Sony are taking pre-orders for their SmartEyeglass next month (just after Google remove Glass from our shelves to back to the drawing board), and it got me thinking about other smart items that are available.Smart TVs are rather old hat now, LG, Samsung and Whirlpool are all launching smart washing machines in the next few weeks and who doesn’t love a smart heating system from the likes of Nest, Hive or OWL? But where will it end?A quick glance around, and I think I’ve possible found the daftest selection of smart/internet of things items…Egg tray Does anyone really need to know that they’ve got fewer than 14 eggs, or an LED sensor monitoring the freshness? Eggs are a staple of most diets, a quick fix after work, but how many egg-related snack-based emergencies has anyone had?Plant Sensor Disclosure, I have one of these – it was a gift – and I still don’t get it. I am terrible at looking after plants. Other than a spider plant that appears to be taking over my kitchen, triffid-style, I’ve killed every plant I’ve ever owned. Did this gadget help? Nope. I was still no better at looking after any plant despite knowing how many hours of sunshine and its ambient temperature and moisture levels!Life Dashboard I can’t publish my actual thoughts about this product. I’m sure they’re a hilarious Christmas gift for that hard-to-buy-for brother/uncle/cousin, but who honestly needs a physical dashboard showing the number of emails they have, Twitter notifications or number of eggs in their Egg Minder (see other mindless object above)?Dog Activity Monitor $100 dollars to be able to monitor your dog’s daily activity levels, and this isn’t the only one. There’s plenty of dog activity trackers out there! Maybe it’s because I don’t have a dog, but surely you know if they’re getting out enough or not? If they’ve got the energy levels of Puffy from There’s Something About Mary, you’ll probably need to get out of the house with them.Smart Nappies I remember the first few days of my daughter being at home with us and trying to work out which cry meant ‘hungry’ and which meant ‘don’t sleep’, it’s a nightmare. However, I remember getting to grips with the whole nappy thing quite quickly. I don’t consider myself gifted, just blessed to have a sense of smell as well as sensors in my fingers that reliably tell my brain that a nappy is full when I picked my daughter up. Nevertheless, some bright sparks have created a chip to go in nappies that’ll tell your phone when the nappy needs to be changed.Rant over. Smart devices, the internet of things, will change all of our lives for the better. Just not with the ‘innovation’ above.
