Techdirt brings up a great point as home automation rises in popularity, and integrated devices are pushed into every home, the stupid ideas increase as well.

Where I work, I pass a fridge every day that has a 13″ LCD display on one of the doors. What for? Well, to watch T.V. I guess… I think it was supposed to be helpful for having cooking shows on it while in the kitchen, but its position is odd, and the fact that it is embedded into the fridge makes it a little less useful. If it was removeable, and an internet ready device, then maybe it would not be as dumb.

Stories of internet connected fridges go back at least a decade, and now we have a text messaging lightbulb that will send you an urgent message when your bulb blows out, in case you happened to not actually notice it when you turned on the light and nothing happened. It is a pretty pointless implementation, but you have to hope that it’s one small step leading to something better. In other words, maybe it’s just proof of concept, leading to more interesting implementations, that don’t bother sending you an SMS when a bulb blows, but automatically switches on a different, nearby light instead, checks to see if you have extra bulbs and where they are, then, if you’re low on bulbs finds the best deal on bulbs. Then again… it’s just a light bulb. Stupid jokes aside, is it really that complicated to change a bulb?

What things have you noticed that are silly or dumb? What ideas seem half-complete, like the lightbulb idea that is listed on Techdirt?

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