The 5 Funniest Smart Home YouTube Videos

Smart homes are serious business.

You spend time researching the hardware, ensuring it works with your router, other networked items, and in the case of Matter, if a Matter bridge is required to connect it to your hub. And then there is the expense, both financial and the time spent setting it up. If things don’t go right straightaway, you can potentially lose hours of your life attempting to resolve whatever the issue is.

The promise of a slick, functional smart home is tantalizingly within reach, and failure is frustrating.

But just sometimes, it’s a good idea to sit back, take a more holistic view of the situation, and let yourself have a bit of a chuckle. After all, we managed okay before the smart home came along.

With this in mind, here are five funny smart home videos guaranteed to lighten the mood.

1. The Smart House

Living in a world of responsive voice commands might seem like you’re living the dream, but things can go wrong. As these promos for Norwegian discount grocery outlet REMA 1000 illustrates, anything can get in the way of clear instruction.

It might be a dental procedure, or a bang in the mouth. Your radio might interfere with voice commands. These days, it is rare for radio presenters to say “Siri” or “Alexa” due to complaints from listeners about interference with their smart speakers (there isn’t much chance of anyone upsetting the owner of a Samsung device – “Bixby” isn’t particularly common unless you’re talking about the star of classic 1970s TV show The Incredible Hulk). You wouldn't want your smart door lock to prevent entry into your home, for example...

This series of adverts take the voice-activated smart home concept and the age-old comedic go-to of communication problems, and pushes it to the limit – there’s even a Christmas edition with smart home lights. Enjoy!

2. Struggling With Technology

Augmented reality, of the type popularized in movies like Minority Report, promises to bring software representations of hardware, and monitor-free displays, into the world around us. Perhaps one day, they can be used to control smart home gear, as in this clip from LOL ComediHa!

Conceived as a dialogue-free web comedy show, LOL ComediHa! was shot around the world with more than 2500 sketches, most of which you can find online.

In this video, explore what happens when the smart home fails to work as expected and the user is too bone headed to opt for manual controls...

3. Smart Home Teasing Couple

This advert from South Korea demonstrates how SK Telecom supports smart home technology from a range of manufacturers, with reliable connectivity. Communicating this method through comedic situations of teasing, revenge, and romance, it relies largely on remote control apps.

After all, there is a considerable amount of mischief that can be achieved by switching something off and on, or locking an unlocked door. And robot cleaners have their own possibilities, don’t they?

Suspend your disbelief for a few moments while watching this one. It stretches the credibility of interoperability and compatibility just a little too much. Presumably this one is set in the future where Matter works and is fully embraced...

4. A Smart Home Gets Robbed Blind

Poking fun at the hero worship of billionaire tech pioneers, this comedy sketch puts a pair of thieves into a smart home, with hilarious consequences. As if by magic, the house is unlocked, devices unveiled, artwork illuminated, and more. The swag that is suddenly available to the house breakers is considerable – and ends up with a swish car beckoning them to future riches.

Meanwhile, someone is playing with their smart home app…

This video was produced by FMNJI and highlights the importance of smart home security. In short, don’t demo your smart home apps in public, just in case something goes wrong.

5. Smart House System

We’ll finish with this lo-fi smart house, in which nothing is actually real, connected, and in most cases, isn’t even digital. It is a satire of the smart home and western society’s reliance on digital technology for even the most mundane, simple tasks like opening a fridge.

This video is by Demariki, a pair of sketch-creating YouTubers operating out of New York. It’s a compilation of various previously released shorts, and draws you into their slightly quirky world, using standard shooting, some stop motion, obviously cheap props, and unusual concepts (for example, eating seed off the kitchen table like a chicken).

Liven Up Your Smart Home With Laughter

While these videos might stretch the possibilities of smart home technology for comic effect, they’re nevertheless successful. We think they’re all pretty funny, ranging from mildly amusing to laugh-out-loud, and with the different styles employed for comic effect.

Oh, and if you need another laugh, track down the second episode of 1970s UK sitcom Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, starring Michael Crawford. The episode, “George’s House,” features a prototype smart home that is accidentally taken apart by the hapless lead character, Frank Spencer.