Sometimes you’re better off staying dumb…
The Amazon Web Services outage on Monday caused a ton of headaches. I know I was affected. It took me a couple of tries to get my PlayStation online.
Nightmare.
But my problem wasn’t quite as bad as the ones experienced by people whose smartbeds went on the fritz because of the outage.
According to PC Mag, some people who use Eight Sleep smart beds started having problems with their beds’ heat control, which stopped working. There were also reports of beds getting stuck in one position.
Fortunately, they weren’t slamming shut over and over with people trapped inside like some kind of Tex Avery cartoon.
That would be terrible… and hilarious.
This is because the beds use cloud technology, and the outage was widespread enough that the CEO took to X to apologize.
Good on him for apologizing, even though the outage wasn’t their fault at all.
However, let this be another reminder that not every object in our lives needs to be “smart.”
My bed is dumb as hell, and it’s great. It doesn’t have a heater, it doesn’t recline, and it doesn’t do my taxes, but do you know what it is?
Very. Comfortable.
And, despite everything falling apart because an Amazon data center had a hiccup, my bed was working as well as it always does.
Technology is great, but sometimes we’re guilty of cramming it into things that don’t need it. Like, is there any reason to download an app for your toaster? Do we really need to create user profiles for our TVs? Perhaps we could just, oh, I don’t know, turn them on.
And then on top of that, you need subscriptions to use them, as is the case with these beds. Why? They’re now charging people to make their toilet cameras work.
It’s madness.
I think we’re soon going to see a pushback against a lot of “smart” tech once people realize it can be more trouble than it’s worth.
I’m telling you, dumbbeds are great.
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