I love that “door open” warning of my fridge, and I also like that I get a notification when the fridge unexpectedly disconnects from the network (which usually means that the power has gone out, so I can go and check before all my food has died).
Also, the notifications when then laundry machine finishes are handy (so I can unload it and avoid smelly clothes).
The article states “this operation involved chips made to convert analog signals to digital”. So not GPUs, or even CPUs, but specialized ADC (Analog-to-digital converter) chips.