A Garden for Everyone

what's in a robot?

COLLABORATION / THE NETWORK EFFECT

Special Note

I will not be posting on Christmas. At 0620 CT on Christmas Eve, the next step in space exploration will begin with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. I believe (and hope) that all will go well and in about six months we will uncover the next chapter about our universe. My next two posts will celebrate a remarkable attempt by mankind to discover how this universe works. The audacity of the plan is inspiring. We have been working to look up and be inspired by the sky for 2000 years. The adventure continues.

The Inspiration

Thanks to my wife who purchased a few starting elements as a gift, I have enjoyed the hobby and diversion of a smart home. Over time, as we have added more devices, the network effect makes all of these devices much better than the sum of their parts. If you are not sure what I’m talking about, we started with “the network effect” in a previous post.

The Setup

In simpler times, there were no utilities. If you wanted water you went to a well. If you wanted heat, you started a fire. If you wanted some light, you waited till the sun came up or lit a candle. If you wanted to talk to somebody, you looked for them. I remember when I rented my first apartment, you needed to deal with the rent PLUS the utilities. Many of you know my desire to return to the premise and fallacy of the good old days. The first Dolan who made it to North America settled in northeast Pennsylvania. For them, plumbing was the well and pump arm and a “three-hole outhouse” in the backyard. Their utilities did not include water, gas, or telephone, at least in the beginning. The great thing about collective progress though is once you have something and are used to it, you take it for granted. Therein lies the GENIUS of being open-minded and NOT RIGID. This wonderful world has so much for us to discover. Some of those things may just transform your life. Don’t be afraid of change, you may be surprised by what you find.

The Details

For me, when I graduated from University, utilities were a telephone, electricity, water, and maybe natural gas. Like every human before us, it only takes a while before something “unimaginable” become table-stakes. Going camping for an extended period and the return to indoor plumbing is a wonderful improvement. Utilities nowadays which we cannot imagine living without are mobile phone service and internet service.

• FINALLY, I will get to the NETWORK EFFECT in earnest. Each of these utilities transformed our lives. Clean water changed the world and contributed greatly to longer lives. Energy to our homes whether for heating or cooling allowed us to conquer the climate. Electricity allowed us to conquer the night. The telephone allowed us to conquer the distance. Each of these “utilities” through the network effect, transformed life.

• By way of example, electricity was just about light at the beginning. It is hard to imagine our lives without it. Make a mental list of all the things you might “plugin” in a week. Develop something important (electricity) and set out to make it usable by ANYONE. All they have to do is use the right plug. It is the genius of openness and a rejection of “doing it all yourself” that creates this wonderful synergy.

• The two “latest” utilities that we can’t live without in our modern world are mobile phone networks and distributed internet (our WiFi networks). Imagine you combine the two of them and realize I don’t have all the answers (a walled garden) but rather you welcome a way to connect everything. A smart home is simply an internet of things that make everything smart. Now only your imagination is the limit to what you might want to do with your phone as your remote or even better, your voice!

• Between our mobile phones and the Wifi network that connects us to the rest of the world, imagine that almost any household item that we just take for granted like (1) lights (2) switches (3) stereos (4) ovens (5) garage door openers (6) locks (7) thermostats (8) vacuums and even the phone and wifi itself can all work sympathetically together.

• A smart home is myRobot and it can understand what I want to be done and do it for me! While there is a lot it CANNOT do, what is amazing is that all of the businesses that know how to make the examples I listed (lights, switches, stereos, TVs, cameras, vacuums, etcetera) are all working TOGETHER. I am far away from my personal HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey but I think we are on the path to amazing things. I am not interested in an OVEN made by Google or Apple or Amazon. The network effect is that Amazon and Google have decided to meet all of those providers with open arms and said let’s work together! In a walled garden, the approach is "Sure we can work together but I would like you to pay me for the privilege”. Proprietary (walled garden) is Betamax in this case and working together is VHS. We all know how that “battle” came out.

I love the expression “is the juice worth the squeeze?” Is a smart home a novelty, a convenience, or more trouble than it is worth? I think the truthful answer is it manages to be all three! The first foray is merely a novelty. Until you become familiar with all of the options in operating it, perhaps more trouble than it is worth. Today, however, on a cold winters night, already under the quilt, it is quite nice to be able to close the garage door and adjust the thermostat without leaving your bedside. For me, the journey to convenience started with a Chromecast. The ability to take an older TV and make it “smart” was worthwhile. If I fast-forward a few years, we no longer even use remote control for our TVs anymore, we just say play ESPN or mute or pause. When the hobby started, the devices just seemed like overpriced alarm clocks and timers. Like most things, when you embrace the future and saddle up with the network effect, the benefits are too much to ignore now.

Welcome to my garden, I decided to skip the walls. Here’s a great tune.

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