The Not-So-Smart Side of Smart Technology (A Humorous Take on Aging & Gadgets)

When I was pulling the sheets out of the dryer, my watch vibrated and practically staged an intervention: “It looks like you fell. Should I call the EMTs?”

Apparently, removing fitted sheets is now considered a high-risk activity.

created by ChatGPT 4/4/2026

There was a large button helpfully labeled “Call EMTs,” and I had to scroll to say I was okay—and scroll a little further to clarify that, no, I had not fallen. What’s even more reassuring is that if I don’t respond within a minute, it will call them anyway. Nothing like emergency services arriving because of an aggressive pillowcase.

I used to get that warning all the time, but apparently my watch has now accepted that this is just how I move through life.

The thing is, I’m not convinced it actually notices when I do fall.

Naturally, I looked into how the watch detects falls. It uses two factors: an accelerometer (tracking up to 32 G-forces) and a gyroscope (to determine spatial orientation).

Thirty-two Gs? At that level, I wouldn’t need EMTs—I’d be reentering the atmosphere.

I did have to tug pretty hard to get that wad of sheets out of the dryer, but I’m fairly certain I didn’t generate astronaut-level force. The average person can only withstand about 4–6 Gs, and even astronauts experience just 3–4 Gs during takeoff. So unless my laundry routine has secretly qualified me for space travel, something seems off.

This leads me to conclude that I must make a lot of erratic arm movements. And I’m not even Italian. I assume their watches come with a “hand gesture sensitivity” setting right out of the box.

To be fair, the feature does work—most of the time. But I fell twice, and it didn’t notice. Both of those were more like slow slides. Ah—but here’s the catch. The watch is better at detecting hard, sudden impacts than slow, sliding falls. Apparently, I don’t fall dramatically enough to impress my watch.

One Reddit user said he had to turn the feature off because it always triggered when he landed after a skydive—even a good landing. Honestly, I can’t blame the watch for that. Skydiving isn’t exactly an everyday activity Apple needs to optimize for. If that’s the baseline, I’d also like it to ignore trapeze work and runaway llamas.

And while I appreciate the fitness features, my watch has a slightly nagging personality. Every hour, it reminds me to stand up and move. Which sounds reasonable—until you’re in the middle of dinner.

What exactly is the expectation here? Do I need to finish my meal in under 60 minutes, or politely excuse myself mid-lasagna to satisfy my watch?

If everyone at the table had one, we could all stand up together at ten minutes to the hour. To outsiders, it would look less like dinner and more like a very polite flash mob.

created by ChatGPT 4/4/2026

Technology in general seems to have developed a habit of making simple things slightly more complicated.

Take appliances. You press “start” on the dishwasher or washing machine… and then nothing happens. You just stand there. Waiting. It’s like the appliance is gathering its thoughts or reflecting on its life choices before committing to the task.

I don’t need a dishwasher that thinks. I need a dishwasher that washes.

And for reasons known only to engineers, you often have to press “start” twice. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pressed the button, walked away to do chores, and returned 30 minutes later to discover it never actually started. Nothing builds character like unloading a dishwasher you thought you had already washed.

We’ve even started it before leaving the house, only to discover the next morning—when we go to empty it—that the dishes are still dirty. It’s like living with a very quiet, very passive-aggressive roommate.

Ditto the washing machine. No light, no sound, no reassuring signal that says, “Yes, I heard you. I’m working on it.”

One electronic feature we do love is the stove’s control lock. It prevents the burners from being turned on accidentally, which was especially helpful with our last cat, who liked to stroll across the keypad. He usually took the shortest path to the next countertop and avoided the burners—something I can’t say for all human guests.

The only problem is that you can’t turn the control lock on if the burners are still warm. Which raises an obvious question: if it’s smart enough to prevent things from being turned on, why isn’t it smart enough to recognize that everything is already turned off?

In real life, this means that after dinner, when you want to turn on the lock and go watch TV, you can’t. You have to come back later—after everything cools down. And by then, of course, you’ve forgotten.

At this point, I’m just waiting for my washing machine to detect a fall and call the EMTs before my watch does.