My husband calls himself a gadget junkie. He somehow manages to get new tech in our house on a regular basis. I greet most of it with a suspicious side eye. It isn’t because things that don’t matter to him, like the children’s Cartoon Network, get the budget axe while things you operate with a phone app do make the budget. It is because where he sees all new tech as shiny and wonderful, I question if it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. He is enthusiastic and optimistic about new tech. I put my hands on my hips and ask it to prove itself.

I like entertainment as much as anyone, but using multiple remote controls to watch a movie just to add a sound system that doesn’t always cooperate is over complicating things. Light bulbs that change color based on a phone app doesn’t seem like something needed outside of a theatre environment. Is there something so difficult about flicking a switch when you enter and exit a room that warrants voice operated lighting? I can get a current temperature report from half a dozen different tech devices while standing in my living room. I can also look out my front window.

I don’t hate tech. I love it. I have learned to love light bulbs that I can adjust to allow me to read in bed while my husband sleeps peacefully on the darkened side of the bed beside me. I like not getting out of bed to flip the switch when I find myself sleepily staring at the same sentence repeatedly. My phone once alerted me that there was smoke in the house while I was grocery shopping. That was amazing! Still, there is some tech that has yet to prove itself.

My husband is the easy sell on tech. I am the difficult customer. Is he the norm? Am I the anomaly? The products are certainly marketed toward his eyes. He seems oblivious to the amount of time he spends working out kinks in each and every bit of tech. He is an adult with gadgets that require tinkering. I am an adult who wants functional tools. I live in a toybox, but it’s a pretty cool toybox.