The Lightswitch Problem

Or how Big Tech is running out of ideas.

Modern tech overflows with flaws, but there’s one in specific I want to discuss today. And it’s all because of this Tweet:

In a roundabout way, this ridiculous experience with an AI-controlled bed is a neat microcosm of what’s wrong with how many leaders and founders think about technology.

This, friends, is The Lightswitch Problem. And tech can’t stop falling foul of it.

Interestingly, I’ve actually reviewed an Eight Sleep mattress in the past. Not the same model the weird-ass poster above is discussing, but similar enough. Even in those heady days of 2019, it was a prime example of The Lightswitch Problem.

The mattress in question had a heating function you could control with your phone. There was an app that gave you a sleep score. And it was fine.

Until it wasn’t, of course. Where else did you think this was going?

The app was often buggy and my partner couldn’t control the mattress from their phone. And that was the only way to adjust the heat.

The real kicker though was the heating element itself. This was effectively a sheet you spread over the mattress and put a bedsheet over. The issue was that the surface of the “smart heating layer” was so slippy that the bedsheet kept sliding off.

Every morning I’d wake up swaddled and sweating in a bundle of fabric.

By the time I stopped using it, I realised something: all Eight Sleep had done was invent a worse version of the electric blanket.

“Imagine,” I could hear an executive saying, “an electric blanket that you can only control with your phone that makes your bed uncomfortable.”

“Perfect,” a board member says, leaning across the table, “perfect.”

This, friends, is The Lightswitch Problem.

The Lightswitch Problem (in my world at least) originates from smart lighting, something I’ve tried and then quickly backtracked from.

Basically, it’s hard to beat a lightswitch.

I don’t want to have to change lights using my phone, or get annoyed if a visitor (or, indeed, resident of my house) messes with the setup by turning the light on and off at the wall.

You don’t need an app or an internet connection for illumination. Flick a switch, a light turns on. It’s convenient, easy, and reliable. It’s a goddamn marvel.

Side note: Yes, Person Who Has A Hue System, I’m fully aware that you can get switches for smart lighting systems that make them pretty easy to use, but look deep into your soul and answer me this: has the system ever glitched out? The app crashed? Have you had problems with the Wi-Fi network? Someone in your house struggling to turn the lights on? Exactly. Although the systems are cool and offer a lot of functionality, they’re also frustrating at times. Don’t lie to me.

Smart lighting is the core of The Lightswitch Problem: trying to “innovate” something that works perfectly as it is and then just straight-up ruining it.

And the deluge of products that suffer from this issue shows just how far the rot has spread in the industry at large.

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When the consumer tech boom began, there were a lot of positives, genuine improvement of legacy items and a myriad of ways old industries and practices were updated.

The original version of Google Maps is a great example. When I first went to gigs in places I didn’t know, I had to print off reams of paper and follow directions to get there. A map app solved that.

From vacuum cleaners with batteries to streaming movies, from banking apps to wireless headphones, technology helped make a lot of old things better.

But it couldn’t last. Low-hanging fruit was gobbled up. The most elegant improvements were made. Yet, yet, yet… startups and companies still wanted some of that sweet tech cash — and that meant trying to solve problems that didn’t really exist.

Much of this can be traced back to one of the most disgusting words of all: “disruption.” This was the core idea embedded into the tech boom, the idea of upending old industries and injecting them with fresh blood.

In some cases, as we’ve discussed, this worked. It pushed the world forward. But as tech matured and succeeded, so did its toxicity. Disruption became embedded and, with it, the idea that people in tech were smarter than everyone else.

A specific mentality was enabled. You can see it today in people like Elon Musk.

He’s someone that’s so enamoured with the idea of disruption he rejects the idea of learned expertise. The greatest example was the Thai divers scandal where Musk tried to design a submarine that would save the stranded boys football team — which professional divers said was broadly useless. Musk believed (and believes) that he’s the smartest guy in the room and always will be, that he can be better than anyone at anything.

An extreme example, sure, but it’s the mentality underpinning The Lightswitch Problem.

Connecting a totally working appliance to an app and making it harder to use is a direct consequence of a certain class of people reaching the end of their limits but not realising it. Of looking at something that has had decades and decades of advancements by experts and has evolved into something resembling a final form, but is still seen as ripe for “disruption” by people who deem themselves superior.

A hammer is perfect. So is a mattress. And lightswitches.

They don’t need apps, they’ve been designed and iterated upon for generations — and some half-assed sludge-thinker with a Computer Science degree and a disregard for expertise isn’t going to change that.