But with a way better title than I was going to submit.

I'm not surprised that concept is a part of your skill set.

Pretty it's real. The guy is a Google employee, the story was on a bunch of news sites a few days ago:

http://rt.com/usa/233227-google-buggy-nest-alarm/

^(pretty *sure* it's real)

Our product malfunctions in the most annoying way imaginable. Buy one today!

Christ, google employees must be some dumb fuckers if their solution to a button not working is to press it harder, press it a couple more times and then throw a temper tantrum.

This is actually the dude who originally wrote Livejournal and memcached. Take that for what you will.

To be somewhat fair to him, this video was apparently after several days' worth of recurring problems with these things, waking him up in the middle of the night and annoying the shit out of his neighbors while he was at work.

Seriously, though, this is a classic example of the complete disregard for the variability of user experience that's deeply embedded in most contemporary minimalist design.

The smarts are supposed to be in the AI not the UI/human. Therein lies the rub. In this case, the alarm is fooled into thinking there is enough smoke to trigger the "unhushable" mode. Yes, this thing has such a mode. Clearly there is no smoke. That said, it could be detecting CO. Maybe it's smarter than he is, and he should evacuate immediately. Now I'm even more confused....

Minimalism is a virtue in engineering, but a vice in UI design.

"Not a broken piece of shit" is a variable experience that zero tech companies have embraced since the middle of the 20th century. These thing's are actually ahead of the curve by being planned obsolete right out of the box, which saves money on damp sponges or secret timers used to break your electronics normally.

My engineering degree taught me a lot of the hate I experience daily, and I am just now realizing that. I learned too much.

Well, what little value there was has been fucked apart by the combined forces of a buyout, market pressure and unanticipated regulatory and code compliance issues.

What value is there in networked smoke alarms? He's got so many for that sized house. Maybe he just likes to argue with his appliances.

There's entertainment value in networked smoke alarms. If we look at a machine not as its intended purpose (which is implemented as woefully as possible pretty much universally), but as its potential purposes, which use creativity as quality control, we could have some fun new machines without designing a damned thing.

So when we look at this device here and ask ourselves "what is this machine REALLY doing" we find we have here a video streamed skinner box for affluent honkies. We already know they will push a button even if it's useless, over and over, even when the device tells them in their own language the act is useless. The subject then escalates the situation by destroying the device and recording a video, leading to mass human involvement and the corporate PR firm that is responsible for people buying this thing. This machine is a mind control device that babysits shut-in ubernerds.

That kicks the shit out of a smoke alarm and should be how it is marketed.

I guess it's no surprise that the house is empty.