Not every house can be a smart home. Unfortunately, some lack the opportunity to become updated enough for that grand title — here’s a lighthearted look at smart home technology.
Home smart home.
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like a smart home.
There’s been a lot of talk in the news and social media about smart homes.
It seems to be the new American dream. To live in a smart home, to grow up in a smart home. So chances are, in the near future, we’ll be seeing this kind of question on applications for employment and bank loans: “Were you raised in a smart home?”
Smart homes are a particularly American dream. You don’t hear much about smart homes in Great Britain, Russia, Indonesia, or Bolivia. Homeowners in those benighted countries have not yet experienced the delights of a bankrupting smart home mortgage.
But here in America, the smart home is the sine qua non for those with property ambitions. So today, America is not trying to keep up with the Joneses but trying to keep up with Alexa.
Smart Home vs. Dumb Home
Now, the opposite of a smart home is the dumb home.
The dumb home or hovel, as many have been called (once upon a time), is a woebegone domicile that lacks the futuristic panache of the smart home. Sadly it’s getting so that people will not admit to coming from a dumb home. Yet, have you heard anyone recently say with pride, “I was raised in a dumb home?” Or, “Yo, bro, I’m in a dumb home — deal with it?”
The fact of the matter is that Congress is considering relief checks for everyone who grew up in a dumb home — or at least all of the D.C. bureaucrats seem to be trying to find ways to spend all of the rich people’s hard-earned cash.
The march of technology, which is now practically a marathon, has left many American homes in the dust. The chances of these older traditional homes becoming smart homes is dismal. Yet renovation is a possibility for just about any shack with electricity (and access to Fort Knox.)
Defining domotics — or home automation.
Home automation, which exotic-minded scientists call domotics, makes a home “smart” by several different methods.
As in the movie 2001 Space Odyssey, a central computer, “HAL” if you like, runs the whole shebang. HAL maintains the temperature, opens and locks windows and doors. HAL turns lights off and on, raises and lowers window blinds, and turns over the mattress every three months.
In an automated smart home, all electrical and online devices are interconnected. This way, they can be turned on and off remotely. As well as monitored. So when little Johnny places the prank phone call to the governor’s mansion, his proud parents will know about it immediately and pat him on the head before they start patting him somewhere else.
It really boils down to that the homeowner and their family and pets need to do very little once they are inside their house. Some experts warn that this excessive ease will soon turn American brains into sponge cake. Unfortunately, this dire warning seems to come only from experts who do not live in smart homes.
Some astute homes suffer from platform fragmentation. But a good chiropractor can clear that right up. Technical standards can also be a problem. There is as yet no standardization of technical infrastructure. This means, in plain Bantu, that smart home buyers need to check computer compatibility before moving all of their Macintosh equipment. Their new intelligent home may only accept Apple.
Dumb homes and log cabins.
Abraham Lincoln was not born in a smart home or even a dumb home. He was born in a log cabin. And you can’t get much dumber than logs; they are terrible conversationalists. Yet, he turned out okay by most standards of judgment.
So all this hullabaloo about smart homes maybe just be so much hot air — but there is no question that the smart home devices provide a lot of ease for those who live in them.
Dumb homes can be great places to live because:
- You can go through your dirty socks anywhere, and no stinking robot is going to come out of the wall and steal them.
- Day-old pizza tastes better in a dumb home.
- You can walk around your dumb home in your comfortable frayed bathrobe. Would you dare do the same in your smart home?
- Dumb homes often have a unique and comforting smell all their own. That’s because they have really been lived in. Some have reported that smart homes are depressingly odor-free.
- The dumb home has dandelions on the lawn. The brainy house has AstroTurf.
How to finance a smart house.
If you are bound and determined to live in a smart home, you’ll need robust financing.
A bank mortgage is the most traditional way to go. Signing the mortgage papers in blood and giving the bank your firstborn as a hostage — are usually the terms requested.
Whether you live in a smart home or a dumb home — just make it a good one. And remember this: The grass is always greener when you have siding.
Image Credit: Ann Nekr; Pexels; Thank you!
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