Every Home Is Wired

They say you don’t get anything for nothing in this life, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Being mindful of all that, you can imagine that I was somewhat sceptical when I received an email purportedly from Google offering me a free Google Home Mini, then retailing at £49.99 on the basis that I was a good customer.

Despite the fact that I, like virtually everyone else, use Google a lot, I’ve never really considered myself a customer, so the email naturally made me somewhat suspicious. My first inclination was to dismiss it as a phishing email and simply delete it, but since it was addressed to me by name and quoted my credit card details, I decided to investigate a little further. It dawned on me that the fact that I rent Cloud storage from Google was what made me a customer, and the fact that they weren’t asking me to subscribe to anything, pay anything, or even provide credit card details over those they had quoted to me, convinced me that this was a legitimate offer. So, I accepted.

A week or so later, my device arrived and I set it up. Now I have to admit that I feel a little self-conscious about uttering ‘Hey, Google,’ and asking the little grey pebble in the corner of the lounge to provide me with a weather forecast, or last night’s football results – I still prefer to type my question on laptop or tablet - but my wife seems to have taken to it, even if mostly she uses it to set alarms.

Still, whether I use it or not, it’s not taking up much room, and it’s harmless, and occasionally useful isn’t it? Or is it? There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence (or conspiracy theories, depending on your point of view), that all these home assistants, whether it’s the Amazon Echo, the Apple HomePod, or any of Google’s range, are spying on us, that the big tech companies are harvesting data on us.

Rumours have gone around for years that Facebook and others are using our smartphones to listen to us and target us with advertising based on what we are talking about, and conspiracy theory or not, I’m sure we’ve all experienced that somewhat unsettling experience of an advert popping up on our social media timelines for a product that we’ve talked about, but not actively searched for online. Coincidence, or something more sinister? The big tech companies have largely denied listening to users – for the avid conspiracy theory aficionado, denial is proof, of course – but Google have admitted that their contractors have listened to recordings to better understand language patterns and accents. Which makes sense, that to improve their service, they would listen and learn.

Even if Google is listening to me, do I care? I’m not discussing affairs of state, I’m not a celebrity whose gossip might be newsworthy, so if Google, or Facebook, want to listen to me discuss plans for dinner, or attempting to answer questions on University Challenge, then let them listen away.

My Google device did take me by surprise a while back by demonstrating how carefully it listens. I was watching Have I Got News for You, and one of the guests was talking about Google Hubs; ‘Hey Google,’ they said, ‘play some soft rock music.’ Seconds later, my smartspeaker was playing ‘This Is Not America,’ by David Bowie. Spooky.

My Google Home Mini is the closest I have to anything resembling the much vaunted, but seemingly slow to take off, Internet of Things. I see the value of connecting things like the central heating and lighting to a home network, and being able to control them remotely, or verbally, but I’ve yet to see the benefit in food blenders, coffee makers, toasters and fridges that are ‘smart,’ frankly I’d prefer those devices to stay dumb – and mute, for that matter.

Looking back over the technology that has come and gone during my lifetime – the 1980s were full of such items as fax machines, video recorders, compact discs, and the short-lived and ill-fated video disc, all of which have either disappeared from our daily lives or are going that way – and it is now impossible to even attempt to guess what we now think of as cutting edge that will still be around ten years hence. Google Glass came – and went – in the blink of an eye; not all technology is useful, popular, or successful, and even now I can imagine future generations laughing at the idea of speaking to a device and asking it to tell you the time, or what’s on TV.

Spotify, Amazon prime, and Netflix - to name but three such services - now mean that a fast, reliable broadband connection is almost a necessity, and it is difficult to see the day dawn when that is no longer the case, although we said that about fax machines. It’s undeniable though that catch-up and on demand services have supplanted many forms of physical media, although my personal preference remains CDs so far as music is concerned, but there’s a catch with all that and it hits us in the wallet. The TV Licence is £154.50, a cable or satellite package with broadband is say, £90 a month or just over £1,000 a year; add Netflix (a minimum £72 per annum), and Amazon Prime (£79 a year), because there are programmes exclusively available on those channels that you just have to have, and that’s nearly £1,400 for 12 months, just to watch TV.

Think about that: £1,400 per year, to watch TV, and five nights out of every seven you’re sitting there saying there’s nothing on and ending up watching repeats of QI on Dave. Which is why in our house we have just binned the Virgin Media TV package we have. This might strike you as perverse considering the hoops we had to jump through to get it in the first place (see my blogs on the subject, Virgin On The Ridiculous, Parts One, Two, and Three, although there never was a Part Four when I actually got it installed), but night after night I do sit there complaining there’s nothing on and finding myself watching a repeat of QI on Dave, or if not that specifically – and this is the crux – I’m almost exclusively watching channels that are available on Freeview. So, come the beginning of February I’m saving myself £500 a year by reverting to the free-to-air stuff.

Step by step, every home is being invaded; every home is wired. And every home is paying a princely sum for the privilege. It starts off small, a little here, a little there, a little on the things you think you can’t afford to miss, and then suddenly you’re paying a King’s ransom for stuff you don’t use, don’t really want, and definitely don’t really need, and the shocking fact is that a lot of it you can get for free, and the stuff you have to pay for you’d not really miss if you had to give it up.

Google’s decision to give me – and goodness knows how many other people – a free Home Mini may genuinely be a reward to loyal customers; it may just be a marketing tactic to expand their market, or it may be a step in the tech giant’s home invasion.

“This will be the future, Every home is wired” – Steven Wilson