When Glenn and Agda Welch moved into their brand new home in 1937, South Bend had only fairly recently–in the 1920s–switched to the automatic telephone switchboard known as the Strowger Switch that eliminated switchboards managed by women like those in the above photo (South Bend Tribune, 2014). The telephone was high tech for the time, if by 1937 commonplace. Over the decades, subsequent owners installed telephones in most rooms of the house, we can see by old plugs or ghosts of wall plates, like the one below:
The most recent owners, based on the photos in the sales docs, were big TV watchers with sets and cable TV boxes in the family room, living room, and master bedroom. By the time we moved in in 2015, the exterior of the house was cluttered with unused cable television wires, telephone cords, and more. With the exception of television, cable, a home alarm system, and a keypad lock on the garage door, we saw little indication that tech in the home had evolved much. Dan, who is a computer programmer, set to work.
In went the Nest thermostat and an updated safety system, and “smart” electric plugs that light up dark floors when you walk by. Then we had “smart” light bulbs in a few rooms that can be programmed to turn on and off at a certain time. Later came the Ring doorbell. A landline in 2015 was just an extra expense, so all those wall plugs are a nod to history (and dust gatherers). We’re leaving in the really old ones for history’s sake. We are not big television watchers except for my addiction to political news analysis. But that addiction and Dan’s love of movies had us cut the cable and subscribe to streaming services. Dan has enjoyed the tech challenges!
He was enamoured with remote cameras that could monitor the dogs when we were away. We loved having them when we lived in Virginia, but by the time we moved to South Bend, the tech was increasingly used to record and surveil people without permission. At that point, I was reluctant to add more tech and found “smart home” services like voice assistants to be reasonably pointless and potentially intrusive. Now we are about to invite an army of intrusion for several months. Then, at the meeting with the project manager this week, the contractor asked a seemingly innocuous question: could they have a key to the house?
Of course they would need one. However, one thing that has not been updated on the house is the keying system. We don’t know if it’s original–it may be–but we know that it is so old that we cannot duplicate keys. We have two, one for each of us. So no, we don’t have a key available, although they will certainly need to have one if we are away. We had toyed with the idea of upgrading at least one door, presumably the back door into the mudroom, with a keypad both because of the key issue and the potential increased security and lowered potential of being locked out. Yesterday, in fact, I heard a pounding on the second back door (the one that is going away with the remodel) and found Dan outside, locked out accidentally.
Now the remodel project is launching the next tech upgrade and we are bringing the house more fully from 1936 into 2023. The best keypad, our research showed us, was a Schlage system, made by the same company as our current key locks and bolts. A tiny nod to history? At least the longevity of Schlage? A key (pun intended) safety feature, however, is to use it with Alexa as a backup system to get in. Dan would certainly have been happy to install a “smart” voice assistant in the past, but as noted, they creeped me out. After learning how to ensure we were not going to have an Amazon spy in the house, (or at least how to ensure it captured minimal data beyond our music choices and comings and goings) 2020s here we come. A huge benefit of the data storing feature is that we will track is who and when people come and go. With a number of folks who may need to come in and out, we can give each a unique code to track activity and get an alert if something is amiss. We can even limit the times each person can use the code between certain hours and on certain days.
Saoirse was at first confused by this strange woman’s voice in our family room, but stopped noticing after the second sentence. We can only hope that she gets used to frequent workers with as much “whatever” attitude.
We have the keypad ready to install, but it’s a cold, nasty, snowy day so that will wait until later!
After originally posting this, Saoirse was a mess ripping a box to shreds. I thought I would try out an Alexa “skill” called “Calm My Dog.” Not this one, I guessed. Yet in about 3 minutes, she was relaxed on the family room day bed. Dan came down to see and then she got up–only to go to an ottoman and lie down, where she has been for the past 10 minutes:
1936into2023 
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