Black+Decker Smart Home Starter Kit
- A thermostat that allows you to set the temperature from anywhere
- A smart bulb whose brightness you can adjust via an app or assistant
- A smart outlet that allows you to smartly turn on whatever non-smart device you plug into it
- Can it make a margarita: Not yet, but soon…
Start The Smart
“Oh man, I am so excited! I just bought a smart home starter kit!”
“Awesome! What kind? I’ve got a Yale and Princeton.”
“Black & Decker for me.”
“Hmm, I’m not familiar with either of those universities. I don’t think they’re Ivy League, honestly. But hey, there are some great profs at smaller liberal arts colleges.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
“Smart homes!”
“But, like, what’s this with the profs and stuff?”
“Because that’s how you turn your normal home into a smart home: you take in a couple elderly, ailing professors from prestigious institutions and you care for them at your house for their final years. So then, when they pass away, they haunt your house with all their intelligence.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t, because I forgot a part: you need to make sure they want to haunt your house after they go! Which means upsetting them a little bit. Vincent–that’s my economics professor from Yale–I keep slightly dehydrated all the time. Not dangerously so, but just enough so that he’s uncomfortable. For Andre–a retired Princeton art historian–I put little pieces of paper in his oscillating fan. That way, it makes a slight ticking noise and it’s hard for him to fall asleep. Obviously, you want to avoid criminal behavior, but you also want them to be pretty unhappy. And trust me, Vincent and Andre are definitely unhappy! They’re for sure gonna haunt my house when they’re gone! And then, think of all that ghostly intellect that’ll be swirling in the air?”
“But that’s not what a smart home is. A smart home is a home where you can control stuff via your phone or digital assistant. Like, for example, my set included a smart bulb whose brightness I can adjust via an app, a thermostat that I can program a schedule for from anywhere, and a smart outlet that allows me to turn on or off whatever I plug into it with Alexa or Google Assistant.”
“Really? That’s what a smart home is?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, throw me my keys.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m bringing Vincent and Andre back to their families! Those jerks lied to me!”
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Black+Decker Smart Home Starter Kit 34
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Pioneers of Aviation: Cheerson CX-10 Mini Quadcopter 10
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What should they make smart next? 42
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Upcycled And Regifted: our awesome gift from @djslack 27 -
Instant Regret - no kit needed. 4 -
My letter to the editor today in the local paper (don't read if you aren't interested in political posts) 95 -
Something's wrong with Captain America 25 -
Your favorite XKCD 31