Internet of Things: The “Basket of Remotes” Problem
We count on WiFi and Bluetooth in our homes, but we don't have appliances that provide self-description or reliable two-way communication. As a result, the Internet of Things for consumers is, in practice, a Basket of Remotes.
Context & Ripple Effects
Two days before this piece ran, regulators were already wrestling with how to frame IoT privacy and security rules — which makes Monday Note's diagnosis awkward timing for the industry: before policy questions can even be settled, the devices themselves don't speak a common language.
The core claim is architectural, not gadget-level: homes run on WiFi and Bluetooth, but appliances offer neither self-description nor reliable two-way communication, so every 'connected' device ships with its own app or remote — a basket of them rather than a system.
First-order effects
- Consumers buying WiFi- or Bluetooth-enabled appliances inherit one control app per vendor, so each added 'smart' device increases, rather than reduces, household friction.
- Appliance makers shipping connectivity without self-description protocols are effectively deferring integration costs onto their customers.
Second-order effects
- The gap creates an opening for a translation layer — hubs, aggregators, or middleware that ties incompatible devices together — and whoever builds it gains control of the home interface.
- Vendors that refuse open two-way APIs push customers toward walled-garden ecosystems, since only a single-vendor stack can fake seamlessness.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, interoperability standards — not individual gadgets — become the battleground for consumer IoT, because the player controlling the common description and control layer captures the relationship with the household.
- Regulators drafting IoT rules face a moving target: security and privacy mandates written against today's one-way, unself-describing devices may need revisiting once genuine two-way standards emerge.
The trend: Consumer IoT is fragmenting into per-vendor remotes, pushing value toward whatever common control-and-description layer eventually unifies the smart home.