My family complained about our smart home technology… until we lost it

Have you ever heard the expression, “You don’t know how much you miss something until it’s gone?” Well, it unexpectedly happened to my family this past month.

I am still in the process of moving and my “new” home needs some serious repairs before I can complete the move. Because of this, many of the things my family and I used in our previous home are either not there yet or we can’t set them up yet because we don’t have a place for them or they are in storage and inaccessible.

The things we didn’t know we’d miss until we lost them are unexpected. Well, not to me, but to the rest of my family. They’re our smart home devices. After spending the better part of the last eight years installing automation, lights, plugs, vacuums, sensors, and more, losing 90% of them — at least temporarily — has hit my family harder than we could have ever imagined.

I miss my smart home, even though it was far from perfect

I’ll say it right up front: while nothing is perfect, getting anywhere close to perfect in a DIY smart home setup takes effort. That can make the process daunting and a little frustrating when you finally get started. Even for me, who tests and writes about smart homes for a living.

But when everything works as intended, a smart home can alleviate unexpected stress and anxiety. When I can call my Amazon Echo to add an item to my grocery list, set a reminder, set a timer, or perform some other useful task, my family and I know things will be taken care of. And that’s when it’s such a handy feature to glance at my Echo Show 15 to visually see our grocery list, calendar, reminders, and more.

Next to being able to ask Alexa for help to keep our lives more organized, lighting is the second most missed smart home tweak. Dimmable lights without having to rewire anything, automatically turning on at different times of the day, dimming the hallway in the middle of the night when motion is detected are all conveniences we miss.

But that’s all there is to it, right? At least, for the most part, a smart home is a convenience. So, with that being said, not all parts of my smart home are missed. Especially the parts that seemed to fail more often than others. Aside from lights or plugs randomly going offline, the biggest problem is Google Assistant, which likely won’t be fixed until Gemini takes over or is better integrated into Google Assistant.

If there is so much inconsistency and frustration, why would I miss it? An even bigger question is, why would my family miss it? That’s because, honestly, more often than not, things worked, except for my Google smart speakers. When things worked as intended and just worked, my smart home truly improved our daily lives.

Perhaps the device we missed the most were our Amazon Alexa speakers, particularly the Echo Show 15 because of its large screen that can quickly display the information we need at a glance and can be a fun source of entertainment while cooking. We use Alexa for a variety of reasons, and not just because it’s more consistent than Google Assistant.

The Alexa app is easy to use, and offers the ability to customize what you see in the app and put what you want in accessible places. For example, I can add any device, group, or list to the home page for quick access. There’s an activity feed that shows recently completed tasks. Oh, and you can sort and search your list of connected devices. But these are just a few of the parts of the Alexa app that make my smart home work a little better.

We also felt the absence of our smart bulbs, sensors, and plugs. These three are related because the plugs were used for certain lights that I didn’t want to buy a dedicated bulb for. But I do like that the lights would automatically turn on during the day when I went into a dark room or in the evening when I came home late from a sports game, because the sensor was set to do so when the lux value was below a certain point. They’re also great for those times when you have your hands full or just don’t want to get up to turn the lights on or off.

Ready to welcome technology back into my home

Another smart device I rely on for convenience and peace of mind is my smart door lock. I’ve gotten so used to not having house keys with me that I’ve locked myself out more times than I care to admit when I had to do it again. As of this writing, I’ve installed the new Anker eufy slim lock C33which solved that problem, but outdoor lighting and security cameras still need to be installed.

I plan on getting more of my home online in the coming weeks, assuming I can find the time, and it will include everything I’ve set up previously, along with a few new devices. It will take time to set everything up again, but I’ll definitely remind my family what it’s like to not have our smart home devices the next time someone complains.