大退化（THE BIG REGRESSION） 我父母来城里看我们，要住上几个月，于是我们在附近给他们租了一套房子。 这是新建的房子，从来没人住过。配置拉满，装了各种最先进的系统——不同尺寸的触控屏、IoT 家电，以及那些用力过猛的交互界面。 结果？糟透了。简直是一次退化。 灯光系统用的是 Control4。 想弄明白怎么用，得先接受一轮“演示”： 哪些开关控制哪些灯、哪个千万不能按——因为一按就会把全屋灯全关，而你根本没这个意思。 更糟。 电视是最新款三星。 但想看个 CNN，UI 却复杂得离谱。 我父母并不笨，但他们会怀疑自己是不是漏掉了什么显而易见的操作。 他们没有——是电视真的变差了。 现在你不是“打开电视”，而是“启动电视”。 更糟。 洗碗机是 Miele 的，和台面齐平隐藏式设计，这点没问题。但问题在于：第一次使用前，必须先连一个 App。 于是只能再打电话给房屋管理员，让他们来装一个——他们自己之前也不知道需要的——App。 洗掉盘子上的一点花生酱，还要用 App？认真的？ 更糟。 恒温器…… 用 Nest 反而算升级了。 现在这些其他公司做的、想模仿 Nest 的“专有系统”完全让人摸不着头脑。 圆形触控屏，点进去就是一条黑暗的选项迷宫，只是为了确认温度是不是 68。 还是说现在是 68？ 还是我们想设成 68，但现在其实是 72？ 等等…… 这到底是哪一个数字？ 更糟。 报警系统本质上就是一块 10 英寸的 iPad 钉在墙上， 上面居然还显示着天气预报。 而且还很亮！ 我敢肯定有办法关掉它，但那样屏幕就会空得只剩下新闻。为什么报警面板不能就只是个报警面板？ 更糟。 还有延迟。到处都是延迟。 一切都慢半拍甚至一拍。所有东西。 延迟是最明显的信号：系统为了极少的收益，付出了极高的复杂度。实时响应，显然是最难的问题。 说清楚，我不是反技术的人。 但这次体验，已经接近“反科技转化治疗”了。 技术当然可以让事情变得更好，但在这些例子里，我完全看不到。 我也听过那些推销话术—— 你可以设置“场景”，按一个按钮，一切都会改变。 我不买账。 它给人的感觉反而很原始，就像我们还没真正学会如何把事情做简单。好像必须等到某个未来的突破，当你只需要把一个开关往上或往下一拨，一切才会立刻明白。 但那至少是 20 年之后的事。 真正令人不安的是对比。 我们刚从蒙大拿度假回来，也租了一套房子。 他们也有一台“花哨”的电视——这年头似乎躲不开。 但除此之外，一切都很老派、清晰： * 位置正确、实体的上下拨动灯开关 * 不联网的家电 * 有按压深度、能明确感知状态变化的按钮 * 传统的 Honeywell 圆形旋转恒温器，简单、直观 不需要讲解。 不需要说明书。 不需要提问。 不需要担心会不会按错。 不需要琢磨“它到底是怎么工作的”。 有用，而且对所有人都一目了然。 那才是人性化的。 那才是真正的现代。 THE BIG REGRESSION My folks are in town visiting us for a couple months so we rented them a house nearby. It’s new construction. No one has lived in it yet. It’s amped up with state of the art systems. The ones with touchscreens of various sizes, IoT appliances, and interfaces that try too hard. And it’s terrible. What a regression. The lights are powered by Control4. And require a demo to understand how to use the switches, understand which ones control what, and to be sure not to hit THAT ONE because it’ll turn off all the lights in the house when you didn’t mean to. Worse. The TV is the latest Samsung which has a baffling UI just to watch CNN. My parents aren’t idiots, but definitely feel like they’re missing something obvious. They aren’t — TVs have simply gotten worse. You don’t turn them on anymore, you boot them up. The Miele dishwasher is hidden flush with the counters. That part is fine, but here’s what isn’t: It wouldn’t even operate the first time without connecting it to an app. This meant another call to the house manager to have them install an app they didn’t know they needed either. An app to clean some peanut butter off a plate? For serious? Worse. Thermostats... Nest would have been an upgrade, but these other propriety ones from some other company trying to be nest-like are baffling. Round touchscreens that take you into a dark labyrinth of options just to be sure it’s set at 68. Or is it 68 now? Or is that what we want it at, but it’s at 72? Wait... What? Which number is this? Worse. The alarm system is essentially a 10” iPad bolted to the wall that has the fucking weather forecast on it. And it’s bright! I’m sure there’s a way to turn that off, but then the screen would be so barren that it would be filled with the news instead. Why can’t the alarm panel just be an alarm panel? Worse. And the lag. Lag everywhere. Everything feels a beat or two behind. Everything. Lag is the giveaway that the system is working too hard for too little. Real-time must be the hardest problem. Now look... I’m no luddite. But this experience is close to conversion therapy. Tech can make things better, but I simply can’t see in these cases. I’ve heard the pitches too — you can set up scenes and one button can change EVERYTHING. Not buying it. It actually feels primitive, like we haven’t figured out how to make things easy yet. That some breakthrough will eventually come when you can simply knock a switch up or down and it’ll all makes sense. But that's at least 20 years down the road. It’s really the contrast that makes it alarming. We just got back from a vacation in Montana. Rented a house there. They did have a fancy TV — seems those can’t be avoided these days — but everything else was old school and clear. Physical up/down light switches in the right places. Appliances without the internet. Buttons with depth and physically-confirmed state change rather than surfaces that don’t obviously register your choice. More traditional round rotating Honeywell thermostats that are just clear and obvious. No tours, no instructions, no questions, no fearing you’re going to do something wrong, no wondering how something works. Useful and universally clear. That’s human, that’s modern.