Do you have Smart Home devices and features in your home? Ever wonder what they record and how often they contact their servers to report information about your usage of those products?

Well, this TED Talk was very eye opening for me.

And yes, we suspect it happens often. We may know it. But to hear the proof is rather chilling.

Two technology and investigative journalists installed 18 different connected devices in a home and then tracked all the contacts made by the devices back to their servers with a specially designed router.

You might be tempted to unplug after watching this.

I have to say, I totally identified with the speaker's experience of trying to get the coffee turned on in the morning with a voice activated control.

My husband loves technology and insists on trying to use voice activated products in our house. Most often it is the tv remote which he ends up shouting into, frustrated, with veins popping, and spends twice as long getting the results he wants, if he gets any at all.

He is determined to make that thing understand him and then simplify his life! :-)

I, on the other hand, only like technology if it is highly intuitive and I don't have to study how to work something. I still haven't learned how to work my clothes dryer, other than with one setting. :-(

When I walked into my mother-in-law's new apartment in her retirement home, I smiled when I went into the laundry room.

There sat a spanking new washer and dryer, with manual controls. I just had to turn those dials and feel and hear the clicks.

Manual controls in a senior living apartment....now that's what I call a smart home.

Here's the TED Talk link. Come back and let me know what you think.