I woke up last Tuesday to the sound of light rain patters on my window and walked over to my bedroom desk and turned my MacBook on.

As my Chrome browser bounced in the app dock and tried to reload my last opened tabs, I watched, still sleepy-eyed, as they failed to load.

I glanced up at the menu bar and saw the Wi-Fi icon showed full bars. What the hell?

"Alexa, turn on the bathroom lights," I said to my Amazon Echo as I dragged myself into my living room.

Nothing.

"Alexa, turn on bathroom," I commanded again. (I had learned you didn't need to say the full room name and lights command, just the room.)

Again, nothing.

"Alexa, what's the weather today?"

Goddamn it, Alexa! I started getting annoyed. Why wasn't anything working?

Had I been fully awake, I would've questioned our mutually loving relationship.

"Alexa, play some jazz music."

I lost it at this point and dropped the F-bomb on both Alexa and Amazon. I immediately felt stupid for cursing out an A.I. living in a black tube. It was the first time I had sworn at my Echo since I bought it and let it become the commander of my smart home.

I half-expected Alexa to be like:

Growing more frustrated, I went to see what was wrong. Was poor Alexa sick? Was she tired of me ordering her around? Did she go rogue?

Reality finally sank in as a I realized my smart home, all controlled through Alexa, had screwed me over and literally left me in the dark.

But it was too early to process what was happening. Plus, I was in a hurry and needed to get to work.

I went to the bathroom and went to flip the light switch before it hit me.

My light switch didn't work because it was perpetually switched to the "on" position for Alexa to control the Philips smart lightbulb I had installed.

I don't have a single regular lightbulb in my apartment. None of the light switches worked because they're all Wi-Fi-connected and controlled with Alexa.

Reality finally sank in as a I realized my smart home, all piped through Alexa, had screwed me over and literally left me in the dark.

My first instinct was to get a flashlight. But I don't even own one. Like every millennial, my smartphone's LED flash is my flashlight. Well, shit.



I asked Alexa to turn on the bathroom lights once more, but before I could even speak, the Echo's LED ring lit up red and Alexa said "Sorry, your Echo lost its connection."

I went over to take a look at my cable modem and router. The lights flashed, telling me there was an error. Either Time Warner Cable was having connection issues or my modem needed a reboot.

I yanked the cables out of the back of the router and cable modem and unplugged the wires from the outlet. I waited 20 seconds and then plugged all the wires back in.

The clock was ticking. I needed to get going or I was going to be really late for work.

I turned on my iPhone's flashlight and held it up in my dark bathroom as I brushed my teeth and then shaved.

Like some kind of hipster caveman, I turned on my iPhone's flashlight and held it up in my dark bathroom as I brushed my teeth and then shaved. If only there was a hidden camera to capture how goofy I looked.

I checked in on my cable modem and router. No flashing lights. Yes, back online and in business, I thought. I ran to my computer and loaded up Twitter. Yes, tweets!

"Alexa, turn on the bedroom light," I commanded. I expected her to tell me it was hot and humid and going to rain. But no.

"I'm having trouble understanding right now," she replied in her calm sentient voice. "Please try again later."

A couple of !@#$%s later and I realized either I needed to reconfigure the Echo or the Philips smart light bridge hub that connects to the modem needed to be reset.

Needing to leave to catch my train, I gave up and left. I'd figure it out after work.

What a waste of an entire morning.

That, right there, is what could happen to anyone who decides to create a smart home and let an internet connection be the cog that keeps everything working together.

I don't need to find a data point for you to know there's a greater chance your internet connection will go dead (for whatever reason) than for you to lose electricity.

We've all freaked out when our internet connections went down.

A year ago, I would have never had this first-world smart lights problem rile me up so much. All my devices plugged into the outlets and were controlled with a switch and not some digital assistant.

I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if I had more internet-dependent smart home devices that I depended on. Imagine being locked out of your house because of a Wi-Fi-reliant smart lock.

I'm not saying a smart home isn't the future (it's beyond cool), but after getting my butt handed to me, I now want to see an offline Alexa mode for controlling devices.

A dead internet connection, when it comes to IoT and the smart home is like a power outage. Actually, it's probably worse.

When you buy into the Internet of Things (IoT) and cobble together a smart home, the results can be life-changing.

Amazon, the Echo and Alexa have brought voice commands to the home. It's amazing because it works so well and connects to so many different third-party smart home devices and internet services.

When utilities and appliances in your home — lights, thermostats, fans, etc. — are controlled with your voice and need the internet to work, it reminds you how much we take the "series of tubes" for granted.

A dead internet connection, when it comes to IoT and the smart home, is like a power outage. Actually, it's probably worse.

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