The Smart House — Who Needs It?

on, if you use that thing, your brain is gonna shrivel up.”

That’s what my father-in-law told me when I showed him my new electronic calculator.  This was back in the 1970s, when people could do math with a pencil and a brain.

I laughed back then.  Here was the son of a horse trader who loved cars; a modern man who had become old fashioned.  But it wasn’t just him.  It seems most elderly folks feel prickly about the gifts of progress.  My mother, bless her, still has no use for a microwave oven.  Beats me how she makes popcorn or warms a cup of coffee.

I used to wonder if the same thing would happen to me in my later years.  I mean, how could it?  I was the one who bought the family a video camera, a TV with PIP, and not long ago a computer brimming with megas and gigas.  Could I become a technophobe?

I think I now know the answer.

Not long ago, this new fangled thing called a DVR for recording the TV shows appeared.  It was supposed to do everything a VCR does plus all kinds of other neat stuff.  But it made me think, if we did get one where would we put it?  How do you hook it up?  What would we do with our massive video tape library?  Would I have to learn new buttons on a new remote?

Then I thought, I’m happy with our old VCR.  It records well enough.  And it shows me the correct time.  So why change?  You know why… because you don’t want your kids treating you like a kid.  It was painful… but we are now DVRers (LOL out loud, as TV’s Mr. Monk would say.)

I felt the same way about those electronic GPS map for automobiles.  Who needs it?  I rarely get in a car to go someplace I don’t know where it is.  And when I do, I use those free maps I paid for with my travel club dues.  Besides, if you use that GPS gizmo too much your brain will shrivel up.

When I read about the “smart house” I really felt my bones creak.  This is where they put computer chips in all the appliances so they can talk to each other using a wireless protocol called “Bluetooth.” This will allow you to phone home and give instructions to your bread maker, or wok, or whatever.  Your refrigerator will be able to read bar codes and reorder over the Internet things you run out of, like that jar of horseradish you threw out because nobody liked it.

The washing machine and the dishwasher can make appointments with the hot water heater, and the piano will be able to tell the humidifier that it’s too dry in the house.  Who knows, maybe after you watch a scary movie on your DVR it can alert the security system to latch the doors and turn on all the lights.

It all sounds great.  But personally I don’t want my microwave talking to my refrigerator.  They don’t even have the same outlook on life.  I wouldn’t mind if the smoke alarm yelled at the dog when she starts chewing on a coffee table leg or even if the vacuum cleaner sent me an e-mail informing me it had sucked up some change from the sofa.  Other than that I don’t want my stuff talking to each other… or to me.

You know whose idea is this is, don’t you?  The “me” generation who can’t do math with a pencil and a brain.  The ones who spend an hour on a riding mower, then go exercise on a power tread mill.  They just don’t appreciate how easy life is already.  They don’t realize how in the olden days we had to get up out of the chair, walk over to the TV, change the channel, then walk all the way back to the chair.

But alas, I know the “smart house” is coming.  Yet I can’t help but imagine odd events, like the hall closet being exceptionally clean because the dust buster in there gets bored easily.  Or when we’re not home, the garage door opener letting our mower sneak over to see the weed whacker next door.

And I picture a cold and rainy morning when I run out to get the mail in my shirt sleeves, the security system will lock all the doors and then all the appliances will have a good laugh.  “That’ll teach the old geezer to pooh pooh the DVR player,” the can opener will say.