If you did the holidays right and spent the better part of the last two weeks parked in front of the television, you probably saw AT&T’s new “smart home” TV spot. If not here’s the gist. A husband and wife are sitting outside their cabin when their teenage kids arrive. One of the youngsters mentions that they had to make a quick stop at home on the way up. Dad’s ears perk up. He knows what that means. He pulls out his smartphone and taps a button that reads “close home.” Cut to the empty house, where we see the lights dim, the faucet turn off and the front door lock automatically—all the little things the kids forgot to do.

 

What AT&T’s showing off here is basically the remote control house—a system where you can monitor and control your home wherever you are. But that only gets us halfway there. A truly smart home, you’d imagine, would know that the kids were leaving and do all that closing up automatically. You wouldn’t need to control your home remotely, because you wouldn’t need to control it at all. You’d just live your life and the house would know what to do.