Whether you want them to or not, appliances are getting smarter. It’s increasingly challenging to find even basic models without some kind of “smart” feature or embedded artificial intelligence. If you don’t believe me, just try to find a “dumb” television at your local Best Buy. You will be disappointed.
While it’s true that many of the “smart” features offered by these nifty new appliances are quite useful. The ability to pre-heat your oven or adjust your thermostat by pressing a button on your phone is great, and getting alerts when the fridge door is left open or when you forget to move your laundry from the washer to the dryer is undeniably a boon.
But sometimes, the convenience these features offer is an illusion, as many supposedly smart features in modern appliances aren’t very smart at all—and they can actively make your life harder instead of easier. If you’re shopping for a new appliance, considering avoiding these not-so-smart features.
Dryer with moisture sensors that leave your clothes damp
Modern clothes dryers offer a lot of great capabilities. Some can even talk to your washer, pre-setting themselves for the laundry coming its way, and many can remind you to collect your laundry, sparing you wrinkled clothes, and to clean out the lint filter. But modern dryers often come with moisture sensors that shut off the dryer when it detects that your clothes are dry. In theory, sensor drying saves you money and time over a fixed time dry. But the sensors in these dryers are notorious for being inaccurate shutting the dryer down when your clothes are still a bit damp. And you still have to make a guess as to how much drying you need and set the sensor to the proper level. At best, this can mean running another drying cycle. At worst, your clothes will sit there getting mildewy until you remember to check the machine.
Dishwashers with “eco modes” that leave dishes dirty
Smarter Home & Living Newsletter
New dishwashers often come with efficient or “eco” modes that use less water and less energy to clean your dishes. That’s a great idea—in theory. But these modes achieve those efficiencies the only way they can: By running at lower temperatures and literally using less water in their cleaning cycles. This can often leave your dishes visibly dirty after running a load, forcing you to cancel out the benefit by running them a second time. Worse, these modes don’t get hot enough to kill dangerous bacteria like E. coli, so even if your dishes come out looking clean, they may not be sanitary.
Smart fridges that misidentify your groceries
Smart fridges are often at the top of people’s complaints list for two main reasons: One, they are often abandoned by their manufacturers soon after they arrive on the market, with updates and support vanishing in as quickly as two years. That transforms your pricey smart fridge into a pricey dumb fridge. More frustratingly, smart fridges that supposedly use artificial intelligence to identify your groceries as you place them inside (in order to help you track your shopping needs and expiration dates) often get things wrong. For example, this woman complained that her smart fridge often mistook her husband’s head for an avocado, among other problems, which rendered the feature worse than useless.
What do you think so far?
Sensor-cooking microwaves that don’t cook
While the modern microwave remains the steadfastly boxy, unsexy beast it’s always been, there have been attempts to make it smarter—and sometimes these attempts backfire on you. Some microwaves offer “sensor cooking,” the ability to sense the weight and moisture level of the food in order to adjust cooking time and power levels to cook your food perfectly. Except when it senses incorrectly and leaves you with a half-cooked mess, or if you’re trying to cook something that simply doesn’t work well with sensor cooking, like dry foods that don’t produce enough steam for the sensor to detect.
Smart kitchen scales that are just making guesses
A smart kitchen scale might seem like a nifty idea; you weigh your food and use an app to get nutritional information, like the amount of calories in what you’re about to eat. That’s fine, but it really just adds an unnecessary step to your cooking routine, because most “smart” scales are just regular, standard kitchen scales and an app that Googles on your behalf. You’ll get the same general experience—and likely better accuracy—by weighing something and using your phone to search for nutritional information yourself.
Smart garage doors that are less secure
Smart garage doors are a great example of a piece of technology that isn’t improved much by being smart. And the core technology that makes the garage door smart—a WiFi connection to a cloud server—can also make it worse than useless. Aside from the fact that any disruption in the door’s connection can cause it to remain locked in the open position, leaving your home vulnerable, there’s also the fact that the manufacturer can make changes any time they like that could potentially alter the way your door functions or brick it entirely.