A smart-home gadget earns a place in the house by making everyday life easier—not by having the longest feature list. In Mike Prospero’s Tom’s Guide column, his spouse’s recurring question, “do we really need this in our home?”, helps separate clever demos from devices that work for the whole family.
Prospero’s examples are a family’s experience, not a survey of how other households feel about technology. But they make a practical point: the person who buys a gadget may be excited by what it can do, while everyone else is judging whether it makes an ordinary task easier, reliably and without fuss.
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That difference becomes obvious when a device takes over something as basic as turning on a light.
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Prospero says he installed a Brilliant switch with a touchscreen and features for music, Alexa, intercom calls and displaying pictures. Yet using it for its most basic job meant tapping the screen and sliding a finger. He says it sometimes failed to respond, frustrating his wife.
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Her test was much simpler: “I want to walk into a room and flick my hand without thinking or stopping and know that I will be able to see,” she said.
Prospero reports replacing the Brilliant switch with a Lutron switch with physical control, and adding a wireless switch across the room. He says the complaints stopped. His column gives the Brilliant switch’s price as $299 each when tested and $599 later; those are figures reported in the column, not current prices. It does not identify the Lutron model, so the account is not a controlled comparison or a specific buying recommendation.
The useful distinction is between what a device can do and what it makes you do. A touchscreen can add options, but if the usual action becomes slower or less dependable, the extra functions may not compensate.
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A gadget has to fit the people and pets who live with it
Another rejected device was a roughly four-foot-tall mobile robot designed to follow someone around the house during video calls—“more or less an iPad on wheels,” as Prospero describes it. He puts its price at $2,000 in the column; that is not a current-price claim. The article’s image caption names Temi, but its text does not explicitly identify the robot by model.
Prospero says the robot frightened the family dog and their then-three-year-old daughter. His spouse could see a possible use for a person with mobility deficiencies, but questioned its value for someone with typical motor skills: “I thought that it would perhaps be a decent option for someone who had certain mobility deficiencies,” she said, “but why would it be necessary for anyone with typical motor skills?” The device was boxed up and shipped out.
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That response is about fit, not whether the technology could be useful to anyone. A device can solve a real problem for one person and still be an unwelcome presence in a particular home. Before bringing one in, it helps to consider who will share the space, including children and pets, and whether the proposed convenience is meaningful to the people who will experience it.
Shared-space technology also has to feel comfortable
Prospero says the household moved its Alexa, Google and Siri speakers to his attic office. The family mainly used them for lights and music, and felt uncomfortable with the idea of a device that was always listening.
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The smart devices that succeed can be easy to forget
Prospero says his spouse liked smart switches that looked like conventional switches and worked without fuss. They could still schedule lights or connect to smart assistants if wanted, but those options did not get in the way of the familiar physical control.
She also liked themed holiday lights, while disliking the Alexa-enabled Big Mouth Billy Bass. Novelty, in other words, was not an automatic point in a gadget’s favor.
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The Luma Indoor Composter was a more practical success in Prospero’s account. His spouse liked that it reduced flies associated with their outdoor barrel composter, cut food waste and provided material for the garden sooner. She noted an earthy smell while it ran, so the family operated it at night. Prospero says the model was no longer appearing in stock when his column was published, though their unit was still working after two years; those are his report and not a current availability check or a guarantee of product life.
These examples share a useful standard: technology is welcome when it quietly removes an annoyance, fits existing routines and does not demand extra attention just to do its job.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A household check before a “smart” upgrade
Prospero’s column suggests a few practical questions to ask before replacing a familiar object with a connected one:
- Is the everyday action easier? Judge the ordinary task—like switching on a light—not just the demo features.
- Does the basic control work reliably? If it is awkward or inconsistent, extra functions may not rescue the experience.
- Will other people and pets tolerate it? A buyer’s enthusiasm does not guarantee that a device feels right in shared space.
- Are its listening or connected features welcome? Decide whether the household is comfortable with them rather than assuming convenience settles the question.
- Does it reduce work or create more? Consider setup, attention and routine changes alongside the problem it claims to solve.
- Does it improve on what it replaces? A smart version should at least match the simple, familiar function of the old one.
These are not formal test criteria or universal rules. They are a way to make the buyer’s excitement answerable to the people who will live with the device.
Prospero’s column, published September 20, 2026, is a personal account by Mike Prospero for Tom’s Guide. It does not cite a study or provide statistics about smart-home users generally; its lessons come from the examples he describes.
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