I fell into bed, exhausted, at the end of a long day and reached for the remote, so I could chuck some mindless movie on and avoid rehashing the day’s occurrences in my head.
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“No network connection,” read the display on the screen of my Smart TV after I’d already burrowed deep into the comfort of my doona.
“What, why?”
I felt irritation rise within me again when I thought the hot shower I’d just taken had washed the day’s stress away.
Do I have to get up, walk to the other side of the room and turn the power point off and on again, staying upright for the longest 30 seconds in history between switches?
Like a potato, I stayed where I was, going through a list in my head of what the problem could be, eliminating each possibility.
Then, I realised I hadn’t had a security camera notification in days, nor a notification to tell me my door had been locked or unlocked and by who.
It dawned on me that the internet was down and must have been for some time.
But it didn’t immediately occur to me that it was because I’d changed providers a few days earlier and the disconnection request for the old one must have finally been enacted.
I have had the same internet provider for a decade, but after one too many price rises in a short space of time and finally surrendering to the kids’ complaints about lag and streaming speeds with our outdated infrastructure, I decided I’d make the change.
Technology is advancing quickly, but when I was forced to reflect on the internet-capable devices that had been introduced to my home in that amount of time, it kind of freaked me out how many had snuck in there.
It wasn’t just the security devices and my Smart TV.
The kids and I had updated our phone wi-fi settings to avoid chewing through our precious roaming data on all four of our mobiles once the switch was made, but we forgot many other devices until we moved to use them.
PlayStations in two kids’ bedrooms needed a new network selected and new passwords entered.
A Smart TV in my third child’s room, and another in the family room, needed the same treatment.
The TV in the lounge room isn’t a Smart one, but we still only watch streamed content on it using a Google Chromecast plugged into the back of it.
When I searched for the app on my phone to alter the settings, I discovered I needed to install an entire new app, as Chromecast’s old one had become defunct.
The time was ticking away and I thought to myself, maybe I should have waited until I was on annual leave to change internet providers.
You know, so I had time to locate a new network and put a new password into all these gadgets one by one by one by one.
Somewhere in among the confusion of re-setting everything up, I even saw my washing machine — which I’d forgotten was even wi-fi-enabled — pop up in a list of available devices.
The saga did not end there.
While cooking dinner in the kitchen, I asked my Google Nest to play me a song.
It didn’t respond.
Whaddayaknow, it needed a new network and password before it was going to provide my chef’s soundtrack.
Then, there were also everyone’s laptops and the desktop computer, and let’s not forget the printer.
Dear me.
If there’s not a name for the condition caused by this arduous activity, there should be.
Just when I thought everything had been sorted a few days later and I might be able to rest on my laurels, I attempted, and failed, to send photos from my phone to my digital photo frame in the living room.
Oh. My. Goodness.
What else?
Does the list of wi-fi-enabled devices ever end?
It’s been a few weeks now, but I still wake in a sweat in the middle of the night, wondering, will there be more?
Are we done yet?
A slight exaggeration, yes, but, still, consider this a cautionary tale to carefully contemplate your options before you too change providers.
I didn’t change for a decade last time due to pure procrastination deep inside a technological comfort zone.
But I might not change for a decade again, purely because ain’t nobody got time for that kind of life admin.
Holy wi-fi hell in the first world.