GADGET SPECIAL.... In ‘smart’ era, sometimes dumb stuff is better

In ‘smart’ era, sometimes dumb stuff is better

It still feels magical to light up your living room by saying “Alexa, turn on the lights.” But with all the hype surrounding so-called smart things — everyday devices that are connected to the internet — it’s easy to forget that sometimes the dumb stuff is just better. So let’s take a moment to appreciate some of the best dumb things. Here are top picks.

A wristwatch vs Apple Watch

The Apple Watch, by all measures, is a hit. The latest iteration is fast, water-resistant and versatile with long battery life, making it a superb smart watch for tracking your fitness activity. Yet a normal wristwatch is still superior at one crucial task: Telling the time.

The Apple Watch’s screen wakes up when you tilt your wrist at an angle, which indicates you are trying to check the time. That helps conserve battery life. But any Apple Watch wearer is familiar with situations where this feature gets frustrating. Flicking your wrist during a meeting to tell the time isn’t subtle, and if you’re standing on a bus or subway train and holding onto a pole, it is difficult to tilt your wrist at the correct angle to look at the time.

Alarm clock vs Amazon Echo Spot

Amazon recently introduced the Echo Spot, a smart alarm clock with a touch-screen and the Alexa virtual assistant. A less desirable feature is a built-in camera for placing video calls.

A camera on your nightstand that is constantly pointed at your bed? It’s like asking for your privacy to be violated. You might as well shop for your groceries in your underwear or post all your smartphone photos publicly on the web. So if your primary goal is to have a device that wakes you up on time to go to work, just get an old-school alarm clock.

Paper vs a tablet in the kitchen

When people buy new iPads or Amazon Fire tablets, they often give their older tablet a second life by designating it for the kitchen. There, the ancient tablet gets mounted to the refrigerator with a magnet and becomes a glorified recipe reader.

Having tried this experiment, it’s a hassle. You often have to clean the tablet after smearing food on the screen. The battery eventually needs to be recharged. And if you want to double or halve a recipe, you have to do some mental math, which makes multitasking more challenging when you are busy in the kitchen. Printing out or jotting down a recipe on a piece of paper is just simpler.

Brian X Chen

NYT NEWS SERVICE