I can completely understand it, if you ignore all the privacy issues and potential hacks.

For example, a smart fridge. Imagine a fridge that tracks the expiry date of everything inside and warns you before something goes bad – or detects when something goes bad based on the off-gassing that it produces. Imagine it gets to know your purchase patterns and suggests items for your grocery list when you’re running low. Or, if you fully trust it, it could even order those things for you.

Or, smart lights. Imagine lights that are nice and bright in the winter when you don’t get enough sunlight. Then imagine those lights are smart enough to start dimming and getting “warmer” at a certain point in the evening on your personal schedule, making your body more prepared for sleep. Add motion / presence sensors so that the lights turn on when you go into a room, and turn off when everybody leaves the room. Most of the time a light switch isn’t a burden, but if you’re carrying things it can be a bit annoying, and we all know kids are pretty bad about turning things off when they leave a room.

In a world where you didn’t have to worry about the privacy issues, the bugs had all been worked out, and so-on, smart appliances could be great. But, we’re on v0.1 and so I’m extremely cautious in every “smart” device I use.