In our childhood home in the old town of the 1970s, we had quite a large number of domestic helps. The scale of domestic work was also at another level with a green backyard of domestic cattle and poultry, not to mention the endearing cats and dogs.  

When the domestic helps were on leave, some of their responsibilities would inevitably fall on my shoulders. Our big compound had a well, which served as our water supply. Cooking was done through firewood, and cleaning was, of course, a painstaking physical chore.

Looking back, the cassette player, refrigerator and prized TV were the only digital gear we were blessed with. In those days, the domestic workers, who usually hailed from your village, came with a lifetime commitment. But all this changed with the rise of the readymade garments industry.

The urban population has ever since been grappling with a perennial scarcity of domestic workers, and the good old loyal ones have become a thing of the past. From the 1990s onward, domestic bliss, or if I may say, conjugal bliss, has become largely dependent on the precious domestic help at home, particularly those with young kids.

The fall of something always leads to the rise of something else.

With the traditional servant culture dwindling, people have started to embrace innovative household appliances like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, cooking ranges with ovens, rice cookers, toasters, coffee machines, air fryers and what not!

Household appliances have dramatically helped raise the general standard of personal comfort.

Industrial Revolution 4.0 has brought another big change in solving the key pain points in a household. The household terminology that is increasingly gaining popularity is "Smart Home".

Some of its easy features include security-minded smart lights, wireless surveillance systems and video doorbells. The current trend of technological evolution as far as household appliances are concerned include adding various sensors to equipment like fridges and AC for temperature control. 

A true smart home would have an All-In-One Security and home automation platform that will be connected with a home security system (wireless), Amazon Echo studio/Alexa/Google Nest Audio etc for an audio experience.

Fundamentally, all the IOT (Internet of Things) sensors used in various household equipment will be connected to the main platform, which can be operated through an app on your smartphone. For example, while returning from work on a hot summer's day, you may turn on the AC in your home using your mobile, to walk into a crispy cool home.

These new technologies have undoubtedly introduced dramatic changes in our lifestyle and enhanced efficiency and productivity, being cost-effective at the same time. While technology has greatly improved the general quality of life in most households in Bangladesh, we must not also forget that every boon comes at a price!

Generally, a smart home uses nine sensors – temperature, light, motion, water leak, window/door, weather, smoke or gas leaking sensors. Each smart sensor has components like capturing data, a microprocessor that computes on the output of the sensor via cloud computing capabilities.

Just imagine, the level of data that your smart home would collect every day and with this set of data, one can easily analyse the behaviour of each member of the family. If such data is hacked, we would all be exposed to many unexpected consequences.

The author is a telecom and management expert.