I certainly embrace the tech revolution and am excited to see all the Smart technology that is now available to consumers. However, Ive lately been cynical about the overabundance of Smart appliances and consumer electronics.

An email pitch I found in my inbox for a Smart salt shaker put me over the edge. Now, if this salt shaker were so smart, an alarm would go off when someone tried to use an excessive amount of salt on their omelet with a verbal warning about high blood pressure. No, this Smart salt shaker just doubles as a speaker so you can listen to music at the dinner table and try to impress your friends by showing them how your salt shaker plays Pearl Jam.

Ive found that the smartest technology isnt always what we think of as Smart. My wife and I knew it was time for a new refrigerator. Our large, SubZero was over twenty years old and, while it still worked, we didnt want to wait for it to die to get a replacement. I started looking at the new refrigerator models over a year ago. I knew we wanted to replace the SubZero (a dinosaur) with a large fridge, but it had to be counter depth to fit the space. I also started reading about the new Smart technology in the latest, greatest fridges. While the idea that the fridge would automatically reorder a bottle of ketchup from Amazon when it was running low, I wondered if that really should be one of our top requirements when selecting a fridge. Just because the engineers can turn a refrigerator into a computer doesnt mean that is something we need in our kitchens.