Smart Home

The first thing that happened was me waking up around 3 am, drenched in sweat. I immediately noticed the heat. It was so damn hot. I immediately got up and took a look at the thermostat. 32°C! (~90°F) I took out my phone and changed the temperature back to my normal setting immediately, but the radiators had to cool down before I could sleep, so I was going to be awake for a little while.

I decided, I wouldn't spend my time just lying around in bed until I could finally sleep again. Instead, I wanted to use the time to catch up on some of the series I wanted to watch. I mean, I'm an adult and it's the weekend, so who cares if I watch TV at 3 am, right?

I turned on the TV and the the answer to my problems showed itself. Instead of the normal home screen, there was a message that read something along the lines of: "Login from a new device detected! Was this you?" and then there was some information about a phone that wasn't mine. So, I chose "No".

Then it showed me a different screen that read: "The device has been blocked. Please watch this video for further security steps." Normally, I wouldn't have watched that, but my home is pretty much the epitome of the smart home. My thermostate, my lights, my TV, my doorbell and all the other things are controlled, usually, by my phone. So, if someone else has control over the house, they have control over me, personally.

Needless to say, I turned on the video and almost immediately regretted it. I mean, it had the quality of a 14 year-old's Minecraft tutorial on Youtube in 2012. The camera wasn't focussed properly, the audio had some weird reverb and occasionally glitched out. But the worst thing was that cooling fan. Or, at least it sounded like one. I already had an headache from the heat, but this sound made it so much worse. Nevertheless, I continued watching the video. It's just too important, even if this company apparently doesn't think this important enough to pay for a proper video production.

The video started with this guy explaining what the dangers of a hacked smart home were. Nothing new there. It was exhausting to listen to him list all these things I had already well considered, all the while having this annoying sound ringing in my ears. The video player didn't allow my to forward, so I just sat back and listened to his lecture.

What came next was a bit surpising, he said: "Now, after all this information you may feel a bit scared. That's perfectly okay. But it's important you don't panic, okay? So, before we get into all this technical mumbo jumbo, let's do some short breathing exercises." How did this get past any board? I mean, breathing exercises in a tech-support video?

But, as he rambled on, I thought it might actually be quite a good thing in my situation. I was still hot from the thermostate, pissed at the person who hacked me and, by this time, I just wanted to get back to sleep as fast as possible.

So, somehow, when he started to explain the exercises, it sounded quite reasonable for me. I started to relax and felt at ease. Even the annoying cooler fan started to sound more like ambient music to my ears.

...W-well, here's the problem. I fell asleep. It was 3 am after all! I just remember waking up on my couch, feeling much better temperature-wise and having had a relaxed nap. It didn't even phase me at the time, that I fell asleep. Everything was fine.

I looked up at the screen and it said to call the technician service. I did, only realising that it was still like 4:30 am, when I pressed the call button. But, still, I immediately got through and was asked "Are you ready?". Before I could even register what was said, I responded "Yes" and the call ended. It was like a reflex. I stood there, with my phone still next to my ear, just shocked, to be honest. But I decided to not worry about it and do some of the breathing exercises I learned from the video. The one thing I did remember from the video was: "Everything is fine, I can just relax. Everything is fine, I can just relax. Everything is fine..." A-anyway, it was so nice to know that I didn't have to worry and could just remain passive while the tech-support worked everything out.

And then it didn't even take 15 minutes for you to arrive and now... here we are. Just goes to show that everything is fine and I can just relax.

Can I get you anything to drink? A class of water, tea, maybe?

Wine? Ummm, that's fine, I guess. Everything is fine, I can just relax. I'll just go get us two glasses...

So, how are you going to fix this issue? I mean, everything is fine and I can just relax, but... but... everything is fine. I can just relax.

No, there's no one coming home.

Everything is fine.

Yes, I can show you to my bedroom.

I can just relax.