I’m a relatively early adopter of smart home products. While I didn’t dive in during the X.10 days, I’ve been using a variety of smart home devices for well over a decade now, and jumped in on HomeKit as soon as it crossed the Atlantic.
But a recent experience of something as simple as replacing a failed light-bulb really drove home how much further we have to go before we can expect non-techies to climb on board …
One of my Philips Hue color ambiance bulbs failed a couple of days ago. It was probably more than 10 years old by then, having been moved between two or three different lamps, so I didn’t consider that too unreasonable a lifespan.
No problem, I thought, I’ll just order a replacement and be up-and-running again within a couple of minutes. The new bulb duly arrived, I opened the Home app, selected the room, tapped the + button, selected Add Accessory and the code scan window opened.
I had a very vague and possibly incorrect recollection that the last time I did this a long time ago it was a conventional barcode we scanned, but the app clearly told me to scan the QR code.
So, I tried to scan the QR code printed on the bulb itself. The Home app made a number of attempts at identifying it, briefly showing white boxes in a variety of sizes, shapes, and angles, but no luck.
I went very close, to fill the frame. Nada. I backed right out. Nope.
I dug the Quick Start guide out, which was interesting as I’d ordered a twin-pack in order to have a spare, and there was just a single guide with a single QR code. But the leaflet said to scan it, so …
Nope – just a repeat of the bulb-scanning experience.
I’ve been doing this stuff a long time, so just rolled my eyes and went to plan C: plugging it into the lamp, opening the Hue app, waiting for that to find it, and then finally adding it to the Home app. But it reminded me that I don’t think I’ve ever had a quick, slick, It Just Works experience with anything smart home related. Pretty much every device I’ve ever added to my home has required the ritual sacrifice of at least one goat.
This is the problem we still need to fix with smart home kit. It’s utterly ridiculous that it’s this hard to change a lightbulb, FFS!
It’s the problem Apple promised to fix with HomeKit, but didn’t. It’s the problem the company really needs to solve if it ever hopes to persuade normals to buy into smart homes.
To be fair, the company is aware of this. A patent application published five years ago described an approach to smart home devices which can completely configure themselves, with the only job of the user being to grant permission.
Apple cameras would use Apple Intelligence to scan your home, identify objects like sofas and cookers, use those to label each room – and then intelligently add devices to the network.
Plug that new smart bulb into a living room lamp, and the system would say to itself “Aha, that’s been added to a lamp in the living room, and the previous bulb there was named Living Room Table Lamp, so I’ll just name it and configure it to match the previous bulb, and add it to all the same scenes.”
If it’s instead added to a new lamp, the system would think “Ok, this has been added to a floor lamp in the dining room, so I’ll provisionally call it Dining Room Floor Lamp and ask the homeowner to confirm and advise whether they want to add it to the two living room scenes they have.”
A good first step would be to apply this kind of intelligence to the Apple-branded smart home products we’re expecting to see launched – but equally important will be the Cupertino company offering this to the Connectivity Standards Alliance for inclusion in the Matter standard. Apple has form for occasional acts of industry altruism of this kind, such as allowing the Qi2 standard to be based on MagSafe.
With that approach implemented, changing a smart light bulb would be as easy as, well, changing a light-bulb.
Photo: Philips/Signify
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