Just because the internet of things was two hype cycles ago doesn’t mean we can’t still dunk on it.
The only IoT-enabled device I have (or plan to ever have) is a single electrical plug that I keep my swamp cooler plugged in to. It lets me turn it on and off from the couch, and set schedules for it to come on when I’m out of town so my house stays cool enough for my cats. It’s genuinely useful and it was like $10. I’ve never really seen any other attractive use case for IoT shit–certainly not fucking shoes.
I’ve got a couple bluetooth plugs around my house that were given to me. I plug my lamps into them, so I can crawl into bed to read and then turn off the lights without getting up. One of the only cool things IoT has given us, I think.
Yeah, during the winter when I don’t need the swamp cooler, that plug goes on my bedroom lamp. I can sort of wrap my head around why people with a large house would want all lights and shit app-controllable, but that’s really as far as it goes. No, I do not want my refrigerator to have WiFi and a fucking app.
There certainly are very useful applications for IoT. For example, at my house it regulates heating. It probably saved like 30% on my heating, with the added bonus that every room is the exact temperature I want. Of course, this is all done locally on Home Assistant. If I can at all avoid it, I don’t want any IoT device that connects to someone else’s cloud.
