"Smart devices are turning out to be a poor investment"

From Android Police, April 1:

The sci-fi future we anticipated feels further off than ever

Summary

• Tech giants like Amazon and Google are wresting control away from consumers with each software update.
• The degradation of features and user experience in smart devices have left consumers feeling cheated.
• Moving towards local control and investing in professional solutions may be key in navigating the smart home industry.

As a child of the 90s, growing up bang in the middle of the cellphone and modern computing revolution, reading Asimov, watching Star Trek and re-runs of The Jetsons, I had certain expectations for the future. Smart homes that did my bidding, palm-sized computers that were truly my own, and functional ecosystems that accurately responded to my voice or presence all felt right within the realm of possibility.

 And for a time, we were heading towards that future. But the 2010s have passed, and in the 2020s, we are left with the remains of a dream unfulfilled and electronics that respond to the whims, fancies, and ever-changing business decisions of corporations rather than the customers who've shelled out their hard-earned money. What went wrong?

As someone who is an early adopter of all things smart and has invested a significant amount of money in building a fancy smart home, it saddens me to say that I feel cheated by the thousands of dollars I've spent on smart devices. And it's not a one-off.

Wrestling away control from the consumer — one update at a time
Killing basic features hurts customers and developers trying to improve the experience 

Amazon's recent move to block off local ADB connections on Fire TV devices is the latest example in a long line of grievences. A brand busy wrestling away control from the consumer after they've bought the product, the software update gimps a feature that has been present on the hardware ever since it launched back in 2014.

ADB-based commands let users take deep control of the hardware, and in the case of the Fire TV hardware, it can drastically improve the user experience. Now, just to be clear, I'm aware that enthusiasts were using it to replace Amazon's fullscreen video-playing, ad-ridden interface with a cleaner alternative home screen. And yes, Amazon wants to protect its business interests, which makes complete sense. It uses the ads to subsidize the cost of the hardware....

....MUCH MORE 

As noted in 2018's "I Am So Close To Going Full-On Luddite":

....All of which was, of course, foreseen by the prophetess.
(I'd go with "sybil" but that might be misinterpreted as either a young lady with multiple personalities or the woman who picked up the pieces on Fawlty Towers)

In 2014's "Internet of Things: In Which Izabella Approaches Escape Velocity Edition" we linked to FT Alphaville's Ms. Kaminska's speculative (and grin-inducing) piece:

Cybersecurity dispatches: Managing the IoT poltergeist threat

Imagine the scene in the not too distant future.

An Uber self-driving electric car has just dropped you home. Your front door has recognised your face, and your fingerprint has authenticated that it’s definitely you. You get into your house, not a key in sight, kick off your shoes, and happily discover that the 3D printing feature in your fridge has already printed the food you plan to consume for dinner. All the appliances you need are on. And everything you don’t need is off, nice and efficiently saving power.

You decide to treat yourself to a quick 30-minute Netflix holographic update, only to get a nudge from your wearable tech that you’ve still got a 10 minute exercise deficit to meet your daily exercise quota. It’s a problem because you happen to have signed up to the extreme health management option which shuts down ApplePay access — without which Netflix won’t work — if you fail to meet your objectives. You quickly get busy on your smart-grid connected treadmill (which conveniently sells off the energy produced by your system back into the grid).

When all of a sudden… your utility door flings open and your iRobot Roomba begins singing Daisy, Daisy....MORE

I was guessing that the Daisy ref. was to Kubrick's HAL 9000 departure, an homage to an homage to an homage. 

....But HAL's song was itself an homage:

Why HAL 9000 sang 'Daisy' in 2001

... It turns out that in 1961, the IBM 7094, among the earliest and largest mainframe machines developed by the computing giant, became the first computer to sing, and the tune it warbled was—you guessed it—"Daisy Bell." The vocals were programmed by John Kelly and Carol Lockbaum, while the musical accompaniment was programmed by Max Mathews. It seems certain that Kubrick used this as the inspiration for HAL's signoff in his movie.

A recording of the IBM 7094's rendition is below....blastr

And there you go.
And people still don't see a compelling need for connected homes.

That was six years ago. And people still don't see a compelling reason. Change my mind.