A cautionary tale by Serenity Caldwell on smart home devices and having physical backups:

Two days after I installed my latest smart lock experiment, I jokingly said to my husband “We’re going to be in trouble if our internet goes down. I don’t know where the key is to this lock anymore.”

“Worst case, we’ll get our parkour on and break a window,” he responded.

As I sit at my kitchen table writing this story after having to crawl through said window, I find his reply far less funny.

I’d like the moral of the story I’m about to tell you to be “Don’t joke about things you don’t want to happen.” In reality, it is this: Your smart home devices can fail or make mistakes, and when they do, you better have an alternative.

I locked myself out of my apartment a couple of times (I’m terrible at remembering keys), but we have no smart locks installed. While the idea of Siri unlocking the door for me is tempting, I’m afraid I’d end up in a worse situation than Serenity somehow.