Dave Taylor: Privacy versus functionality in smart homes
Q: I heard there’s a new smart bulb that can track your sleep without any sensors or other indicator. Given that my phone is already listening to my conversations, when does a smart home begin to get too smart?
A: As with so much in the world of tech, just because something can be made doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for your home or your personal need for privacy.
Let’s start with the smart bulb you’re talking about, because it is a pretty astonishing piece of tech. The bulbs are from Sengled, a company that has been making smart home gear for years now.
They feature “Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave Radar,” which is analyzed by an AI-powered app to assess your sleep quality, along with average heart rate and body temperature.
All from an innocuous light bulb. There are also reasons to believe your smartphone might well be listening to your conversations, too; most of us have experienced discussing a topic and then seeing related adverts online, as one example.
Geofencing is another potentially problematic smart tech, allowing you to have events trigger-based on your location. For example, you’re heading home, so your house turns on the lights to welcome you.
Thermostats also now add to the “smarts” of a modern home, using motion sensors to track when you are home or away. Even baby monitors can now include biosensors to track your sleeping infant’s health.
All of these technologies are very cool, and they can deliver a very futuristic living experience, but, as you suggest, there is a potential dark side.
You need go no further than George Orwell’s dystopian vision of “1984” to remember that the State kept tabs on individuals by using their telescreens (TVs) as monitoring devices. Our SmartTVs actually do just that, analyzing and reporting our viewing habits so we can get “customized” viewing options.
Twenty years ago, the refrain would have been, “No worry, you’re just one datapoint out of billions,” but the rise of Big Data analytics shows modern computing systems are more than capable of finding little you in that enormous sea of data.
What we do have is control. You can opt to have a TV that doesn’t upload data, you can skip those Amazon Alexa products in your home, you can leave your smartphone in the kitchen at night, and you can skip those new uber-smart lightbulbs.
I actually think that’s the best of all worlds: Those of us who are ready to give up some of our privacy in return for a smarter living environment can do so. People who prefer greater privacy can disconnect their Wi-Fi at bedtime, use regular LED bulbs and, dare I say it, manually adjust their thermostat when they get home from the office.
Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the early days of the Internet. He runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech help site. You can also find his gadget reviews on YouTube and chat with him on Twitter as @DaveTaylor too.
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