nice to have, but not stupid by any means.
Where we're likely headed is that all of these individual devices don't need a direct connection to the Internet, but will have some local/mesh communication protocol to get the data to a main hub. Each local protocol will have security so that you can't sniff raw data just by being near the house, and the hub would use whatever the latest and greatest 'Internet security' offers up, a la TLS.
This is pretty much how Z-Wave and ZigBee devices work with the more established home hubs from Mi Casa, Samsung (SmartThings), and Wink.
We will continue to get burned by manufacturers in the near term. We will get burned by expensive, cheap, no name, and trusted brands. It's a growing pain, we don't have to accept it, but the majority of the products in the near term are going to be awful. Find reviews and analysis, create them yourself, or sit out, but your 'stupid future' is not going to magically stop marching into your house.