Smart Home Technology: Convenience and Complications

Australia experienced a boom in smart-home technology at the start of the 2020s. Years on, some early adopters are experiencing buyer’s remorse.

When the smart home devices Elly Bailey was expecting in the post never showed up at her Gold Coast home, she was frustrated. As a technology reviewer, these products were crucial for her work. When she eventually found the cause, she had to laugh. It wasn’t a sticky-fingered neighbour or a rogue delivery driver causing her to miss parcels but her smart doorbell – the very thing she’d hoped would prevent missed deliveries, and part of exactly the range of internet-connected devices she was meant to be reviewing.

“It’s pretty funny,” says Bailey, 33, who goes by the handle @ellyawesome on TikTok, where she has more than 1.1 million followers. She had been loving her Google Nest doorbell up until then. She could see who was at the front door from upstairs and speak to delivery people through her phone while she was out. But it had one obvious flaw: “When someone presses this doorbell, all it does is send a notification to my phone.” She says this feature is “great” when she’s out but without a telltale chime she was missing deliveries while at home and away from her phone. She complained about this to her followers in a clip that has been liked more than 1,400 times. “The crazy irony is the doorbell itself does make a little ding-dong sound when you press the doorbell button but it’s only loud enough for the person at the door to hear it,” she says.

Bailey is far from alone in her scepticism around smart home technology – many adoptees have realised the devices designed to make life easier regularly achieve the opposite. Stories of people being locked out of their homes by faulty smart locks, woken up by pets activating cameras on the driveway and being left in the dark by broken smart lights are rife on social media and product review websites.

“Technology is brilliant … until it isn’t,” says Georgina Wilson, an architect in Sydney who learned this the hard way when her husband pressure-hosed the front of the house and accidentally watered their smart keypad unit. The incident hasn’t changed her mind on the convenience of a smart lock but it did result in an expensive emergency locksmith callout – and quickly forced her to put a backup plan in place: keys in a hidden lockbox, with copies distributed to family members and neighbours. She says some of her clients have had similar, or worse, experiences. “We’ve seen clients unable to flush toilets, lock front doors, or exit garages during power outages.”

Since smart home technology uptake spiked during Covid lockdowns, Daniel Vasilevski, an electrician in Sydney, says he has seen many smart tech horror stories. One client in Maroubra got locked out of their house for two days. Others have ended up with no working lights. Subscription complaints are also rife, with even some relatively simple devices such as smart doorbells and thermostats requiring monthly fees. Vasilevski estimates 15 to 20% of his callouts these days are for problems with smart tech – some are simple repair jobs, while others want their smart systems demolished altogether.

There can be a more sinister side, too. Experts say smart homes are prime targets for cybercriminals. More than 120,000 smart home cameras were hacked in South Korea last year and the Australian Signals Directorate recently warned that Chinese hackers are exploiting people’s home routers and smart devices. While cases of spying fridges and doorbells being hacked are still rare, Emily Holyoake, a cyber and home-security expert based in Canberra, says technology facilitated domestic abuse is a significant issue. “The scariest things I’ve heard are about loss of privacy, where ex-partners have still had access to their partner’s home and made changes either locking them out, letting themselves in or watching their every move,” she says. Renters, too, have privacy concerns, as smart locks can allow landlords to keep tabs on their every move.

Julie Provenzano, a real estate broker with 83,000 TikTok followers, believes it might be smarter to stick with an analogue home. She recently told fans she was “apped-out”. “Hi-tech doesn’t necessarily mean easier … It leaves people in a hostage situation with IT departments,” she said.

Vasilevski’s clients have faced similar issues. When something goes wrong, it’s not just the tech that’s a problem but finding someone to fix it. Many locksmiths are not trained to work with sophisticated, connected devices. He says electricians will sometimes turn away smart home repair jobs because of how faffy and time-consuming they can be to troubleshoot. “It isn’t worth the hassle, most of the time,” he says. This is particularly true with lower-end smart tech suppliers who offer little in the way of after-sale support.

Gaby Albutros, a project manager at Sydney firm RSE Home Automation, says that when brands shut down or devices are discontinued, as was the case with Belkin’s Wemo smart home range in January, customers can be left high and dry. “The only option when they go wrong is to have them ripped out.”

Curtains and blinds seem to be among the few smart-control devices that experts in the industry agree upon. Provenzano says they are one of the only smart devices she endorses and Vasilevski agrees, saying he wouldn’t install smart tech in his home because of the issues he sees at work, but that “smart control curtains are pretty reliable because they only get used twice a day”.

While Holyoake doesn’t suggest eschewing the Internet of Things entirely, she says the key is to be intentional about the technology you’re putting in your home. In her household, she uses smart security cameras, lighting, a robot vacuum and even a digital whiteboard – all things she says make family life easier, especially with neurodivergent kids. Mindful of the risks, she suggests smart-home adopters make time to check their security settings once a month. “Make sure only the people you know and trust have access, always make sure you change the default password, check for security and software updates, and always ask: who has access to my data and where is it stored? Do I need a subscription to access my own data? Can I still access devices if the internet goes out?”

Bailey might be a likely champion for all things smart but even she prefers a hybrid setup. She has been offered everything from smart lights to smart washing machines as part of her job, so she could have the world’s most connected home if she wanted to, but aside from the smart doorbell – which she has kept because she still thinks the benefits outweigh the drawbacks – she’s chosen to keep most parts of her home “consciously dumb”. “Ultimately I’m an old-school millennial who’s very happy to put my washing on myself,” she says. “I think that keeps me smart, to be honest.”