There are plenty of amazing smart home gadgets out there that are worth your time and money. Some of the examples that come to mind are the Nest thermostat. How to install and use the Nest Thermostat to automate energy savings. How to install and use the Nest Thermostat to automate energy savings. A Nest thermostat is the perfect way to start. In just one week of use, we cut our power consumption in half. Read More Then there are the fabulous Philips Hue Lights 8 apps for Philips Hue Lights. 8 fabulous apps for Philips Hue Lights. The Philips Hue system has its own app, but why settle for the default when there are so many great options? These 8 apps give you fabulous options for some really cool effects. Read More Some will even save your life. The Nest Protect Nest Protect Review and Giveaway Nest Protect Review and Giveaway Read More is an incredibly accurate WiFi-connected smoke and carbon monoxide detector.
They are all useful products that will eventually become ubiquitous because they are incredibly useful.
But then there are the WiFi-equipped smartphone-enabled devices that aren't as useful. The types that should never see the light of day. Here are 9 of the worst.
Plain, boiled rice is one of the easiest dishes to cook.
God help you if you're so dense you need to spend $1000+ on a WiFi-enabled rice cooker to do the culinary equivalent of playing chopsticks on the piano. But some people are, which explains the existence of the rice cooker for Panasonic..
It can be controlled via a FeliCa-enabled smartphone (like NFC, but even fewer people use it), and it can store up to 100 recipes by connecting to the Panasonic Cooking Cloud server. No, I'm not making this up..
The British love their tea. According to the hallowed hansard of truth OMGFacts, the British drink something approaching 60 billion cups per year. That probably explains why India was colonized, as well as the ugly British smile.
It also makes it less of a surprise that UK electronics retailer FireBox is offering a WiFi-enabled kettle. Yes, for £99, you can also craft from your iPhone. Meet the iKettle.
Not only does it allow you to remotely boil some water on demand, it can also sync up with your alarm and even boil a pot of water when you get home.
It's the height of laziness, and given the short lifespan of electric boilers, it's very expensive for what it is. Avoid.
How do you like the steak? Seasoned with a little garlic and rosemary, perhaps? How about an essence of burnt plastic and melted electronics? Hmm.
If that sounds like something to you, check out Pantelligent. This $249 skillet lets you control the temperature of your food and even gives you cooking instructions from its iPhone app.
Or you can just learn to cook. It is not so difficult. It's certainly not hard enough to justify spending $249 on a skillet.
The Porkfolio is the coin-counting piggy bank taken to its logical extreme, and includes sensors and electronics that measure how much you're saving from your iPhone and make it easy to set goals.
The only problem is that it costs a mere $49 watering down, effectively negating any savings you might get from keeping your loose change. Don't bother with that. Just use a mason jar.
If you want to take saving money to the next level, try budgeting software like YNAB YNAB Makes it easy to budget and stick to it YNAB Makes budgeting and sticking It's what your checking account reminds you of A Southern Nation debt-laden Europe? You need a budget. We know it's hard to keep track of expenses. YNAB can help. Read more.
You may have updated your Twitter on the shitter, but have you ever flushed the toilet from your phone?
The Satis toilet lets you do that, and more, through its built-in electronics and companion Android app. It even comes with built-in speakers that let you listen to your favorite tunes while dropping a load.
Suggested audition material includes R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet (Water) , Uptown Dump by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, Cheeks are moving for Meghan Trainor, and anything for Ariana Grande.
What do you look for in a fridge? Do you just want it to keep your food fresh? Or do you want me to post tweets, check the weather and update your calendar?
If you answered yes to the last question, then the Samsung RF4289 is for you. It has an 8-inch touch screen in a 28-cubic-foot refrigerator and can be connected to the Internet through a WiFi or Ethernet connection.
How much is a...such...a bit of kit worth? A cut below $3,500.
Do you know how many eggs are in your fridge?
Well, You do ? If you don't, you could always get up and check. Or, you can buy an Egg Minder and discover it from your iPhone. Yes, this is a real product, but it really shouldn't be.
The Egg Minder is $49 and has even been featured on the Jay Leno Show. It allows you to remotely check how many eggs are in your fridge, how long they've been there, and not much else.
Anyone who knows me is well aware of my love of food. In fact, my Facebook (and Instagram) timeline is mostly photos of things I've eaten and things I've cooked. So it should be all over this WiFi enabled sous vide cooker, right?
Well, no. Sous Vide is the latest modern method of cooking food, and involves sealing meat or fish in a plastic bag and immersing it in a temperature-controlled water bath. Normally around 40ºMark C.
The problem is that this is also a recipe for bacteria growth, as the food must reach 100ºC to kill any of the microscopic nasties that live in it.
Not well. It is not smart. It's just WiFi's way of giving you chronic diarrhea.
Okay, I'm cheating here. Kisha isn't strictly speaking like a smart home device, but it's so stupendously amazing that it would be rude not to mention it. But what is this?
Get ready people. It's a doozy Kisha is the world's first smart umbrella. Yes. You heard me right. A smart umbrella. So what makes it smart? Does it cure cancer? Will he find a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Middle East? Not exactly.
This £49 ($75) umbrella tells you when it's likely to rain (as all smartphones already do, and for free), and alerts you when you're moving away from your super-expensive umbrella. Because the proper solution to the problem of losing a $4 umbrella in a restaurant is to spend $75 on a bluetooth-enabled one.
From fridge tweeters to WiFi-controlled Sous-Vide cookers, there are some terrible smart home gadgets out there. I found nine of the worst. But do you think I missed any? Let me know in the comments below.
Likewise, if you're working on a smart home device that isn't stupid, or you have a hardware startup Why Hardware Startups Are Hard:Bringing ErgoDox to Life Why Hardware Startups Are Hard:Bringing ErgoDox to Life Here's a controversial opinion for you:Launching a software startup is easy. Hardware, on the other hand? Hardware boots are difficult. Really difficult. Read more about what you want to tell me, let me know in the comments and we'll talk.
