Smart Home Devices Not Worth The Price (Or The Headache)

We've all been there: your speaker (or fridge, or coffee machine, or kettle) is dead and you need a new one. The one you used to have is now 20% more expensive and the ones in the same price range seem like a downgrade. "I don't need a fancy kettle; I barely drink tea!" you think, but that's before you see it. A smart kettle. If you have to spend money on an appliance you only use once a month, you might as well be smart about it. Then comes the realization: you don't know what a smart kettle does. As it turns out, it's not very useful. You buy a regular kettle. Rinse and repeat for every trip to Amazon.

If only there was a way to figure out which smart devices are not worth it. But there is! In most circumstances, it's not too hard to figure out which kind of smart home devices you should avoid. However, sometimes it's hard to resist the temptation of a matte white finish paired with the word "smart". For example, if you have pets and love them very much, you'll always want the best for them. Sadly, picking "the best" isn't always as easy as getting the most expensive product, especially if you're not going to check what it is about that fancy automatic feeder that makes it smart. So we've compiled a list of the not-so-intelligent smart home devices.

Refrigerators are some of the most expensive appliances in a kitchen, and since they consume a lot of electricity it's worth getting a modern, energy-efficient model. The first problem of a smart fridge is that an energy-efficient model can cost as much as $5000. It might go without saying, but that's too much money for a fridge. You can get a cheaper smart fridge, but an equivalent dumb fridge will always be cheaper and the extra money will be better spent by getting a more efficient, more spacious food box. If you still have money and space to spare you could also get a chest freezer, which reaches much lower temperatures than a fridge and doesn't consume as much energy as you might think.

If money isn't a problem, you might still consider buying a smart fridge. Before you do, there are a couple more things to consider. The first is that, while most smart fridges offer food inventory functions, the items have to be manually added. This function can easily be accomplished by a virtual assistant or even a magnetic whiteboard stuck to a regular fridge. Some smart fridges offer the ability to scan a barcode or even identify the items with an internal camera, but it might not be accurate. For one, you still need to keep the fridge updated on which ingredients you're taking out each time. And then there's the issue of trusting the fridge to scan the items correctly. If it doesn't, your food is at stake.

Installing smart blinds almost certainly means buying new blinds, which can be expensive. Then there's the headache of trying to set up those blinds based on the time of day, the orientation of the window, and whether it's sunny. You could also use a light sensor but this hardly makes things simple, since you'd need at least one per room (or ideally two) each set up according to your needs and synced to the smart blinds. You can buy smart motorized blinds that don't react to light, temperature and the weather forecast, but those are jus blinds with a remote.

Ultimately, you have to consider why you want to install motorized blinds in the first place. Some people can't easily open and close regular blinds, especially when we're talking about heavy roller shutters. For those who need motorized blinds, going smart is only a small addition that might help control how much light gets into the house autonomously. Motorized blinds can also be used to reduce the heat coming in from the outside once the temperature gets too high. It's still expensive but a lot more straightforward than installing light sensors. It only takes a thermometer to check the temperature, and you don't even need that to check the weather.

A toaster that knows how long to toast your bread based on its weight and density isn't a bad idea. A toaster that can't manage to do that simple task very well and costs $300 is. Of course there are cheap smart toasters that don't come with a fancy, high-resolution touch screen, but they're way more expensive than the non-smart variant without doing much extra to justify the price. They're nothing more than a regular toaster with a custom timer. Actually, many smart toaster don't have customizable toasting times, just a handful of presets. There's no reason to take the chance on a preset when you could set your own timer on a cheaper countdown toaster.

Sure, some smart toasters additonal functions, but are you really going to use them? Are you going to leave bread inside your toaster the whole night so you can set a timer and have it toasted and warm by the time you wake up? Your mileage might vary, but the risk of having a device reach hundreds of degrees while you're asleep might not be worth the small prize of toasted bread in the morning.

Let's start by saying that a smart fragrance diffuser that isn't in use when it's not necessary sounds like a great idea. The problem with smart diffusers isn't that there's no use for them, but that you don't need one. Most cheap diffusers you can buy at a discount store come with a simple timer. The popular but still cheap Sacatr Essential Oils Diffuser comes with a timer, levels of diffusion, and a remote. Some can monitor oil levels, but frankly, smart diffusers are not smart. Typically, those devices are not going to turn off when you open a window or get more intense when they detect a bad smell.

If you really want to turn your diffuser on and off from your phone, you can attach it to a smart plug. It will be cheaper and more versatile than a dedicated smart diffuser, which is especially helpful when you realize that you should probably keep the diffuser in its native intermittent mode. That's the other issue of smart diffusers: the best way to give your house a good smell is to do it subtly, but always. Giving everyone the ability to put it on full power directly from their smart phone is not a great idea, as prolonged overexposure can lead to health issues.

Automatic pet feeders can be a life changer, especially for those that have schedules that don't permit them to keep a regular feeding schedule. Smart pet feeders, on the other hand, are just smart-branded automatic feeders that connect to an app. But why do they need an app? There's no information they could record or send that couldn't be gained by looking at the feeder with your eyes or by hearing a sound from the machine itself. The most important thing to know is when the feeder is empty, but don't worry. Cats might be lazy, but they'll let you know when they aren't fed.

The only thing you could reasonably want to control through the app is how much food to dispense and when, which is something you almost never have to change. If that makes the app useless, then what is left to separate a smart feeder from a regular automatic feeder? For one, the battery life is worse. The only real pros include a camera to check in on your pets when they're eating, though whether that is worth the extra price to you or not will depend on your budget.

Most smart litter trays aren't smart at all. They're just automated to run one specific function at certain times of day. Some, like the PetSafe ScoopFree SmartSpin from PetSafe, can tell you how many times a day your cat visits the litter and measure their weight. Otherwise, they just scoop out the poop and refill the litter. For some, that might be a worthwhile investment. Before getting to that, however, we should point out the price of those devices. Smart variant of common appliances can be twice as expensive as the original item or more, but often come at a negligeable increase in price. On the other hand, the PetSafe mentioned above is about 20 times more expensive than a regular litter box at about $350.

More important than price is your cat's safety. An automatic litter might be able to detect your pet's weight, but it will prevent you from smelling or looking at your cat's movements. While in most circumstances that sounds like a good thing, what a cat leaves in the box can be an indicator of illness. Then there's the safety of the machine itself. You have to be vigilant when purchasing automatic litter boxes. Though dangers seem more likely with cheaper, generic models, most pet owners probably aren't willing to take the risk.

A showerhead that helps you save water isn't a bad idea, but it doesn't have much to do with being smart. The main way in which a new showerhead can help you save water is by reducing the flow while maintaining pressure, which encourages lower water use. The second, possibly more efficient way is to set a self-imposed limit to water consumption per shower. Of course, having both at once is ideal, and that's exactly what products like the Hai Showerhead promise to do. The problem is that you can do the same thing with a showerhead with low flow mode and a simple timer — perhaps on your phone or a clock. Lowering time spent under the shower is a foolproof way to save water in general.

You may not know how much water you saved, but using less water doesn't translate to saving money the way gas and electricity does unless you're cutting down on hot water use specifically (but that's about how it's heated, not the amount of water used). If you're going to commit, it will be because you want to avoid waste, which is exactly what a smart showerhead claims to do. However, the knowledge of water saved doesn't amount to much. And a lower water use shower head and shorter showers can achieve that.

Like most smart devices on this list, the possibility remains that a well-implemented Smart Fruit Juicer could exist ... but one example makes us doubtful. Juicero Press by Juicero was widely mocked even before it became available to the wider public for its not-so-low price of $699. That was soon lowered to $400. For context, a no-frills cold press juicer can be found for a little over $100. One of the biggest kitchen tech gadget failures of all time, Juicero wasn't even as versatile as a typical juicer. Instead, it squeezed proprietary pre-processed fruit containers that were as perishable as regular fruit. Why not buy some nice, bottled juice instead? The extra wi-fi support, which seems to have been added exclusively to prevent users from buying third-party juice packs, did not help sell the device, and the Juicero company went out of business in 2017.

There's a reason why the Juicero was so expensive. While it could have gotten away with a much cheaper design that actually looked like a juicer, the machine itself was quite complex. Although the device boosted "up to four tons of force" Juicero packs could be squeezed by hand, as was demonstrated by a now-infamous video by Bloomberg. Was all that force really necessary? Perhaps, in another world this smart juicer could have been "dumber," cheaper and more effective. Alas, like with many other gadgets on this list, a simpler version can often be less expensive and more useful.