Wired’s deep dive into the 2021 smart home landscape highlights the industry’s biggest flaw: everything is impressive, but almost nothing is simple. Apple, Google, and Amazon keep promising that interoperability is right around the corner, yet consumers still need a flowchart just to understand whether their new smart lock will talk to their existing doorbell.
This is the year the smart home started to feel like a group project where everyone brought their own instructions and nobody agreed on the assignment. The individual devices keep getting better – faster responses, cleaner designs, more automations – but the ecosystem still feels like a collection of bright ideas duct-taped together.
If the industry ever truly aligns, the smart home could shift from novelty to necessity. Until then, most households will continue juggling apps, hubs, and troubleshooting routines like amateur system administrators.
Will consumers stick with the smart home long enough for it to mature? And how many fragmented standards can one industry survive before people opt out entirely?
Related article: Wired
