15+ Times Gadgets Went Completely Off the Rail

Advertisements often promise that modern technology will make our lives simpler and more comfortable. However, few would expect that robot vacuums, smart speakers, and other marvels of modern living could push their owners to the brink of a nervous breakdown.

• My parents have a smart speaker in the kitchen. My mother was embroidering one night with a movie playing in the background. An actress said emotionally, “Listen, Lora, you’re getting married, aren’t you?” And then mom got really scared because she heard someone else’s voice answered from somewhere behind her, “Really? To whom?” A couple of seconds of horror. Mom turns round, there’s no one in the kitchen and only the smart speaker is glowing. © Ziraiel / Pikabu

• So my Alexa called me, on my phone it showed up as no caller ID. I thought some random person was calling, so I didn’t answer. It recorded a message of my sister and I, just talking, and showed up as a voicemail on my phone. @ babyodie / Reddit

• My mom is blind, so Alexa is very helpful to her. My husband and I got her a Nest thermostat that she controls using Alexa to make things easier for her. One night, she was warm and asked, “Alexa, what’s the hallway temperature?” No answer. She asked again, “Alexa, what’s the hallway temperature?” Alexa responded with, “When I do not answer, it is because I am playing a game.” @ Damsell / Reddit

• I always laughed at people who give names to their appliances. All my friends’ robot vacuums have names. But I’m a normal person, I’m not naming a vacuum.
  It lived without a name for a week. Then he ripped out the modem wire, found some bag, rustled it in the corridor for a long time, finally somehow got inside, got tangled up and started screaming. And that’s it, now it’s Kitty! © Overheard / Ideer

• My husband was away for the weekend and I had a girlfriend over to watch scary movies. Right at the scariest climax of the movie, every single light in my house turned on 100%, then everything went completely black. So there we were, too scared to move, while my husband halfway across the country was showing off “Look, I can control the lights in my house from my phone.” @ hulagirl4737 / Reddit

• I just got my first echo dot a month ago. It alerted me today when I just opened the door to let me know 2 Amazon packages have arrived... Also, I can be sitting in the other room, and it will start talking completely unprovoked. I haven’t been able to hear what it says and when I ask it to repeat itself it repeats stuff from days ago.... @ InsertBluescreenHere / Reddit

• The washing machine has been acting up lately. It won’t start the washing, saying the door is not closed. You can stand and push the start button for a long time, you never know when it decides to start. But my wife quickly found an approach to it.
  After the machine’s second refusal, she says loudly, “Don’t lie. Your door is closed.” It always works 100%, but only for her. When I don’t have time to mess with the robot, I always call my wife for help, and sometimes I even phone her and put her on speakerphone. © Overheard / Ideer

• I couldn’t find my phone and need to call my husband quickly. I say, hey google call (husband) silence again, hey google call (husband) silence again so at this point I’m desperate, so I shout, Hey Siri! (Looking for my phone) and google says “I’m not Siri, but I really like her, in fact I wrote a poem about her” and proceeds to tell me a roses are red violets are blue type poem about Siri. @ c_llie / Reddit

• At home, strange sounds began to occur at regular intervals — a long inhale or a slight hissing exhale. It was especially creepy to hear it in silence or at night. I shared it with a friend, who told me all sorts of horrible things.
  It went on for a couple of weeks, I was going crazy. My husband heard it too, but he has strong nerves and a healthy sleep. I searched the whole room, every corner. And then one day, once again looking in every nook and cranny, I heard the hissing sound again.
  Right in front of me on a high shelf was an aroma lamp. My daughter gave it to me, and I moved it a fortnight ago, and apparently something started up there, and it started to go off periodically, so I heard this hissing sound. © Lanalana / Dzen

• A friend of mine was in bed with his girlfriend, and they were both falling asleep, so it was totally quiet and dark. Out of nowhere, Siri starts talking from his phone on the nightstand and says the single most upsetting thing she could have possibly said: “There’s a man in the room.” They freaked out and turned the lights on, and no one was there, and the phone didn’t say anything else. @ kjvp / Reddit

• Stayed at the house of a friend and his heavily pregnant wife. They have integrated Alexa into their house in a serious way. She controls the music, the lights, the curtains and the window shutters. I think she can even open and close the front door. It’s getting late and my friend’s wife goes upstairs to bed. 15 minutes later, we can hear her yelling from the bedroom. We go up and find her in the bed, yelling because the Wi-Fi in the house is down, so she can’t turn off the lights to go to sleep. It took me a minute to realize they had disconnected all the physical light switches during the automation process. @ HandsomeLakitu / Reddit

• I was listening to music on Google Home while talking to my friend in my living room as I watered my plants. It was getting late and I was going to turn in and asked her to stop playing the music. She obliged and then said, “Let me know if you’re ever in need of any horticulture tips!” @ yougottamovethisss / Reddit

• This happened 20 years ago, when we still used CD players. It was winter. My husband left for his night work. I come out of the bathroom and suddenly hear whispering-singing in an incomprehensible language.
  And it’s quiet, like in a horror movie. And I’m wrapped in the towel in the dark. I switched on the light and there was nobody there.
  And then I realized: my husband was vacuuming before he left for work, and listening to Enigma on the record player. Then he turned down the volume and left, but didn’t turn off the music completely. The effect, of course, was inexpressible. I don’t know how I didn’t have a heart attack. © Tanya Baranova / Dzen

• I got a robot vacuum with a wet cleaning function. At night, I program the cleaning, fill the tank, and in the morning I see a puddle under the vacuum: the water that hasn’t been used during the wash is just released to the floor.
  I pick it up to wipe underneath, and it yells, “Look, everybody! I can fly!” Not even my 3-year-old son behaves that arrogantly when he makes a puddle. © Alexander Novoselov / Dzen

• We got our echo a little over a month ago and had been playing with it. There was no one home except me and my infant daughter (and the dog) and we were upstairs. All of a sudden, from the main floor, Christmas music starts BLARING! I wasn’t even talking to our daughter. Turns out my husband was trying to use the Alexa app at work to play Christmas music at his desk and it controlled our home Alexa! @ alnono / Reddit
  

• My future husband and I came to the registry office to get married. And he has a phone app that determines the age. We took a selfie. The camera shows that he is 35, I am 39. But we’re really 38 and 40. We laughed.
  We go out after the registration, take a selfie again, and the phone shows 40 and 36. Husband, “Well, 15 minutes of marriage, and I’m already 5 years older. It’s all you, you drank my blood, that’s why you have minus 4 years.” © Elena Rrrrrrr / Dzen

• I have a robot vacuum. Sometimes it scares me. But the scariest moment was yesterday when I was watching a horror movie, and it hit my foot in complete silence! My horror at that moment cannot be described. © Overheard / Ideer

• We bought an air freshener for the bathroom. At night, the cat comes up to me and starts shrieking. I dragged after him into the kitchen. There’s food, there’s water.
  And he takes me to the bathroom. I thought it was rats. We live on the ground floor. And then I hear a “psst, psst, psst.”
  The cat screams and climbs on top of me. And that’s the air freshener timer goes off. You can’t hear it during the daytime, there are a lot of other noises. © Wilena / Dzen

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