Home Is Where the Frustration Is With Smart Devices

A home that welcomes you when the front door opens. A stove that cooks for you. Rosey from The Jetsons. These are the promises of smart home technology. But like the flying cars of that 1960s cartoon, they remain just that: promises. Sure, we have robot vacuums and voice assistants and doorbells controlled with an app. And even though 39% of American households have the most familiar element of smart homes—voice-activated smart speakers—up to a quarter of people who buy Amazon's Alexa-enabled devices stop using them within two weeks of purchase, according to internal documents obtained by Bloomberg Business. And people who do use Alexa-enabled devices primarily use them to listen to music, set timers and turn lights on and off. Not exactly life-changing stuff. A recent analysis of conversations on Reddit about smart home devices confirms the waning interest. Using natural language processing, marketing agency Brunner scoured more than 240,000 comments dating back 10 years. Amazon’s Alexa hit the market in November 2014, and the topic of smart homes peaked between 2017 and 2019—yet even then, consumers had their doubts. Negative sentiment (“frustrating,” “doesn’t work”) has been trending upward since 2016, alongside a corresponding slump in positive comments. Even amid the surge of interest in all things home, spurred by the pandemic, conversation volume around smart devices dipped in 2020 and 2021, likely not helped by revelations that these devices are listening—and sending conversations back to their makers. "It was really eye-opening to us that the smart home discussion on Reddit fell despite a pandemic that kept people at home, where they were hyper-focused on improving their spaces,” said Scott Morgan, president and partner at Brunner. But we haven’t stopped chasing the dream of that robot maid, which, Brunner’s report noted, leaves room for challenger brands that make devices with the end user in mind. Nipping at the heels of Amazon Alexa and Google Nest is the 4,000-strong alliance of companies, from tech to grocery stores, behind Matter, which is developing universal standards for smart devices. However, Morgan cautioned, “if these Reddit trends continue, and when you add other factors [such as] Covid fatigue and inflation, we may continue to see a decrease in interest and optimism about the smart home, and brands that have invested in smart home products will need to work to earn back that enthusiasm."

Data Points

Infographic: Home Is Where the Frustration Is With Smart Devices

The reality of internet-enabled devices is falling short of consumer expectations

Eva Kis

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Eva Kis