I like buttons

I live in a futuristic house: every single room is equipped with smart connected lights from Philips Hue. I can control these lights with my phone, with my watch, even with my voice. From anywhere on the planet. But what do I use most to turn the lights on or off? Wall switches.

I don’t use the regular wall switches that came with the house though. We can’t touch those, they have to be on all the time or the Hue lights can’t be controlled. No, I use the Hue switches that I have mounted right next to the old fashioned light switches in every room.

The thing is, I have found that there is simply no better, more intuitive and more user friendly way to control lights than a simple physical switch. It’s behaviour that’s built into my system: I enter a room, I reach for the button near the door. I leave the room and without thinking my hand moves to the same spot.

This may seem like very old fashioned behavior when I have such modern connected lights. But that’s the thing with technology — we often think it will completely change our lives. Flying cars! Holograms! Fully automated lighting in our home, so we never have to touch buttons ever again!

But in reality things work different. We don’t need flying cars, we need better public transport. We don’t need holograms, we need less screen time. And I don’t need a smart house that can read my mind. I like buttons for my lights.

Then why do I have connected lights at all? Well, it’s not like I only use switches to control the lights. In fact I do use the Hue app — to program the lights to turn on or off at certain times. In a few minutes I will turn off the lights with a switch and go to sleep. But tomorrow morning, the lights will slowly turn on automatically, to wake me. That’s the downside of buttons — you can’t use them while you sleep.