Home Chain

Blockchain This

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Blockchain recently because there have been several articles about how it might be the answer to Internet of Things security concerns among many, many other things.  Companies with names like Microsoft, Intel and IBM have started whole divisions and more, betting big that Blockchain style distributed security is how the world will work.  It is the ultimate panacea that will save us all from ourselves.

That's (Smart) Entertainment, Part 2: Devices

Previously, On the Internet of Schmoid...

Last week, I blew through nearly seven hundred words to come to the inescapable conclusion that WiFi changed the world.  That Sonos was the first real example of how the Internet of Things was going to change the custom installation world.  And all of that was really earth shaking news to all of you.  But only if you haven't ventured out of your 1990's home theater watching endless loops of the Matrix in the last two decades.  So, um yeah.  Let's move on.

This week, I'm going to step out on a limb and make some actual hard core recommendations.  Two to be precise: Harmony and Chromecast.  Whether these are things that you should buy for yourself or not, that I leave up to you, but they should be part of the consideration set.  The reason I'm going to focus on these two devices in not because they offer the best picture or sound or are even best in their class.  What's more important it that they changed how people think about their entertainment control.

That's (Smart) Entertainment, Part 1: Services

That Old Thing?

Home entertainment is arguably the first category of consumer electronics to truly go 'smart' in the smart home sense.  People have been trying to automate the couch viewing experience for decades now with mixed results.  Companies like Crestron, Control4 and Kaleidescape have been working on signal distribution, control for as along as the content has become digital.  And while those companies and many more have done some incredible things, the world has changed in a few fundamental ways that have forced them, the component (TV, receiver) manufactures and the distribution companies themselves to re-evaluate the concept of 'Home Entertainment.'

Smart Power

Only As Smart As What It Eats

One of the basics of any Smart Home that is often just assumed is that all of our switches and bulbs and voice activated toilet brushes run on electricity.  To take it farther, most of them control electricity whether by turning a light on or off, activating an appliance or changing your home's temperature when a presence is detected.  All of these things are either starting or stopping the flow of electrons through out your home.  These electrons are the food that your house eats.

But Schmoid, I can hear you say, electrons are electrons.  There aren't some that are better for your home than others, right?  There aren't high protein electrons or gluten-free electrons.  There's just electrons and they don't change on any level whether they were generated by burning coal or exposing photo-voltaic panels to sunlight.  You are correct, I reply.  But electrons aren't the only aspect here.  There's also 'Smart'.

Smart, Natural, Google Home

Let the Games Begin!

The last two weeks have seen some announcements in the home automation voice assistant space.  The big news is that Google bowed their 'Google Home' product, an answer to Amazon's Echo.  Apple also is rumored to be working on a home version of Siri with maybe a camera.  And, just for kicks, Amazon released an in-browser version of Alexa more to explore the concept than anything really earth shattering.

For the sake of brevity (a first for me), I'm going to ignore Apple's home assistant for now.  They haven't made any official announcements and the camera thing... well, even the rumors are a little unsure how real that is.  It would be nice for context on who is issuing commands so that I can over ride the MSD's requests, but the privacy issues may be too much for most of us to bear.  Enough on that.  On to Google Home.

Moby Schmoid

Book Review Time

I want to depart from the basic tech commentary for a week and discuss a different aspect of technology and that's art of making a living in the tech space.

I was recently sent this NYT review by my mother (thanks, Mom.  I think).  From that, I bought Disrupted and read it over the course of a month.  It should not have taken me that long because it is not a long book or a difficult read, but I had to put it down a few times.  I'm not really going to review the book as a piece of literature (or not much), but I do want to talk about how HARD IT HIT ME.

Applied Appliances

Big and Manual

Those big home appliances: the washer, the dryer, the refrigerator, the range and the dishwasher.  They seem such natural devices to connect to a home network and then out to the internet.  After all, they are big and stationary and plugged in and perform tasks that take significant time.  Would it not be great if, when connected, they did... what?

And that's the challenge: the use case.  There is not one that is truly compelling for any of these.  The manual nature of the tasks that these appliances help perform force us to be present at them, using them, monitoring them.  There is no robotic arm that will move the laundry from the washer to the drier and then fold your clothes and put them away for you.  The dishes still need to be loaded and then unloaded.  The same with the food in the refrigerator.  All of these things require us to be there and be doing.  The result is that it is just as easy (easier?) to press the buttons on the appliance as it is to reach into a pocket, open an app, wait for it to load and then do exactly. the. same. thing.