Report of Chapter 4

  Smart appliances represent a large potential part of the Internet of Things, the truth we should believe is that more smart appliances will be made to make our life better and easier in the future though there are so many appliances quite so dumb around us today.

  For example, our refrigerator is just a big insulated box designed to keep food cool; our dishwasher just works in a designated cycle by ourselves; our microwave oven and dryer won’t work if we didn’t tell them what to do. They always keep quiet because they are not “smart” today. But in the future, we will have so many “smart friends” who can communicate with us and do the menial works automatically by themselves for us. It’s amazing! So how will they be smart?

  At first, they will have the ability to manage themselves remotely. We can use an app on our smartphone or tablet to remotely press the start button and appliances would work automatically by following the built-in program operations. We just need tell them when to start because they are smart enough to know what to do and how to make it better, there will always be a certain and suitable temperature when we get home no matter how is the weather like outside. We can even use app to send text messages to our appliances and receive messages from them via text as well just as if they were human. It’s all attributed by the convenient mobile app and Internet connectivity.

  For second, smart appliances could monitor its environment and operation to let us know about things we need to know. Our smart washer will send a notification by app when the washing cycle is complete, and smart refrigerator will alert us by making our smartphone buzzing when someone leaves its door open. The inner sensor of smart appliances will monitor its environment and notice us it by app of our smartphone.

  In the third place, smart appliances could use their smarts to cut down on energy usage to save energy. A dishwasher could use less water by assess the account of dishes in it, and a smart refrigerator could incorporate more insulation to keep things frosty depend on a smart grid which could incorporates built-in intelligence and digital communications technology.

  Fourth, smart appliances could do the smart maintenance by themselves. The sensors of appliances could detect the operating condition and would update to a tip-top condition if it was not function properly, we can also be noticed about the issue. For example, if the filter of the smart refrigerator need to be replaced, the appliance would send us an email or a text message to let us know and replace it, the corresponding app in our smartphone would record it and assess how often we should replace the filter.

  Now that we have known about how smart appliances are smart, what can be done by smart appliances in details for us then?

  For a smart refrigerator, keeping food cool to make it fresh is the fundamental function, it could do many other dandy things for us. The door of the refrigerator will be a touchscreen display made by glass that could be opaque when we touch it so we can watch our favorite shows and look through the recipes when we are cooking. The smart refrigerator could figure out the amount of ingredients in it and work out an achievable meal plan according to our special tastes for us. And it can also assemble a list which we need to buy automatically and send it to the grocery, so we can receive the ingredients by express delivery and put it in the refrigerator for usage. Smart refrigerator could even tell us avoid trash food when we buy it as our patients said, in order to lead us to a healthy eating style.

  Though smart appliances couldn’t be made now and make our life easier and more interesting because of the barriers of technique, I believe we can enjoy the smart life by using these smart appliances in the future.

Reading Report of Chapter 2

  At first time I heard the Internet of Things, I have no idea about it because I don’t know what it indicated to in Chines. Fortunately, I get it and become more clear about other concepts of this item such as IP/TCP, Bluetooth, Wi- Fi and mesh network after I read chapter 2.

  It also made me think of the common phenomenon of modern society around the world that we always want to connect to Wi-Fi whenever we go anywhere. It is a little ridiculous that some people would feel lonely and frustrated without Wi-Fi which calls “information dependency syndrome” though there are so many people around them whom they could communicate with.  

  In my opinion, a mature system of Internet of Things could do most of the menial work for us. Our house will always be the perfect temperature, no matter the heat of the day or what room we live in; our lights will turn on when we need them and turn off when we leave the room just like the presentation of make-space in Knoxville we have witnessed; our cars will start and turn on the air condition in advance before we open the door, even automatic driving; our smart refrigerator will know what we need and submit the list directly to the grocery store for automatic delivery.

  It will be more convenient that we can spend our time on doing things we liked instead of those menial work and we won’t worry about the system would make wrong decisions for us because their operations are depended on the analyze of data collected when we used those devices before.

  But, if we are getting accustomed to the IoT just like Wi-Fi, how can we do those menial work when it is broken down? If we could remember how to do that? If we may catch the “IoT dependency syndrome”?

  In a nutshell, technology is used to improve our lives, not to control us. We should use it carefully and individually with self-introspection.