The Internet of things

Chateau L is undergoing a small amount of renovation at the moment. Thanks goodness for the Heritage Lottery Fund eh? Whilst we are getting ourselves a little extra space, we are at the same time entering the modern world. It's not that we're luddites, it is just that we are perpetually behind, so now is the opportunity to make up a little lost ground. Enter the internet of things, or IOT. I swear that there is nothing at the moment that isn't able to be connected to the internet. Maybe fruit. Everything else you are seemingly able to plug it in.

For instance we now have a central heating system that can be controlled from our phones, can detect when we are out and turn it down or off, and supposedly learns our habits and adjusts accordingly. Much of this is guff of course, but when we were away in Spain last weekend it did actually come in useful, as we were able to flip on the hot water and heating from somewhere around Hammersmith and thus entered a lovely warm house. Sorry, I mean castle. 

Similarly, the smoke detectors are wired in too, so we can now be alerted to the house burning down. This is probably less useful in the real world, but I suppose that if I am off galivanting somewhere and my phone tells me the house is on fire, I can at least try to call Mrs L and tell her to leave by the nearest exit. The fact that she never picks up her telephone is not relevant to the Internet of Things, or at least I hope not.

We shall shortly also be able to control the lights, music, and gawd knows what else as we gradually wire everything else in. How on earth we lived with mere physical switches before I just cannot fathom. Presumably this also opens up the possibility of criminal masterminds taking over our lights and refusing to turn them off until we pay them a vast fee, but I think I will take the risk. I am sure this is just the beginning - I have to say I was staggered when I began to uncover quite how slick quite a lot of this can be. I had no idea at all that most of this was even possible. I draw the line at a smart doorbell which will allow you to remotely assess the visitor and then unlock the door from afar, ie putting actual physical security in the hands of a bit of cruddy chinese Wi-Fi, but for a few simple things I think it could be a lot of fun. None of this beats having kids though - when the computer can make me a G&T and put on a CD, let's talk.