How People Allow Devices to Completely Control Their Lives
Many people today are overwhelmed with the advancements in technology, spending a lot of money on things intertwine with one another, such as $500 wearables that tends to communicate with another $150 worth of Wi-Fi scales. Hence, many devices today seem to connect almost everything in life.
This is what happened to Thomas Ricker as he recently spent hundreds or even thousands on things for wireless bulbs and also a small hockey-puck-sized bridge that can connect to the Wi-Fi. Darren Murph, a former colleague of Ricker wished him luck, after buying those and posting them on Instagram.
Murph claimed those things were the worst things he had ever purchased. Ricker, on the other hand, admitted he’s an idiot, realizing how much he had spent for something that needs more devices in order to completely control the devices and for them to function at its optimum.
This is the exact illustration of the Internet of Things (IoT), fixing something that is not actually broken, using a solution that is costlier, more complicated, and even requires regular charging. This is also similar to the rise of smartphones that has created a flood of wireless chips and cheap sensors, which are very small to put into anything – literally in common household devices.
Tumblr’s “The We Put A Chip In It!” archives some of today’s best and worst IoT devices that are contending for attention on Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Mims said the market will surely go through a shakeout.