The other day I was reading this article on how we are being lured to buy and use the smart products nowadays. For example, all of us use the toothbrush, floss and interdental brushes, or at least one of them, to clean our teeth every day. There comes the new Oral B Genius 9000, the smartest of all smart toothbrushes. To use the toothbrush you have to attach your phone to your bathroom mirror at mouth level so that its camera can keep an eye on you as it takes you on a "28-day plaque journey".
As you brush, the screen lits up telling you which bit of your mouth you are working on. This might have been smart, only you know the answer already. It times your brushing (a task you don't require) and while it does so, it distracts you from the job by telling you (incorrectly) what the weather is like outside, and what is happening in the world. "Impressive!" it says when you are done. Again, you being an adult, no longer need congratulating on having brushed your teeth.
The data from your brushing is duly logged, against which every future act of brushing could be compared - turning the oral hygiene routine into a fun competition against yourself. If you ask me, I shall never use this type of toothbrush app. The five minutes or so a day I spend cleaning teeth are a time of relative calm, not data-gathering activity. I am going to keep them that way.
Another smart invention is the smart clothes pegs. Peggy, being tested in Australia by Unilever, is a plastic peg containing a thermometer and a hygrometer that sends messages to your phone that say: "Hi, rain clouds are on the way, let's dry the washing tomorrow." The company is claiming that Peggy will allow parents to spend more time with children. This makes no sense as the main thing that keeps parents from children is not drying out the washing on rainy days - it's staring at their smartphones.
Fitbit and Jawbone have already turned half the population into competitive walking bores. Oral B smart toothbrush and Peggy take it one step beyond. Even more promising are smart umbrellas and smart wallets that discourage you from losing them by reminding you every time they stray too far from your phone. Yet these sound like a real nuisance - whenever you leave your umbrella inside your own front door and go to sit on the sofa, your phone tells you your umbrella is out of radius.
The most unwelcome "advance" of all is the smart tampon. This is a normal tampon attached to a wire that connects to a sensor clipped to your underpants. Every time the sensor thinks it's time for a new one it alerts your phone. It's difficult to imagine why anyone would want their body to be wired up in this way and, in any case, there is no need. Women already have two methods of knowing when to change tampons: looking at their watches and listening to their bodies.
The more we learn about the Internet of Things, the more I think we are slipping into a world of make-believe. The giddy growth of smart technology is both easy to understand and a mystery. The growing supply is no surprise. Manufacturers make this stuff because they can. The technology exists and it is quite cheap. Thanks to venture capitalists, there is no shortage of people to finance it.
On the demand side, it remains a puzzle. The fact that people are so willing to pay for non-solutions to non-problems is the best evidence of the irrationality of the consumer market.
If we want such smart gadgets, we must be dumb. And not only that: Smart technology is making us dumber. If we no longer have to look at the sky before putting the washing out, and if our favourite conversation is who walked/ brushed/squeezed for longest, our brains will soon become in far more urgent need of exercise than our gums or leg muscles.
As you brush, the screen lits up telling you which bit of your mouth you are working on. This might have been smart, only you know the answer already. It times your brushing (a task you don't require) and while it does so, it distracts you from the job by telling you (incorrectly) what the weather is like outside, and what is happening in the world. "Impressive!" it says when you are done. Again, you being an adult, no longer need congratulating on having brushed your teeth.
The data from your brushing is duly logged, against which every future act of brushing could be compared - turning the oral hygiene routine into a fun competition against yourself. If you ask me, I shall never use this type of toothbrush app. The five minutes or so a day I spend cleaning teeth are a time of relative calm, not data-gathering activity. I am going to keep them that way.
Another smart invention is the smart clothes pegs. Peggy, being tested in Australia by Unilever, is a plastic peg containing a thermometer and a hygrometer that sends messages to your phone that say: "Hi, rain clouds are on the way, let's dry the washing tomorrow." The company is claiming that Peggy will allow parents to spend more time with children. This makes no sense as the main thing that keeps parents from children is not drying out the washing on rainy days - it's staring at their smartphones.
Fitbit and Jawbone have already turned half the population into competitive walking bores. Oral B smart toothbrush and Peggy take it one step beyond. Even more promising are smart umbrellas and smart wallets that discourage you from losing them by reminding you every time they stray too far from your phone. Yet these sound like a real nuisance - whenever you leave your umbrella inside your own front door and go to sit on the sofa, your phone tells you your umbrella is out of radius.
The most unwelcome "advance" of all is the smart tampon. This is a normal tampon attached to a wire that connects to a sensor clipped to your underpants. Every time the sensor thinks it's time for a new one it alerts your phone. It's difficult to imagine why anyone would want their body to be wired up in this way and, in any case, there is no need. Women already have two methods of knowing when to change tampons: looking at their watches and listening to their bodies.
The more we learn about the Internet of Things, the more I think we are slipping into a world of make-believe. The giddy growth of smart technology is both easy to understand and a mystery. The growing supply is no surprise. Manufacturers make this stuff because they can. The technology exists and it is quite cheap. Thanks to venture capitalists, there is no shortage of people to finance it.
On the demand side, it remains a puzzle. The fact that people are so willing to pay for non-solutions to non-problems is the best evidence of the irrationality of the consumer market.
If we want such smart gadgets, we must be dumb. And not only that: Smart technology is making us dumber. If we no longer have to look at the sky before putting the washing out, and if our favourite conversation is who walked/ brushed/squeezed for longest, our brains will soon become in far more urgent need of exercise than our gums or leg muscles.
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