Fatbobman’s Swift Weekly #060 | Older or Outer? Reminiscing About the Pre-Smart Era

fatbobman ( 东坡肘子)
7 min readDec 3, 2024

Weekly Comment

Older or Outer? Reminiscing About the Pre-Smart Era

Last Saturday, a two-way switch in our living room suddenly stopped working. This would have been a mundane electrical fault, but for me, it carried a deeper significance. It was the last of the many smart switches I installed 18 years ago that still functioned, and its “retirement” marked the complete sunset of traditional smart devices in my life.

Eighteen years ago, “smart home appliances” were nothing more than a vague concept, and smart switches lacked any unified standard. As a tech enthusiast back then, I purchased dozens of Schneider ULTI series switches and controllers for my home. I fondly remember those first few months after installation, immersed in the novelty of adjusting lighting ambiances with a remote control and eagerly showcasing these “futuristic” smart living scenarios to visiting friends. However, this enthusiasm lasted only a brief period. It wasn’t that smart devices were inadequate, but I gradually realized that life could remain vibrant even without them, and manual close-range operations wouldn’t significantly inconvenience me.

Today, “smart” has become a standard descriptor for household appliances. Refrigerators…

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fatbobman ( 东坡肘子)
fatbobman ( 东坡肘子)

Written by fatbobman ( 东坡肘子)

Blogger | Sharing articles at https://fatbobman.com | Publisher of a weekly newsletter on Swift at http://weekly.fatbobman.com

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