I have a Spotify account which gets heavy use during those times at work when I’m able to pop on headphones and get some serious coding done. However, since the same Spotify account is set up on Amy’s phone, and an account can only be used from one device at a time, there are times, particularly when Sofia is on the way home from school, when I get blocked because the account is in use elsewhere. In other words, I end up competing with my 5-year old to see if I can listen to coding music or she can listen to Daft Punk.

On a somewhat separate topic, I have some SmartThings at home (my reward for funding the Kickstarter campaign), including a presence sensor which Amy keeps in her purse. Thanks to a simple little ifttt recipe, I get an SMS every time the sensor goes in and out of range, essentially letting me know when Amy leaves the house or comes home. (All in the name of testing, of course…it’s only about half as stalkerish as it sounds.)

This afternoon I briefly fell into the dueling Spotify scenario until I surrendered and stopped logging in from my end. A little while later, I got an SMS saying that the car had pulled into the driveway at home, which usually means that music time is over and I can take the account back again.

If there’s a prize for the most convoluted usage of technology to solve the most first-world problem imaginable, this has to be in the running.