A few days ago, I wrote about my efforts to outsmart our smart plugs. Our lights were randomly turning on and off based on what we thought was good programming back in November. Back before daylight savings time reintroduced itself into our daily routines.
The problem was only one of our two living room lights was programmed and it was turning on too early now that we enjoy daylight so much later into the evening. Annoying at best but we had these so-called ‘smart’ plugs for a reason and it bothered me that they didn’t seem smart enough to make the change at the appropriate times. Me to the rescue to right this programming wrong.
By the end of my uninstall, reinstall, reprogram adventure I had proclaimed myself the victor over modern technology.
To which modern technology has since emphatically replied:
“Not so fast, Slick.”
Two days after I reprogramed the lights and they had been successfully turned on and off at the prescribed times, I came into the living room after waking up in the morning, only to find one of the lights turned on.
One.
I cannot explain these things.
Since then, the two lamps that share the same program routine come on and turn off at different times, none of which are daylight appropriate.
I’m being punished.
I think perhaps in a previous life I was on a top-secret technology research team who had just invented a new programming sequence that enabled remote-controlled trucks to take unused food items from restaurants and deliver them to foodbanks and homeless shelters… and then I lost it. Forever.
It’s a precise supposition I know but I am working at using my imagination more these days.
And so here I am, with two lamps that surprise us constantly with their on/off nonsense. It’s my own fault; it was my hubris that caused all this. Maybe if I make a donation to the Gates Foundation my techno-karma will be set right.
Then again, maybe I’ll donate these dang plugs to the Good Will.
