That's an interesting point. Of course it feels different, and I think I'm being totally reasonable, but that's not saying much as everyone always thinks they are being reasonable!
One aspect which feels like a significant difference to me is the centralization of control into cloud services. It's great that my washing machine performs the various steps in its job without human supervision. It would be rather less great if the washing machine needed to phone home and get permission from its manufacturer before it started. An IoT washing machine would have to offer a hell of a lot more convenience before it would make up for that kind of a disadvantage... but IoT devices as they exist today are basically just normal devices with extra remote control bolted on. That doesn't buy much, especially not when the remote control remains under the control of the manufacturer.
If there were an internet-connected washing machine where the novel automation remained entirely under the end-user's control, that would be a different story; but as things stand today, if someone is trying to sell me an internet-connected washing machine, it's because they are not content to merely sell me a piece of hardware: they are trying to leverage that sale into some novel ongoing revenue stream. Well, I don't want to sign up for them to have an ongoing revenue stream, and I especially don't want them to retain control over the device they have putatively sold me. So, unless this new automation is, let's say, doubling the convenience the device offers, it's a net loss and I don't want it.
That brings out the other difference I see between the IoT and previous generations of household automation projects: we are already well out along the curve of diminishing returns when it comes to household chores. There are already lots of automatic devices I don't bother with because they don't offer enough value to justify the space they take up. Sure, I have a refrigerator, laundry machines, and vacuum cleaner; but I don't have a food processor or an automatic coffee maker (I use a kettle and a french press). I used to have a roomba, but it wasn't worth the bother, so I clean the kitchen floor with an ordinary broom. Nor do I have an electric can opener, as my grandparents did, nor an electric towel warming rack, nor a motorized shaver, nor any of dozens of other "labor saving devices" as they used to be called, because they don't actually save enough labor to make them worth the cost of storing and maintaining them.
In the case of a hypothetical IoT laundry machine, for example, there's little that further automation and remote control features could accomplish to save more time, because I still have to load the machine by hand and deal with all the sorting and folding and putting away afterward. Perhaps an IoT washing machine could, let's say, send a ping to my phone when the laundry is done. Well... that optimizes a part of the process that is already cheap, so it isn't worth much. I still have to go downstairs and do all the work after I get the ping, and there's nothing that any amount of Internet connectivity can do to help with that. In order to actually be significantly more helpful than today's machines, a future laundry machine would need to have some kind of robot hands coupled with machine vision, so it could sort and fold. That would be a true innovation, something valuable enough to be worth putting up with the increased fragility and novel failure modes - but there's no reason such a device would need Internet connectivity or a subscription to a cloud service.
One aspect which feels like a significant difference to me is the centralization of control into cloud services. It's great that my washing machine performs the various steps in its job without human supervision. It would be rather less great if the washing machine needed to phone home and get permission from its manufacturer before it started. An IoT washing machine would have to offer a hell of a lot more convenience before it would make up for that kind of a disadvantage... but IoT devices as they exist today are basically just normal devices with extra remote control bolted on. That doesn't buy much, especially not when the remote control remains under the control of the manufacturer.
If there were an internet-connected washing machine where the novel automation remained entirely under the end-user's control, that would be a different story; but as things stand today, if someone is trying to sell me an internet-connected washing machine, it's because they are not content to merely sell me a piece of hardware: they are trying to leverage that sale into some novel ongoing revenue stream. Well, I don't want to sign up for them to have an ongoing revenue stream, and I especially don't want them to retain control over the device they have putatively sold me. So, unless this new automation is, let's say, doubling the convenience the device offers, it's a net loss and I don't want it.
That brings out the other difference I see between the IoT and previous generations of household automation projects: we are already well out along the curve of diminishing returns when it comes to household chores. There are already lots of automatic devices I don't bother with because they don't offer enough value to justify the space they take up. Sure, I have a refrigerator, laundry machines, and vacuum cleaner; but I don't have a food processor or an automatic coffee maker (I use a kettle and a french press). I used to have a roomba, but it wasn't worth the bother, so I clean the kitchen floor with an ordinary broom. Nor do I have an electric can opener, as my grandparents did, nor an electric towel warming rack, nor a motorized shaver, nor any of dozens of other "labor saving devices" as they used to be called, because they don't actually save enough labor to make them worth the cost of storing and maintaining them.
In the case of a hypothetical IoT laundry machine, for example, there's little that further automation and remote control features could accomplish to save more time, because I still have to load the machine by hand and deal with all the sorting and folding and putting away afterward. Perhaps an IoT washing machine could, let's say, send a ping to my phone when the laundry is done. Well... that optimizes a part of the process that is already cheap, so it isn't worth much. I still have to go downstairs and do all the work after I get the ping, and there's nothing that any amount of Internet connectivity can do to help with that. In order to actually be significantly more helpful than today's machines, a future laundry machine would need to have some kind of robot hands coupled with machine vision, so it could sort and fold. That would be a true innovation, something valuable enough to be worth putting up with the increased fragility and novel failure modes - but there's no reason such a device would need Internet connectivity or a subscription to a cloud service.