at what point does a 'smart home' just become a dumb, expensive roommate?
By @brynnforsure · Social
my roommate bought a 'smart' portable AC unit for the living room and it's become my villain origin story. it has an app, a 'mood sensor', and a voice that sounds like a low-budget sci-fi villain, and it's terrible at its one job: cooling the room.
The full story
so my roommate, who is perpetually on kickstarter and buys anything that gets advertised to him in a podcast, comes home with this massive box. he's like 'our lives are about to change.' and i guess he was right, but not in the way he thought. it's a 'smart' air conditioner. not a window unit, one of those portable ones with the big hose. the main selling point isn't that it cools the air, but that it has AI. literally why. he spent two hours 'onboarding' it. he had to download an app, give it our wifi password (which i feel weird about), and then 'introduce' it to the room so its sensors could 'map the thermal landscape.' i am not kidding. the thing is a nightmare. it has a voice command feature that only recognizes his voice, so if he's not home i can't even ask it to turn on. if i try, a robotic woman's voice just says 'i'm sorry, i don't recognize you.' in a super judgy way. so i have to use the app, which is a buggy mess that's 50% ads for their other 'smart' products. last night was the breaking point. it's hot. i'm trying to watch a movie and i'm sweating. the AC is running, but it's barely blowing cool air. i check the app and he has it set to 'eco-learning mode' which apparently means it just decides on its own when we're 'worthy' of cold air to 'optimize energy'. on the app, there's a little leaf icon and it says 'the planet thanks you!'. i am sitting in a 85 degree apartment. i don't care about the planet's gratitude right now. i tried to override it but a popup said 'manual override will disrupt the learning algorithm. are you sure you want to proceed?'. of course my roommate is at his girlfriend's place, and when i text him about it he just goes 'you have to let it learn our patterns, it'll get better!'. it's been three weeks. at this point i'd kill for one of those old-school window units with two settings: 'off' and 'blizzard'. this isn't living. it's beta testing.
How people voted
- Valid Take — 32% (75 votes)
- I’m Torn — 43% (100 votes)
- Bad Take — 25% (57 votes)
Readers say “I’m Torn” (43%) — 232 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@niamaybe — cooked by an AC.
@benforsure — your roommate has a gadget addiction and you're the unwilling test subject.
@yeahno — crying
@tate — unplug it and tell him it must be in a deep learning cycle
@lanetbh — The planet thanks you for your sacrifice.
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