Smart appliance or dumb idea
Jon Titus, Editorial Director -- Test & Measurement World, 8/1/2001
Years ago, I heard a story-perhaps apocryphal-about a lady who ran a business from home. She took many calls on her toll-free number, but often no one seemed to exist at the other end of the line. After months of receiving these calls that disturbed her family at all hours, she traced the "caller" to a fuel-oil tank. According to this tale, the tank included an apparatus to automatically call an oil company for a refill. Although no one used the oil tank anymore, it dutifully called the oil company's old toll-free number, expecting to schedule a delivery.
Similar smart technology has been slow to catch on in consumer products. But the Internet and wireless networks may breathe new life into smart home devices and appliances, such as my dishwasher. Of course, such "smartness" comes at a price. Smart appliances will cost more because of their added "intelligence," and users will have to sign up for service contracts. Those wired or wireless services aren't free.
Intelligent remote systems cost money in other ways, too, as alarm and security companies already know. According to The Milken Institute Review, police in DeKalb, GA, responded to 144,000 alarms in 2000, only 39 of which were for actual burglaries. On average, each security alarm produces 1.3 false alarms per year. Multiply that by the number of future smart appliances, and you can see a problem emerge. Your Maytag repairman may become a frequent, although surly, guest. And he may charge for false alarms.
I have to ask myself, what is it about these new smart appliances that will need so much servicing? The simple dishwasher I've owned for 10 years still does a fine job and hasn't needed any repairs. Any sensors, processors, and communications circuits that manufacturers will add to appliances come with their own complexity. And what happens when one of these "brains" fail? Does it send continuous "service-request" e-mail messages to some grandmother in Albuquerque?
And why would smart appliances get serviced any faster than normal appliances? Try to get someone to fix any dryer on a Sunday night when it's full of the clothes you need for a trip that starts on Monday morning. When it comes time to buy a new appliance, your smart bet may be to buy the simplest appliances that meet your needs. (Few people I know use all 280 possible computer-controlled cycles on modern washing machines.) And if you buy a dryer, always get a spare drive belt-that's what usually breaks on Sunday. T&MW
