In my mind (has a hobbyist EE geek) I see the value that some of the things can provide. But just like you implied, the value is in spot use cases. &#x27;Smart&#x27; TVs and fridges are a great example- sure the crap you bundled in to my TV MIGHT work okay now, but what about in a year when the APIs they use change? How are the updates provided?<p>There is real value in the home automation side, but then there are the security concerns. Perfect examples are the HVAC and monitoring. When we&#x27;re away it&#x27;s nice to shut down the heat and AC but if it&#x27;s January and we&#x27;re coming back from the holidays that house needs to warm up before we get home. It&#x27;s also nice to get an alert and video when motion is detected in the house while you&#x27;re away- you can call the cops and respond with evidence immediately, or even possibly prevent your house from burning down. So yeah, there&#x27;s a lot of value in conserving energy and protecting (or at least actively) monitoring the safety of your household.<p>My Amazon Echo gets used at least 50 times a day. Timers for timeouts for the kiddos, alarms for when it&#x27;s time to go to bed, the weather report as I&#x27;m making my coffee, adding things to my shopping list. It genuinely makes life just a little bit easier.<p>That&#x27;s just from a consumer prospective- if your company ran multiple properties or warehouses, shipped freight, etc. there are so many other fantastic possibilities as well.<p>I don&#x27;t need a fridge connected to my google calendar, I don&#x27;t need a TV connected to my Dropbox to show family pictures as a screensaver. I don&#x27;t need a freaking Barbie doll that is recording every conversation my children send around it. These are generally bad ideas and poor implementations, and people are starting to see it.<p>We&#x27;re in the hype cycle of IoT- we&#x27;ll get to the valley of disillusionment after enough of the crappy devices piss people off, then we&#x27;ll get a stable stream of meaningful product. IoT in principle isn&#x27;t going away, there is actual value in some of these things. We just need the cream to rise to the top.