In this podcast episode, we dive deep into the current state of smart homes technology with Consumer Reports journalist Daniel Wroclawski, who brings 10 years of experience covering the smart home industry.

Dan shares candid insights about why our homes aren’t as smart as we’d expect in 2024 despite rapid advances in other tech sectors. Whether you’re a smart home enthusiast or just considering your first purchase, this conversation offers valuable insights into the current limitations, future possibilities, and practical considerations of smart home technology.

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Why are Smart Homes so Dumb?

James: Dan from Consumer Reports welcome to the podcast!

Dan: Hi thanks for having me.

James: Absolute pleasure um thank you for sparing the time um you know you are a consumer expert on smart homes. Good place to start I think would be like an overview um from you of like where do you feel like the state of smart home technology is at the moment.

Dan: Sure I honestly feel it’s a bit of a mess right now uh you know these uh I’ve been covering this space for 10 years now now and we’re still kind of dealing with the same problems that we’ve had 10 years ago mainly interoperability and these companies just not playing nicely and letting everything talk to each other uh I think there is some uh Hope on the horizon with the matter smart home standard assuming everyone adopts it fully uh but that’s still a little bit of a work in progress although they are making progress which is good but right now it’s it it’s still tricky and can be tough for consumers.

James: You mentioned as well you’ve been tracking the market for around 10 years right yes um and you know I reminded me the other day I was looking back at some old articles that it was like just about over 10 years since Google acquired Nest which at the time seemed like a massive deal right um yeah oh it definitely was yeah and then I think you know I just feel like since then we’ve seen some pretty successful companies right in terms of like how they’ve developed I’m thinking um ring for example very very popular one um so I mean how would you typify that like so it seems like we’ve had these sort of companies that have made some traction but it’s almost like they’re very Siloed they do one thing and then they don’t play with everything else.

Dan: Yeah so all of these these companies have had a lot of success just in singular products you know they develop a really compelling product really good branding really good marketing and consumers are getting the benefit of these individual products whether it’s an S thermostat or a ring doorbell or an Arlo security camera these are things that are resonating with people and they like them um but consumers aren’t really getting the the smart of the smart home if you will and that really comes from Automation and getting all of these things to play nicely together you know if it’s dark out and your ring doorbell detects motion um it’d be nice if it would you know turn your lights on so it looks like someone’s home if you’re not or something like that and while that is possible today um if you’re not you know a nerd like me you’re it’s going to be tricky for you to set up um you’re going to need you know a bunch of other products you’re going to need other apps not just the Ring app um and it it it’s just not simple for people um and I think we will get there one day I don’t think that’ll be next year but maybe in like the next five years um but yeah it it’s it’s been tough to get to this place of really encompassing the whole home in smart homes.

James: Yeah I mean I mean guess this is a bit of an unfair comparison right but you know Tesla other companies are talking about self-driving cars you know like we that’s happening like we have there are waymo taxis out there self-driving but yet we can’t get as you said like like a ring doorbell to talk to like a lighting um maybe like Philips Hue or whatever right so I mean what is going on there why is it that um that sort of expectation or what we would consider to be a fairly trivial problem to solve like not being solved and what’s going on right behind the scenes that people can’t see.

Dan: So for the longest time I would say it wasn’t being solved because these companies like data um and they get money from collecting all this data and you know when you allow products to talk to each other um you are relinquishing some control over that data you’re also relinquishing uh sales of your own potentially competing products if you know uh say ring actually does make a smart light bulb um it is not trivial to set up but you know if they let you play with say Phillips Hugh or or uh lifx or or whiz they are in theory losing out on a sale of their own smart light bulb uh so there’s just a lot of um competing priorities probably a nice way to put it um but just you know there this really at the end of the day comes down to money um I think what has changed in the last 5 years um and it’s actually been five years since uh the the big companies all got together and announced that they were creating the matter standard is they realized that by not solving this problem they’re actually leaving a lot more money on the table because in theory once you solve this problem you actually enable a lot more a a lot more things to be built on top of it so Services whether like the big one that everyone is focused on right now is home Energy Management especially as more people adopt solar and battery backup systems and generators and those kinds of things um there’s the theory is that there will be a lot of money to be made in home Energy Management Services that you could layer on top of these things but in order to get there everything has to work together um you know no one’s going to necessarily buy you know one brand of solar panels and battery backups and an EV and appliances is and you know you name it it it’s just not going to happen uh so you have to solve this problem and they are finally getting there um you know the the the the big players in Smart Home Apple Google Samsung Amazon um LG even uh they are adopting matter they are you know building it into their products it’s just it’s taken a lot longer I think than everyone hoped it would um but standards are hard they’re messy and they take a long time um you know we we take Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for granted today but those were very uh novel and difficult things to create you know like 20 years ago so um I think we will get there it’s just taking a lot longer than than people want it to and I think even then these these companies expected it would.

James: Right um so yeah okay you mentioned mat and that what I didn’t realize it’ been five years so I mean would is that going to I guess in in a way like a line in the sand like everything after that will be compatible but what about all the stuff they’ve already sold like is that um are we just going to have to forget about that.

Dan: Yeah it’s it’s tough um you know initially when they announced they made all these promises that oh the matter allows for bridging of older products into a matter setup um and while that’s true um it just hasn’t really been adopted much uh because there’s just not really much of an incentive uh you know they’d ra they’ll make more money if you go out and buy the new thing instead of releasing a software update or some kind of you know plug-in adapter for the old thing um where you’re actually seeing this now being solved is actually in the open source Community um if you’re familiar with home assistant that’s kind of the big open source uh smart home system they are allowing um they not allowing people since it’s open source you know you can build wherever you want for it people are building bridges for matter so that you could you know connect all of your old stuff to home assistant for example um and there are like thousands of Integrations for all sorts of random and even um products that uh you know the manufacturers have since gone out business there’s all these Integrations for them for home assistant so you can easily bring them in and then you can add matter bridging and Bridge them into a setup with all these other matter devices that’s pretty cool again that’s open source and it’s not easy for the average consumer to use that you got to be a really kind of techy person and be comfortable with setting up a Raspberry Pi and and all these things so it’s it is unfort because for the majority of consumers they’re kind of being left behind with this old stuff that they don’t really want to get rid of and shouldn’t have to.

James: Yeah but I suppose in that regard it’s they would probably just say it’s well you change your phone every two to three years there’s some expectation that you’re going to change your ring doorbell.

Dan: There is yeah and I think it’s the problem with Home Products in particular is it’s usually quite a bit longer than you know Electronics like smartphones or laptops or tablets um the small stuff yeah it’s much easier to to change but the big stuff your appliances um and which there are now uh lots of smart appliances we actually Consumer Reports does its own surveys in in the US at least about uh 20% of American of Americans own at least one smartar Appliance so refrigerator washer oven um dishwasher you name it okay um and those products are being left behind um and people aren’t aren’t going to you know replace them just to get that smart functionality because frankly and this is another topic we could dive into but frankly the the smart features of large appliances just aren’t that compelling on their own.

James: Exactly what I was going to kind of say right because I get I would be in that category we have a washing machine that has an app, um Samsung um but I just like how do you actually what is smart and what isn’t smart right because like whilst like I can, for example, choose programs so I can program like a specific wash on this thing like that’s pretty much all I can do and even then it doesn’t allow me to like remotely control the uh that the washing machine which I guess for a good reason right maybe I don’t want that being hacked and someone else to be able to turn it off on but that it also means that I’m stood by the washing machine with the app open programming it and then sending it to the machine but like I mean what’s the point I could just be uh pressing a button on it.

Dan: Yeah so it it you hit on the head um with appliances in particular the smart functionality actually Ju Just wrote about this this week it it’s really not compelling for most consumers um that same that same survey we did found that while 20% of Americans own a smart large Appliance only 7% actually use the smart features of the appliance and I think that just goes to show that it’s really not compelling for people it it’s funny actually almost a DEC ago I’d say maybe more like seven or eight years all these big manufacturers were very gung-ho about smart appliances and adding Wi-Fi and smarts to everything and they did that but they almost they essentially did it Without Really knowing what to do with it so all these appliances are out there and they have Wi-Fi connectivity and whatnot but they never really added any sort of compelling features like my own personal example I own an LG Smart refrigerator and it is only smart in that I can you know from my phone change the temperature settings of it okay um the one useful thing it could do for me is tell me if my five-year-old leaves the refrigerator door open and it collects data on every time I open and close the refrigerator doors and sends that back to LG but it can’t tell me when the door has been left open and send me an alert it has the data to do so but it won’t do it and that’s just a failing on LG’s part they could have built that feature and they chose not to.

James: Yeah and it feels like maybe in that scenario like the mindset for them is well we’re we’re the prioritizing getting the data getting your data exactly exactly yeah yeah yeah I mean it’s um certainly feels like in a lot of appliances we you know we’ve got to make the differentiation right between different types of smart technology but certainly with the appliances it feels like a lot of it is just they’ve shoehorn technology into it without really thinking about okay what are the use cases what do people what’s really going to improve the experience.

Dan: Yeah and that’s why you’re seeing there consumers see a lot more value in the small like gadgets if you will the smart thermostats the doorbells the lights the plugs um cuz they’re just frankly those companies I think have done a better job of communicating the value um and the appliance makers really have not

James: What is the most um sort of widely adopted smart home piece of technology do you know?

Dan: It you know I see so many different surveys on these things and I feel like it changes all the time um the big one seems to be uh lighting so smart light bulbs switches plugs those kinds of things um and then uh robot vacuums is another big one course um and then security products so cameras doorbells alarm systems those kinds of things um tend to be what’s at the top and it it changes a lot but those are usually the big ones.

James: Yeah certainly I mean I can I mean I have hardly any kind of smart home devices but apart from like I said mentioned some appliances but I definitely see more where you know people in the neighborhood is like things like um uh the grass um the vacuum cleaner and stuff I know that they’re really popular yeah yeah I think it’s um like on the security definitely seemed like it was something that was one of the early things that people adopted.

Dan: Yeah it it’s like a no-brainer you the value proposition there is very clear you know you feel safe in your own home um I personally was uh had an attempted burglary in my home about a little over a year ago and so uh yeah I I got a lot of value out of my home security system um but uh yeah outside of that it’s been hard for the value proposition to become clear everyone seems to think the next big one is energy management because everyone wants to save money on their electric bill or their you know Heating and Cooling bills um beyond that I I think it’s unclear I think there’s some hope that AI will reveal some of these things we are starting to see AI um and specifically this new form of AI the large language models uh applied to smart homes and you but it’s still very early days for that.

James: Yeah I I was going to ask you about that cuz it wasn’t so long ago maybe like a month where Tesla was showing off the robot I can’t remember what they’re calling it now Optimus yeah I think that’s kind of I mean I thought it was fascinating right like because he was talking about these different applications and a lot of them were to do with smart home right like okay this thing’s going to cook this thing’s going to do uh the washing up whatever and I supp in some respects that is kind of integration right isn’t it cuz it’s like security and cleaning and all these things so I wonder if actually that’s what end up ends up being the integration piece is the more robotics.

Dan: I think you’re right I mean going back to what we said about appliances the big thing that would make appliances compelling as if you know your dishwasher could load and unload itself or your you know you your washing machine could transfer the clothes to the dryer um and of of course that isn’t really possible but a robot could do that for you if we can get to that point um I’ve seen so many robot Concepts over the last 10 years that have never really gone beyond the the the demo stage um but I do think we are getting there and I think that these um new advances in a and AI will help us get there but I’m still kind of like I’ll believe it when I see it yet but that that is the end goal yeah for sure

James: Yeah something we haven’t touched on and I think it’s super important we did um the last podcast we did was about this um cyber security right MH uh I see like most technology is a trade-off right you’re you’re getting some benefit and based on like some negative right you’ve got to weigh that up um do you think the current benefits of Smart Homes Tech as it is now like outweighs the negative of the fact that you basically are increasing your cyber risk?

Dan: I think it depends who you ask for me no but I’m not the I’m not the norm um I would say for the average consumer the benefits don’t outweigh the risks um you know we we do our own um cyber security testing of connected products and many security vulnerabilities we you know report um back to the companies which is good because they’ll generally fix them sure but um yeah there’s when when you connect any of these things you just open yourself up to to risk um I I think the the only sort of fix for that on the horizon is more sort of local control which is where a lot of the smart home is moving so just you know things staying within the home and not being broadcasted outside the home that does provide you some protection there um but again companies have to be willing to make that tradeoff and you know if they do that they’re losing out on data that they can collect on you so competing uh priorties but um it yeah it it’s it’s a risk that you just sort of have to be willing to accept and of course there are things you can do you know to protect yourself um you know in terms of locking down your network you can set up a secondary Network and just put all your IoT stuff on that and that sort of insulates that stuff from you know your more personal devices like laptops and phones um but yeah at the end of the day it’s just a risk you have to take.

James: Okay well some good advice there you mentioned so you do your own testing I mean without naming names but like there’s some spec some you know really egregious stuff you that you see.

Dan: I don’t personally do we have a whole uh Team of of Engineers who do the testing but yeah we um I basically report on on what they they find um the some of the most egregious stuff I would say um at least in terms of brands that I can talk about I would say one of the biggest in the last couple years was yufi which is security uh home security brand um they just did not have very good uh cyber security practices there was I think it was almost two years ago now there was a big sort of Scandal where um a bunch of camera feeds were being broadcasted uh you know unencrypted over the web and people could access them and see other people’s camera feeds and and whatnot it was uh not good and they had to make a lot of changes um which they did in credit to then they’ve they’ve improved a lot since then but that was one of the the worst in recent memory I’d say but you know we see all sorts of random things we recently um I I don’t know the brand and I don’t think I could disclose it either but a a robot vacuum that um was essentially just very easy to um hack and take control of um and that that can be problematic because a lot of them have cameras so you know could okay hack into them and basically spy on you um so there’s a lot of uh things we see a lot of them aren’t generally that exciting it’s like oh you know sure yeah this traffic’s being broadcasted unencrypted like you should encrypt it um but every now and then you get something that’s kind of uh surprising.

James: Yeah I appreciate I think it’s a very um like honest and open um perspective there cuz I think you unfortunately because it’s not when you know and obviously companies not going to Market like this and I’m not saying they hide things but obviously they’re not they’re not going to focus on you know issues with cyber security so I think some of the time it’s not considered enough when you know people are making that consumer decision about what to buy right yeah oh absolutely um so I mean just I mean in general like as an aconsumer journalist is there you know do you have specific advice general advice for people about what to invest into in smart home like I think for example you know if there was just one system you would say okay you don’t have any smart home this is the kind of thing that I think would you know to provide the best experience a best return on investment for you as an individual?

Dan: It’s it’s tough I wouldn’t say there’s one system per se but I mean this probably doesn’t seem like the the most interesting advice but honestly just go with a name brand don’t buy some obscure product um that you know is either on Amazon or or where have you um I refer to them as alphabet soup Brands where it’s just like a scramble of letters that don’t really form any real words um don’t buy that stuff A lot of people do and it almost always is very insecure and easy to hack so just stay away from that stuff if you can go for things that are controlled locally um all matter devices which um they have the matter logo on the packaging so it’s very easy to identify all matter devices can be controlled locally which automatically sort of sets you up um for you know just some improved security there um Apple home is good solution anything that works that CU it’s all encrypted very well and done locally um you need to have an apple Hub in your home that’s like a homepod or an Apple TV um but having that it it just puts you in a much more secure uh position.

James: I guess there’s definitely one area of consumer like Electronics where it really doesn’t pay to go for the cheap option right not no it really does not cool look Dan really appreciate you taking the time I think there’s some great advice there for people and um yeah let’s see what happens right next few years about whether mattera actually brings more integration and whether these things are going to we can see new use cases being brought about by uh by better interoperability.

Dan: yeah I certainly hope so and at the very least it’ll be interesting to watch.

James:  I’ll ask you one final question. Is there one like takeaway thing you want people to know to really consider from this conversation?

Dan: I would say uh you know if you are interested in the smart home by all means you know it’s worth uh dabbling in a little bit but really just think about what you want to get out of it um don’t just buy something for the novelty of it um really think about what it could actually improve for you or a problem it could solve for you and start there um and I think you’ll get a lot more satisfaction out of it.

James: good advice and uh thanks again uh really conversation.