FISCHER: Living in the future can be dumb

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Isn’t technology grand?

My new place has one of those fancy controls for the thermostat. It can automatically turn the heat on when it gets too cold or the AC on when it gets too hot. It can set different temperatures for different times of day. It’ll even send me a text message if a filter needs to be replaced or it thinks something is wrong.

You know what it can’t do?

Turn itself on.

For all the fabulous features, there’s no way to simply press a button and make it go. You can set temperature profiles and schedules to automate how the HVAC works at different times and different conditions, but you can’t just turn it on.

So after having some work done on the AC this weekend, testing it became something of a problem because it was 60 degrees outside. Without something as simple as a manual override, we had to trick the sensor into thinking the apartment was warmer than it really was in order to make sure the AC worked.

For as smart as modern technology is, it can be really stupid sometimes.

My new car, for example, has the clicking of its turn signal and the odometer tied into the computer system of the car’s radio. I only know this because both of them failed on me and I had to have somebody “reprogram the cluster,” which sounds like a made-up thing, to make them work.

Here’s a basic rule about technology. The more systems you have talking to each other, the more complicated things get. The more complicated things get, the more potential points of failure you introduce. Nothing on a car’s dashboard should be at risk of failure because of an incompatibility with the computer program that plays my MP3s.

And while we’re at it, can we talk about touch screens?

Now I’m all about living that Star Trek life, but touch screens add a layer of complexity that can be unnecessary at best and a hindrance at worst. Yeah, it’s great being able to navigate layers of menus with a finger, but some functions are better left to a physical button or dial. At least as a back-up for when the touch screen inevitably locks up and you need a way to manually reset it.

Technology is cool, but not everything needs to be digital just because it can be. There are things that should just work without needing an app or a digital display or a wi-fi connection.

It’s 2024. Living in the future shouldn’t be this dumb.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and has six different apps on his phone to control household functions and almost always opts for pressing a button or flipping a switch instead.