Life in a Smart Home... Troublesome, yet true, technology tribulations

Sometimes I like to imagine that my smart home is sentient... I'll have conversations with it, usually devolving into frustrated silence when Alexa says "...by the way..." NO. SHUT UP ALEXA. I DON'T CARE!

Anyway, this was my morning... I understand now how my wife feels when she comes in to wake me up early for this same reason.

You may feel this one in your soul.


Me: Steps into the shower at 4AM :notes: DON'T STOP... BELIEVING... HOLD ON TO THAT FEEEE-! :notes:

Meanwhile, in the Smart Home Innovation and Technology hub... In the background, what appears to be a tour guide is leading a group of devices around... Faintly, you hear "And this is the S.H.I.T." before...

Control Hub: Speaking to Moen Flo, the head of Water Operations at the coffee pot... ..... so he said "Wrecked em? Damn near killed em!"

Control Hub and Moen Flo both laugh raucously...

Sensor 1: Hey... Boss? Uhhh. I'm detecting unusual water usage in the main bathroom.

Control Hub: Bring it up on the main screen, Simmons.

A large wall display illuminates, the obvious focal point of the S.H.I.T., showing bar charts, historical usage, and waterflow patterns over time. Abruptly, audio starts playing over the speaker system at full volume...

:notes: ...EEEET LIGHTS, PEEEEEOPLE, AAAAHHHHHHHH!:notes:

Everyone in the hub winces visibly before the audio, mercifully, is cut off.

Control Hub: Oooof... That was bad. Reviews data... Yeah, this is definitely outside the norm... How many adults live in the home?

Sensor 1: According to our records, two, though patterns indicate only one of them seems to shower with any regularity...

Control Hub: Hmmm... That explains the anomalous air quality readings we've been seeing since the beginning of 2020. Ok. Based on the alerts and the obvious Manny Pacquiao album that was left on, this can't be either of the residents. What do you think, Moen?

Moen Flo: Agreed... This is clearly not normal usage. Go ahead and kill the water... We don't want the house to flood.

Sensor 1: You got it...

Sensor 1 rolls his chair down the long Mission Control-esque desk and leans in to bump the big red button that shuts down all water flow to the house.

Back in the shower...

Me: :notes:...dance again... Guilty feet have got noooOOOOOOOOH! :notes: THAT'S COLD! What happened to the hot wat... errr, ALL of the water?!

The water flow quickly trickles down to just a drip from the shower head... Fumbling for the counter top, soap running in my eyes, I locate my phone... Opening the app...

A lone red phone with a single button on it starts to ring. Placed on a table at the back of the command center, almost as if it were an artifact on display in a museum, it is clearly meant as a direct line to the S.H.I.T.

Picking up the red phone and placing it to her ear...

Control Hub: Yeah?

Faintly you hear the "Peanuts Teacher Voice" coming from the phone.

Control Hub: Well, we detected unusual water usage... So you're saying that you were showering and we shouldn't have shut the water off? Well, sir, with all due respect, it was very clearly not a normal event. Your usage patterns are pretty sparse, so we made the execut-... No sir, I meant no disrespect... I was just trying to say that if you used the shower more ofte-...

Frantic finger pointing to Sensor 1 and Moen, and then pointing at the water reset switch..

Control Hub: No sir. Sorry sir. It won't happen again. We'll get that turned back on right away.

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Well Done Clapping GIF by MOODMAN

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Excited Lets Go GIF

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Would love to see the discusssion between my S.H.I.T. hub and unofficial ring system.

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Good stuff here... along the lines of that animated movie Inside Out. Instant cult classic is my prediction.

The next time Alexa tries to tell me how to reset my router (often at full volume when I'm barely out of bed) I just may go full-out Office Space on her.

office space nothing to see here motherfucker GIF

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