As the Internet of things becomes more ingrained in our daily lives, some people are turning ordinary homes into smart homes. One way of doing that is by integrating smart appliances (dishwasher, fridges, microwaves, toasters, etc). That strategy, however, can be expensive and not very efficient, since most of the devices are costly and often are not smart enough to communicate with each other, especially if produced by different manufacturers.

The other way is to get sensors, and put them on everything you want to monitor. "But then those get really unwieldy and you've got all these things sticking around and they look ugly and socially obtrusive," Gierad Laput, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University says. Laput and his team, in fact, built such a sensor. When plugged into the wall, the 2-inch-square circuit board senses about a dozen different facets of its environment: vibrations, sounds, light color and so on. The sensor communicates wirelessly with a computer, which interprets everything it picks up.

Nevertheless, surveillance remains the biggest concern. Companies make money spying on you," says Bruce Schneier, an Internet security expert and the chief technology officer at IBM's cybersecurity arm. "When the app says I can detect when you're out of paper towels, they're not doing it for your best interest. They're doing it because they want to sell you paper towels." Schneier pointed to Roomba, the little automated vacuum from iRobot. The company's CEO said last month that the device could soon start mapping your home, raising concerns that that data could be sold for a profit. 

On top of the issue of surveillance, Schneier notes that makers of Internet of things devices just aren't prioritizing security. "We're building a world-size robot without even realizing it," he says.That robot has eyes and ears that collect data, brains that process it and arms and legs that take action in the real world. But arms and legs can kick and punch, and more eyes and ears — like Laput's sensor — could make those kicks and punches both more accurate and more devastating.