I’d probably like finer control over my air con so that it automates to on when the solar is producing enough electricity to cover it, but otherwise I just don’t really get it.
But I still have a front door to interact with the rest of society, and automating (even partially) my interaction with all the junk and people that need to use it straight up saves me time. It's great.
The doorbell and security camera stuff do seem to be a cultural difference between the US and where I live though; I don’t have strangers routinely come to my front door and don’t really have security concerns that aren’t solved by locking my front door.
A couple of my friends have smart doorbells but none that I know of use security cameras at home.
curtain twitcher
someone who is very interested in what their neighbours (= people who live near them) are doing and tries to find out by looking out of the window without being seen:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/curtain-...
Oh, come on. Go install a Nest or Ring for a week and see how much you come to rely on it. "Do I need to answer the door or is it just girl scouts selling cookies?" "Do I have time for coffee or should I head home to grab the package?" You can chat with the folks at the door! You can say thank you to the Grubhub driver as they drop the meal. You can see what the neighbor's cats are doing on your doorstep in the middle of the night. You can point one into your backyard trivially and see if it's the rabbits eating your leeks.
I mean, no, you don't "need" this, just like you don't need a dishwasher. But don't pretend it's just about paranoia, it's a fun tool for the modern era.
(Conversely, the folks here arguing about the terrible abuses possible with third party access to this data about girl scouts and cats are the ones who seem maybe a little paranoid.)