Stupid People Buy “Smart” Things; Like a Pillow
Technology brings out the best in us — but it can also show us how easily we fall for whatever garbage it brings home
Whatever you have to say about devices in this modern age, it’ll probably not be enough to cover how important technology has been to the betterment of our daily lives. Whether you agree or disagree with the changes that social media, smartphones and the internet in general brought to the table — I often change my stance on this topic — one thing that has to be said is that the impact is very significant.
That being said, boy, oh boy. It’s hardly 100% positive news.
One of the worst things brought to our day-to-day by modern technology is exactly outside of devices themselves — it’s in the language. Impactful words such as “smart”, “future”, “customizable” and whatnot are inserted in every single product advertisement out there — even the bad ones, because they get the attention of impressionable and/or very desperate people looking for cheap (as in, “bad”, because often these things cost an arm and a half) solutions to everyday problems. The combination of fancy wording + half-science/badly applied science+ common problem + social media engagement tools is the main driving force behind these products, which I consider to be a “has science gone too far?” red flag of our times:
Things like the Sunrise Smart Pillow.
I came across the Sunrise Smart Pillow exactly via criticism; this video in Retsupurae’s “Kickstarter Nonstarter” series, where they riff on stupid crowdfunding projects, highlights most of what I have to say in this piece — in a much funnier and informative way, mind you, but stick with me for a while — regarding the correlation between this pillow and my main point. The idea is that this pillow does a bunch of neat stuff to you while your lights are out, such as play music or white noise to help you sleep, or keep itself cool during hot nights, all controlled by an app (of course there’s an app. of course. there’s always a f… ok, never mind) on your phone. But the main selling point of the product is that it uses two very airport-looking LED lightstripes to simulate sunrise conditions in your bedroom to have you wake up stress-free and energized.
Leaving aside the obvious BS, if you took the time to open the Kickstarter page, you’ll see that the project not only met its designed goal, but completely exceeded it; the idea was to scrape together a good $50,000, but as of June 18th, 2017, this… thing… is at $754,000. It’s fifteen times the original goal! Fifteen! People are chucking money at this!
Guys, I cannot recommend the Retsupurae video enough for you to realize what’s exactly wrong with the smart pillow project overselling this much. But let’s focus on this: there’s a thousand Kickstarter projects like this one out there. These so-called “entrepreneurs” take a common problem with our generation, such as lack of sleep, and propose some overcomplicated BS solution to deal with it. Since most of those problems are things we have a hard time controlling, be it due to ourselves (mental health, etc) or to external factors (working shifts, living with people, constantly away from home, etc), we are vulnerable to the siren call of machinery sorting out our lives for us. As Diabetus, one of Retsupurae’s stars, very interestingly points out in the riffing video… you’ll end up being even more stressed and sleepless if you delegate something as mundane as “going to sleep” to a device that needs to be customized entirely by you.
Maybe I’ll go a bit overboard here, but the way I see it, these 5,400 backers that pumped money into this very uncomfortable-looking pillow just fell for the 2017 Nigerian Prince scam. It’s a scam, that’s what it is. Paying a hundred bucks for something that most likely will be regretted after a week of stressful usage?
I love my smartphone and all it brings to my table. I love the Sleep as Android app that helps me wake up slightly less cranky (see, they don’t lie on their ad) by tracking my movement during sleep and waking me up when I’m on soft sleep. But even this one was a bit of a hassle to set up; fortunately it cost less than 10 bucks, and it’s been working because it serves a much simpler purpose than this Pillowbot 3000 nonsense. There has to be a line for these audacious modern entrepreneurs not to cross, otherwise all it takes to suck money from people is throw in a few chips here, an app there, a nicely produced trailer video and voilà — easy dough!
Smart devices aren’t at all bad. What needs to be smarter is the general population’s mindset towards innovative products.
Otherwise, good luck resting your head close to a lithium ion battery surrounded by flammable material.
UPDATE! After a bit more reading through the Kickstarter page, more specifically the comments section, it seems that the people behind the Sunrise Smart Pillow are starting to get “cold feet”, so to speak. Many backers are complaining about the lack of communication from the team after the 50,000 goal was met. For those who aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, as soon as the goal is reached, the team is allowed to keep the money they’ve accumulated. Which leads me to believe that a) they were pulling for the 50,000 only and decided to say f-it to the backers now that they don’t have any “power” over their money, or, even worse, b) this really was a scam and now the team is splitting the 50,000+ and planning their 6-month vacation to the Bahamas. Only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure — things changed at Pillow HQ when they reached the intended objective.
UPDATE! Hey, it’s me from the future. In 2019, years after the product was supposed to be unveiled and released to the public, I randomly remembered that this article existed and decided to check what’s up with the pillow again. Turns out people in the comments are completely out of their minds in anger, asking for their money back, threatening to sue, and a few have even taken this to court. So it was a scam after all. Hmmmm. Who would’ve guessed it?
