There are plenty of dumb uses of "smart" technology. Toothbrushes, slow-cookers, and dog collars are just a few, to say nothing of far more expensive products like fridges.
But on Monday, Amazon actually released a "smart" product that is incredibly useful: a $45 water pitcher from the king of water filtration products.
If you've ever owned a Brita pitcher filtration system, which filters tap water, then you may know where this is going.
The water filter monitors how much water has been filtered, and will automatically order a new filter when it gets close to the time you should replace it. By the time the filters is used up, a new filter will already be shipped to you.
But the genius here is that apart from the initial setup, you don't actually have to do anything. Ever!
It's not like you have a "subscription" to the filters — if you go on a vacation, for example, and don't filter water for a week, you're not going to come home and find a collection of filters has built up. It only orders filters when you're ready for more.
Amazon has essentially integrated its Dash concept — a small button that you press to automatically reorder household supplies, baby products, groceries, and more — into the water filtration device.
(The dash buttons were actually strange to so many people when they were announced last April that many people thought they were an April Fools joke.)
Amazon has also found "smart home" success with The Echo, a connected speaker that is more a hub for a smart home than it is a speaker.
The Echo is always listening for the "wake up word" Alexa, which brings it to attention and allows you to use your voice to command it to order you an Uber, set a timer, answer a question, and play music from a service like Spotify or Pandora, and much more.
Remarkably, it may be Amazon, not Google, Apple, or Samsung, that's actually making the smartest, most useful "smart home" products right now.
