Why Your Smart Home Needs a Detailed Activity Record: Benefits and Necessity of Incorporating Logs

Key Takeaways

• Smart home platforms need an activity log to track every action for troubleshooting and peace of mind.
• A detailed list of smart home activities can help users monitor functionality.
• Increasing universal compatibility in smart home devices may lead to more complexity and chaos without a logbook.

The smart home dream is to have every light and device connected to a central hub that can be activated whenever you want. I’m on my way to living that dream, but have briefly stumbled through a nightmare with devices acting up. It’s becoming clear that smart home platforms need to build an activity list or log book of every action. I’ll explain why consumers should be looking for companies to provide this feature.

How a Smart Home Can Act Up

Two separate times throughout the middle of the night, a Wi-Fi-connected light came on in my house. Seemingly on its own both times.

Did someone in my household try to use Siri or Google Assistant to do something and one of the voice assistants heard them wrong? Did someone click the wrong button by mistake? Did the lights truly come on by themselves? Were they triggered by some automation? I have no idea.

The second time it happened, I realized I would probably need to try and figure out what happened. But the thought of troubleshooting my complex smart home, filled with dozens of different connected devices, sent a shiver down my spine.

The Solution Is a Detailed List of Activity

Despite such a complicated system for smart home gadgets, there’s not really an advanced view for people to see exactly what is happening.

I think smart home platforms should start exposing a list of all the activities performed—a log book. Our web browsers keep a history trail, smart home apps should do the same; and then expose it to people who want to see it.

The idea is straightforward. Show me a running list like this.

• Study light turned on at 1:00PM via kitchen HomePod mini
• Study light turned off at 1:03PM via Philips Hue wall switch
• Front door was locked at 1:05PM from Yale app
• Patio light turned on at 1:06PM via Home app automation

Having an activity log would make it much easier to see how things are working and then troubleshoot them when they aren’t working as planned.

The Future of Smart Home Controls

Although Matter support should mean more universal compatibility—devices from different manufacturers work across smart home platforms—it might also make things more complicated. The most obvious reason is that more devices making their way into a central hub just means more opportunity for chaos.

Here’s a very specific example I ran into recently. The SwitchBot Universal Remote is a device that can control other Matter devices, but it requires SwitchBot’s Hub 2 to work. I needed to set up and configure the Hub 2 in SwitchBot’s app, then I needed to add it to Apple’s Home app.

Once that device was added to Apple’s app, I needed to set up the Universal Remote in the SwitchBot app and then link it to the Hub 2 inside Apple’s Home app. Getting confusing, huh?

You can add up to four devices to the remote to control from the Hub 2 (inside Apple’s Home app). Once you do that, you need to go back to SwitchBot’s app and label those on the right buttons so they show up on the remote.

Even as someone who deals with cutting-edge products and software, this process was a lot. But even more frustrating was that it didn’t work the first few times, until SwitchBot pushed me an update for the Universal Remote.

Now that the remote is configured and (mostly) working, I dread the day if it ever stops working. There’s no easy way to see what it’s doing or trying to do because there’s no history of smart home activity.

Even though a smart home logbook isn’t necessarily a feature most people would use regularly, I think non-technical people could still benefit from its presence too. It’s comforting to be able to see exactly what and why things are happening in your home. I eagerly await the feature.