Where’s the “Smart” Convenience?
I had my furnace serviced today. It stopped running. Suddenly. My wife mentioned that the house was a bit cooler than normal and of course I didn't really pay attention to the first few warnings from her. I finally went to check my "smart" thermostat and it said all indicators green, except the house temperature was one degree below the set temperature. So I ran one more errand before I went to check again and sure enough it was now 3 degrees below the set temperature. It also indicated that the heating system was supposed to be on but when I went to check the actual furnace, it was silent and cold (like the death stare my wife gave me when I told her she was right from the first warning she gave me). So after losing a few hours to my bad judgement, I called my service technician. Upon arrival, the technician asked me what code(s) the furnace was displaying. Being that my "smart" thermostat has no hope to show those codes nor do I make it a habit to disassemble my furnace, I couldn’t answer him. He looked at a LED deep inside the circuitry of the furnace and stated that it was “yellow”. He asked: · how long had it been that the furnace had stopped working? · how much had it been running in the last few days? I couldn’t answer either question. Why does my "smart" thermostat all of a sudden seem a bit dumb? It barely tells me the bare minimum. Also, did I mention that this "smart" thermostat was not cheap? Since my thermostat is in constant communication with my furnace, how about: · reporting the Natural Gas and Carbon Monoxide levels around the furnace · if the thermostat’s heat status is set to on and the furnace’s fan is not spinning or its flame is not flaming send me an alert (and show it on the thermostat screen) · look at past trends of furnace usage, outside and inside temperatures and determine that my current heating pattern does not match (and proactively tells me that) · based on the outcomes above, contact my service provider with a report of all readings for the last month. This will make the technician's visit more efficient and get my home back in order faster. It just seems that with the amount of technology inside these "smart" thermostats and the valuable information inside my furnace, I should be getting a more seamless ‘warm home’ experience. This story can be extended to a lot of devices/appliances in and around the house (as these items get continually "smarter" and "smarter") and we as consumers should expect more complete and better stories from our technology. IoT, after all, is an intersection between convenience and technology.












