Inquiry into smart appliances

Today I ordered a new iron, because the old one never stopped spitting rust after being cleaned with vinegar, and the whole family's patience ran out.

It was emotionally difficult. Our iron was expensive, because it's "smart." D.'s mom gave it to us. The iron supposedly detects the type of fabric it's ironing and adjusts its temperature accordingly. There are no buttons or dials for manual adjustment. Like any normal anxious person, I decided that such an iron can't be trusted, so I didn't wear my silk dress all summer, afraid this clever thing would burn it. Steaming the dress vertically with this iron isn't an option either, because the smart iron only releases steam when horizontal.

So far, my family and I deliberately buy microwaves with two dials — power and time — washing machines with a knob for selecting the mode, and we have no regrets. Figuring out the office microwave is a task beyond my abilities, so I never heated anything up at the office (a reminder: you're on an interface designer's website).

Perhaps my problem with the iron is that it never communicates how it detects the fabric type or selects the temperature, and doesn't let me verify it. Perhaps I don't understand why an iron would be smart in the first place, or where the module that "feels" the fabric even is. I wonder — to what degree can you make a tool smart before people stop trusting it, and what kinds of appliances shouldn't be made smart at all?

Next week, a Philips with a dial and distilled water arrives.