You're citing only extreme scenarios to defeat a technology that's still being developed. By this approach no technology you have today or in the future will hold up. Someone can cut the wires to your home today and you will have no access to 911. Voice recognition will certainly get a lot better and until it's fail safe there will by other technologies to support it. Siri is a simple toy compared to what will be possible in the future.

Nobody is jumping full ham into these new technologies and there will always be a human element in how those things function and how the fail safe mechanisms are implemented. If you only ever see the negative points of a new technology there will never be any progress. But you have to start somewhere and out there are a bunch of people way smarter than us that currently try to figure out all the solutions to your problems. Some technologies will never have a break through but I can tell you with all certainty that smart homes will be an integral part in the future with voice recognition, touch panels and connectivity all around.

The thing with the internet is a bit more complicated. Some things do need internet to function, some don't and some will be enhanced by it. What ultimately ends up connected is what the market will decide. For now companies will try to get as much stuff into the internet as possible strictly for business reasons. Today it's still weird, complicated and has a few caveats but this won't be an issue in the future anymore. Even if devices are not directly connected to the internet they will most likely communicate to something that is. And all applications that don't need the internet to function will have a fallback offline mode.

The fear about everything being connected is absolutely overblown in my preofessional opinion. As long as the internet is working, connected devices won't bother you and if in some case you will be cut off from the internet you will have far bigger problems than your fridge not being able to order new yogurt.

It's important to pose questions to new technologies but you shouldn't do it just for the sake of preventing change. Change will get you sooner or later anyway and no one will force you. It's all about gradual change, but you have to start somewhere.

You are attacking the strawman here. The improvements on quality of life brought about by new technologies back then was significantly more tangible.

It's fairly easy to illustrate just how much. Imagine you are presented with the option of choosing either: a) you are allowed to use any eletronic technology made until 2007, and you keep running water and indoor toilets; or b) keep your smartphone and iPad, but give up running water and indoor toilets, so you have to haul the water into your dwelling and carry out the waste. So, that's one decade of new products brought about by a competitive economy of 7 billion people versus one single innovation of the late 19th century.

You could make an even more extreme argument here and pit a single innovation of the 19th or early 20th century (electricity, running water, heating etc.) versus giving up any new transportation invented since 1957. Cars and jet planes were just as fast back then - faster, in the case of jet planes - as they are now, and metro and trains existed as well, so, again, it should be simple to pick an option.

So while I do agree that voice recognition, touch panels and connectivity, as you mention it, will on all likehood be a part of houses in the future, it's a much lesser improvement than what we were used to on the past two centuries, and based on such standards, people are thus somewhat justified on calling out that the next big thing isn't that big at all.

You're completely right but you're wrong about what people are saying. They're not saying that it's not a big change, they're completely rejecting the idea as useless or even go as far as attacking people who would like this minor improvement in convenience. Of course some technologies will not have a huge impact but that's not the fact to focus on. It doesn't matter how small the advancement as long as it's overall beneficial.

What I'm seeing is people outright rejecting change in a fit of superiority over "newer generations". People have become the grand parents they said they never would become. "In my time we stood up when we wanted to turn a light on. The lazy kids these days just shout into the room." Sound familiar?

There is no problem in saying that you don't need something in your life but I'm vehemently defending against notions that it's either generally not useful or that people who embrace new technology are somehow stupid. It's grandpa bullshit. Those "concerns" about privacy at this point are just empty fuel against new technology because people don't even know what they're trying to "protect" themselves from.

I have no issues with insecurity. There are 3 PS4's and an XBO in my house that are always listening. I like the idea of having everything available any time, and having access to resources at the tip of my tongue. I just have absolutely Zero interest in the current devices offering this. I would much rather pay have this feature on one of the consoles already in the house. Ultimately, it would be nice to see these features in the OS on the next PlayStation and Xbox devices, but I could settle for an app on PS4 or XBO.

I'd like to argue sometimes companies go too far though.  They remove all mechanical parts that could be beneficial if the electric component breaks. 

Lets take Tesla's Model 3 for example.  I read that it doesn't even have door handles and that the engine starts through an app on your phone.  Let's say your phone dies or the electric handles stop working.  Well if you had a car that had electric and mechanical then you could just open the car door with a key and using a handle.

Does it really make sense to remove all mechanical aspects when in reality they could be very damn useful if the electrical components stop functioning?  Wouldn't you agree that it would be stupid to be locked out of your car because you only have electic locks and no door handles?

I'd also like to argue about tracking your driving habits and GPS tracking.  Here are some other links that makes me just want to own a "dumb" car.

https://www.wired.com/2011/09/onstar-tracks-you/

http://blog.caranddriver.com/gms-onstar-go-and-ibms-watson-team-up-to-study-your-habits/

I know I'm just a walking ad to pretty much all companies but there is a point where I say enough is enough.  One reason why I told Facebook to fuck off was after they changed their privacy terms and set everyone to default public sharing even if they had private or friends only.  There was outcry and some people left but in the end most people didn't give a shit.  I gave a shit.  Most of these companies can go fuck themselves.  They are getting too intrusive.

Meet some one like me.  I can barely watch regular TV because I can't stand ads.  I don't like ads.  I use an ad block.  I don't want to see stupid shit.  That's why I just watch Netflix and Hulu+ (plan without commercials).  Sorry to lose faith in a consumption society.

Removed it from the op.  Can you link a phone to an echo for speaker talk?  Because I read that Apple Siri will call the cops but Google voice recognition won't.

"However, according to Amazon, the virtual assistant is not capable of dialing 911. "Alexa calling and messaging does not support 911 calls," a company representative told BuzzFeed News. The phrase "call the sheriff" would not trigger a call to emergency services via Alexa, the representative said. Apple's voice-controlled assistant Siri supports 911 calling via iPhones, whereas the Google Home smart speaker does not."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/alexa-call-911?utm_term=.yl5OrKb0R#.bfLpwanvk

So it could be plausible that perhaps her iphone called the cops which might have been linked to the echo.  So the echo didn't but it still doesn't rule out other devices such as an iphone.

I really don't care about privacy when it comes to these devices.

That said, it would be cool to have them, but I'm unlikely to spend any money on something like that.

My wife doesn't trust the series record option on the pvr to work correctly, doubt she'll ever trust a 'smart' lock on the door. Anyway not for me, I don't have a smartphone either, waste of money.

Pretty much my views, I don't really have concerns.