Re: Do we all need to feel like we're in a sci-fi movie?
Having fiddled around with a bunch of IoT stuff I can report that a lot of it is definitely suffering from a so-what problem.
I've tried a Nest, and it's most useful feature is Auto Away, because that turns off the heating automatically when we're out. Whilst that is supposedly enhanced by linking it to your mobile's location I've never noticed that having a positive effect. It gets ignored. So as far as I'm concerned the Nest would be as good as it is without an Internet connection altogether.
There's the Belkin WeMo stuff that doesn't work well and it's hard to get excited about it even when it operates correctly.
White goods? Forget it. Zero value there! An Internet connected kettle really is a waste of time.
Security systems? The Yale Smart Phone Alarm system has super crude mobile apps. It's an OK alarm, but the software really sucks. And who really is ever going to trust software with the task of keeping their front door locked? It has some nice ideas, like PIRs taking photos when triggered, but the camera and flash is so, so shit you get nothing but a dim blurred picture which will never help you identify the burglar. That's what you get when you power something off 2 AAs instead of a mains connection.
My overwhelming view is that the real problem is that stuff needs mains power to be truly useful, and we're trying to do too much stuff with battery powered devices.
Radiator smart valves are a good idea but are severely crippled by having to run on batteries. Given mains power you could do a really good heating control system with them where you could continuously adjust them, actually properly control them. Without it you end up with something that either runs out of battery power really quickly, or else lasts a few month's but is a bit shit.
A camera PIR is a good idea, but it needs mains power for the camera and flash to be worth it. No one wants to run round the house replacing or recharging PIRs throughout the house every day.
If you want it a smart door lock is a cool idea, but it could be so much better if it had the mains power. Built in video camera and voip would be a plus, but isn't possible on something designed to run on AAs and last a year.
The Nest works quite well, but then it has mains power available.
IoT lights work well, but they also have mains power.
In short, saving power with lower energy radios like Thread is a good idea (and a necessity at this time), but it's not going to revolutionise the IoT line up and make it all fantastic. I don't think useful IoT stuff will arrive until we either have much better batteries or they start building houses with mains power available in useful places, like next to radiators, doors, corners of coving.
And if everything was mains powered we wouldn't then need things like Thread. You'd use WiFi instead, and actually have bandwidth available too. For example a video PIR would be a lot better than a camera PIR. Device software could be unconstrained. A lot of software for these things is awful because the firmware has to run on a crummy microcontroller. With mains you could have a proper CPU and OS, maybe run a Web server, have a proper update mechanism, have access to a bunch of libraries that do useful stuff, no need for a house hub, etc.
Until then it'll still be a bit like a damp squib.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
