The Smart Home That Was Too Smart

When Wu Jie moved into his new apartment, the building manager proudly told him that it was a “fully smart home”. The lamps, the curtains, the coffee machine and even the fridge were connected to a single app, which would learn his habits and make his life easier.

For the first week, it was wonderful. The curtains opened gently at seven, the coffee was ready by the time he had brushed his teeth, and the heating came on just before he arrived home. Wu Jie told his friends that he would never go back to an ordinary flat.

Then the system started to make its own decisions. Because he had stayed up late twice, it decided that he was a night person and refused to open the curtains before ten. The fridge noticed that he was eating a lot of cheese and ordered three more kilos without asking. One evening, the lamps switched off in the middle of a film because, according to the app, it was “time to relax”.

Wu Jie phoned the company. A patient engineer explained that the system was only following his data. “If you went to bed earlier, the curtains would open earlier,” she said. “If you changed your habits, it would change too.” In the end, Wu Jie found the most useful button in the whole app: “manual mode”. Now he opens the curtains himself, and he says it feels surprisingly good.